Child poverty and changes in child poverty

This article offers a cross-country overview of child poverty, changes in child poverty, and the impact of public policy in North America and Europe. Levels and changes in child poverty rates in 12 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries during the 1990s are documented using data from the Luxembourg Income Study project, and a decomposition analysis is used to uncover the relative role of demographic factors, labor markets, and income transfers from the state in determining the magnitude and direction of the changes. Child poverty rates fell noticeably in only three countries and rose in three others. In no country were demographic factors a force for higher child poverty rates, but these factors were also limited in their ability to cushion children from adverse shocks originating in the labor market or the government sector. Increases in the labor market engagement of mothers consistently lowered child poverty rates, while decreases in the employment rates and earnings of fathers were a force for higher rates. Finally, there is no single road to lower child poverty rates. Reforms to income transfers intended to increase labor supply may or may not end up lowering the child poverty rate.     

Running to stay in the same place

Although the world's population growth rate will decline to 1.6% by the year 2000, another 2 billion persons will have been added to the world's population by that time. Most of the increase will occur in the world's poorest regions and in countries which also experienced vast growth from 1950-1980. These increases will aggravate the existing problems of rural migration, rapid urbanization, urban poverty, and unemployment and will reduce the impact of development programs. By the year 2000, over 80% of the world's population will live in developing areas. Latin America's proportion of the world's population will increase from 8-10%, Africa's share will increase from 11-13%, and Asia's share, excluding China, will increase from 32-36%. China's share, however, will decline from 28-23%. Within these regions the increases in population will be unevenly distributed. Programs and policies dealing with resource allocation, health, economic development, and job creation will have to be focused on those areas of highest population concentration. If major efforts are not directed toward employment generation, and if employment generation is not tailored to the needs of the labor force in these areas, the resultant increase in poverty will reduce the effectiveness of family planning programs and destroy the gains made in the past to stem population growth.     

Unemployment,Nonstandard Employment,and Fertility: Insights From Japan’s “Lost 20 Years”

In this study, we examine relationships of unemployment and nonstandard employment with fertility. We focus on Japan, a country characterized by a prolonged economic downturn, significant increases in both unemployment and nonstandard employment, a strong link between marriage and childbearing, and pronounced gender differences in economic roles and opportunities. Analyses of retrospective employment, marriage, and fertility data for the period 1990–2006 indicate that changing employment circumstances for men are associated with lower levels of marriage, while changes in women’s employment are associated with higher levels of marital fertility. The latter association outweighs the former, and results of counterfactual standardization analyses indicate that Japan’s total fertility rate would have been 10 % to 20 % lower than the observed rate after 1995 if aggregate- and individual-level employment conditions had remained unchanged from the 1980s. We discuss the implications of these results in light of ongoing policy efforts to promote family formation and research on temporal and regional variation in men’s and women’s roles within the family.     

Is Local Social Development Associated with Workforce Composition? A Municipal Analysis of Mexico, 1990–2015

A critical development goal involves reducing subsistence farming and encouraging entrepreneurship and formal sector employment. A growing number of studies examine cross-national variation in the rates of subsistence farming, marginal self-employment, formal employment, and prosperous entrepreneurship by level of development. However, despite significant regional disparities in development within most low-to-middle-income countries, little is known about how development at the local level is associated with labor market patterns. Using a pooled cross section containing four waves of data from the Mexican Census (1990–2015), this study investigates the relationship between social development and municipal workforce composition. In the 1980s, Mexico initiated an ambitious and multipronged development agenda intended to reduce extreme regional disparities in educational attainment, housing quality, access to utilities, and poverty. This study measures social development using a multi-dimensional measure that captures educational attainment, housing quality, access to utilities, and poverty. Laborers are separated into employed, own-account workers, and employers, with each category divided into agricultural and non-agricultural. In a second set of analyses, non-agricultural own-account workers are categorized as high and low growth potential and non-agricultural wage workers are separated into informal and formal sector. Results from fixed effects regression models indicate that local development significantly reduces the rate of own-account agricultural work and increases non-agricultural wage labor and employer self-employment. As less developed areas advance, the largest initial increase in non-agricultural work is in the informal sector. But, in more developed communities, social development increasingly predicts growth in formal sector employment and more selective entry into non-agricultural own-account work. The findings suggest that investment in community-level social development has the potential to reduce subsistence self-employment, encourage formal sector work, and promote entrepreneurship. Yet, the greatest gains occur in communities that already have mid to high levels of social development.     

Differences Between Household Income from Surveys and Registers and How These Affect the Poverty Headcount: Evidence from the Austrian SILC

We take advantage of the fact that for the Austrian SILC 2008–2011, two data sources are available in parallel for the same households: register-based and survey-based income data. Thus, we aim to explain which households tend to under- or over-report their household income by estimating multinomial logit and OLS models with covariates referring to the interview situation, employment status and socio-demographic household characteristics. Furthermore, we analyze source-specific differences in the distribution of household income and how these differences affect aggregate poverty indicators based on household income. The analysis reveals an increase in the cross-sectional poverty rates for 2008–2011 and the longitudinal poverty rate if register data rather than survey data are used. These changes in the poverty rate are mainly driven by differences in employment income rather than sampling weights and other income components. Regression results show a pattern of mean-reverting errors when comparing household income between the two data sources. Furthermore, differences between data sources for both under-reporting and over-reporting slightly decrease with the number of panel waves in which a household participated. Among the other variables analyzed that are related to the interview situation (mode, proxy, interview month), only the number of proxy interviews was (weakly) positively correlated with the difference between data sources, although this outcome was not robust over different model specifications.     

Employment trends ofyoung mothers and the opportunity cost of babies in the United States

The central concept of microeconomic theories of fertility is opportunity cost--the product of wife's employment lost due to childbearing and the value of her employment. This paper presents a model for analyzing opportunity cost using panel data. The average loss of employment attributable to a second- or higher-order birth, calculated at around age 2, is over 400 hours per year. This time cost represents an income loss of about $1050 in 1969 dollars. Time cost is independent of such demographic factors as birth order and age of oldest sibling. Neither does time cost depend on husband's wage rate or wife's education or potential wage rate. This indicates that many microeconomic models of fertility have been seriously misspecified. The paper also compares results from static and dynamic models, explores possible problems due to simultaneity bias, investigates the relationship between changes in employment (including time cost) and initial employment level, and identifies the difficulties of theorizing about opportunity cost.     

A decomaosition of trends in poverty among children of immigrants

Poverty levels among all children in the United States have tended to fluctuate in the past 30 years. However, among the children of immigrants, child poverty increased steadily and rapidly from about 12% in 1970 to 33% in the late 1990s before declining to about 21% in 2000. Using 1970, 1980, 1990, and 2000 Public Use Microdata Samples data, we identified key factors that underlie the fluctuations in immigrant child poverty from 1969 to 1999 and the divergence from children of natives. We found that roughly half the absolute increase in immigrant child poverty can be linked to changing conditions in the U.S. economy that make it more difficult to lift a family out of poverty than 30 years ago. These changes occurred disproportionately among children of parents with lower levels of education, employment, and U.S. experience but not among racial/ethnic minorities. Poverty risks among various racial and ethnic groups converged over time. The relative increase in poverty for immigrant versus native children owes largely to the divergence between immigrant and native families in racial/ethnic composition, parental education, and employment.     

欧盟国家就业率变化及相关政策对其的影响

就业率是反映经济增长水平的重要指标,欧盟就业率的变化的主要特点是:各国就业率水平不均衡,整体变化小;青年劳动力就业率相对较低;女性就业率有显著提高;老年劳动力就业趋势在各成员国中表现不同。影响就业的相关政策主要包括税收制度、救济金制度以及商业和劳动力法规。由于欧盟各国所实行的政策存在很大的差别,因此它们对劳动力市场的作用方式不同,对就业率的影响也相应地存在着很大的差距。     

Some spatial aspects of poverty in the USA

The social problem of poverty in the USA. has important spatial dimensions. The great migration of poor persons from the agricultural South to the industrial North shaped the nation's process of urbanization in the period after World War II. Subsequent suburbanization in the nation's cities was profoundly influenced by this movement and, in turn, had important implications for the urban poor. Also, the changing structure of employment opportunities within urban areas has had direct effects on the nature of the poverty problem in terms of spatial segregation and the persistence of poverty in urban areas. This paper offers a survey of the spatial aspects of poverty in the USA. and relates the problem of poverty to the forces of change that have contributed to the spatial transformation of the US economy.     

Family policies,employment and poverty among partnered and single mothers

The risk of poverty for single mothers ranges from less than 2% in Sweden to more than 35% in the United States; less extreme cross-national variations also exist for partnered mothers. We explore which family policies are most effective at directly reducing poverty among families with children, and whether these policies indirectly reduce poverty through supporting mothers’ employment. We combine microdata from the Luxembourg Income Study with the Work-Family Policy Indicators dataset, and use multilevel logistic regressions to examine the associations between policy and poverty, controlling for individual-level factors. We find significant effects of family allowances, generous parental leaves and childcare provisions, with more powerful effects for single mothers. We further show that parental leave and childcare operate through boosting mothers’ employment, illustrating that work-family policies are useful for reducing poverty by enhancing mother's employment.     

The growth of the service sector in the Canadian economy

This paper examines some of the important long-term changes that have occurred in the structure of the Canadian economy over the 1950–79 period. In particular, the paper focusses on the growth of service industries relative to goods-producing industries during this period. The performance of these industries is assessed in terms of output and employment and the reasons for the rapid growth of employment in the service sector are examined. The paper also examines the producitivity performance of the goods and service sectors and assesses the implication of low productivity growth in service industries on the overall productivity performance of the economy.     

Uneven dynamics and regional disparity of multidimensional poverty in China

Qualifying the official minimum of “Two no worries and three guarantees” (certainty of food and clothing, guarantees of compulsory education, basic medical care, and housing) is essential to evaluate the targeted poverty alleviation program since 2013 in China. Using the poverty monitoring dataset and the multidimensional poverty indicator system, the uneven dynamics and regional disparity of multidimensional poverty and its driving factors in poverty-stricken areas in China during 2014–2018 are explored in this paper. The incidence rate of multidimensional poverty was reduced by 61.72%, and the poverty reduction rate within the six dimensions ranged from 52.29 to 76.36%. Multidimensional poverty and its six dimensions displayed narrowing regional disparity. Impoverished and moderately poor areas shrank, whereas low-poverty areas expanded. All 22 provinces have become low-poverty areas in 2018. The contribution of each dimension to multidimensional poverty varies for different types at different stages. Income and expenditure contribute the most to poverty status, followed by transportation, housing conditions, education, communication, and medical care and health. The contribution of each indicator among different dimensions varied with different trends from 2014 to2018. This paper helps incorporate the official minimums of “Two no worries and three guarantees” into a more operational evaluation system to promote sustainable policies for governments at all levels by 2020 and beyond, as well as provide valuable references for poverty alleviation in other developing countries worldwide.

     

Why poverty remains high: The role of income growth,economic inequality,and changes in family structure, 1949–1999

After dramatic declines in poverty from 1950 to the early 1970s in the United States, progress stalled. This article examines the association between trends in poverty and income growth, economic inequality, and changes in family structure using three measures of poverty: an absolute measure, a relative measure, and a quasi-relative one. I found that income growth explains most of the trend in absolute poverty, while inequality generally plays the most significant role in explaining trends in relative poverty. Rising inequality in the 1970s and 1980s was especially important in explaining increases in poverty among Hispanics, whereas changes in family structure played a significant role for children and African Americans through 1990. Notably, changes in family structure no longer had a significant association with trends in poverty for any group in the 1990s.     

From new entries to retirement: The changing age composition of the U.S. male labor force by industry

The process whereby the age composition of an industry is formed appears to be largely a function of past rates of growth in employment; the social (or institutional) framework sets limits and affects the ensuing age composition but relatively little. The following types will illustrate this process. 1. Consider an industry which has increased considerably more rapidly in employment over several decades than has the total labor force. The rapid growth brings in a disproportionately large share of youth who are first entering the labor market; other younger workers move from slowly growing (or declining) industries. These movements add many more younger workers. On the other hand, there is little, if any, unemployment in the industry so that there are few pressures being exerted on the older workers to retire, and relatively few will retire. Under these circumstances the age composition will be younger than tliat of the entire male working force. 2. Consider an industry which has grown slowly, if at all, for some time. There will be comparatively fewer (in comparison with the first example) new entries and less mobility from other industries. The men already engaged in this industry will continue to work there; they gradually become older and are not counterbalanced by increasing numbers of young workers. Unemployment is likely to be higher, leading to a higher retirement rate. There are also likely to be large numbers of men a decade or two under the retirement age-the heritage of an "ancient" period when the industry had experienced significant increases in employment; these add pressure on the older men and more retire. The age composition of such an industry gradually veers toward the older side; it is considerably older than that of the entire male working force. At any given moment of time most industries will reflect variable past growth rates. For example, one industry may have a very large proportion of young workers because it grew very rapidly in employment only during the decade prior to the time of study (i.e., the time of a decennial census); another may have a large proportion in the middle ages reflecting very rapid growth two or three decades earlier, followed by very slow growth in the decade prior to the time of study; and so forth.In light of the foregoing analysis, it appears that technological change, as measured by average annual changes in output per worker, has little bearing on the age composition of an industry. Conversely, the latter probably does not affect changes in output per worker.     

The Dynamics of Multidimensional Poverty in Contemporary Australia

Progressively more researchers argue that successfully measuring social inequalities requires moving from income-based to multidimensional poverty indicators, but evidence on Australia is still largely reliant on the former. Using long-running panel data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey we examine trends in multidimensional poverty in Australia between 2001 and 2013. We find that this has been relatively stable, with some evidence of an upwards trend following from the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. However, a closer examination of the individual components reveals a more dynamic picture. Deprivation concerning health, material resources, social support and education increased over the 13-year observation period, offsetting decreases in deprivation concerning safety perceptions, employment and community participation. Additionally, using counterfactual simulations, we examine the relative roles of different poverty domains in explaining changes in Australian multidimensional poverty. We find that recent year-on-year changes in multidimensional poverty are mainly driven by fluctuations in social support, health and material resources. Altogether, our findings suggest that Australian poverty-reduction policies would enhance their effectiveness and efficiency by focusing on improving disadvantage in the domains of health and material resources.     

Women's Employment History and Their Post-Retirement Health and Resources

The purpose of this study is to assess the degree to which the advantages apparently accruing to employed women are maintained into the post-retirement years. That is, do women who were employed cany with them into the retirement years more social and fmancial resources and do they maintain better health than women who remained largely outside the work force? The importance of this issue increases as greater numbers of women enter and remain in the work force and as our population ages. The study uses a longitudinal cohort design and employs the data from the National Center for Health Statistics' Longitudinal Study on Aging. This analysis uses the core questions from the 1984 National Health Interview Survey, the Supplement on Aging questions from 1984 and the follow-up data on mortality from the National Death lndex from 1984-1990. The data include the 4667 female respondents who were 70 years or older in 1984. Overall, the results suggest that women who have more recent paid employment have better health in their later years than women with no employment or no recent employment. However, for social and fmancial resources the direction of the relationships vary. For example, women with more recent employment have less social resources in the form of spouse and living children; however, they have more social resources in the form of social contacts with both family and friends. Having no history of paid employment increases women's risk of living in poverty and lacking private health insurance, but increases the chances that they own their own home. Interpretations and implications are discussed.     

The contribution of hour constraints to working poverty in Britain

We explore the implications of hours demand constraints on the propensity to experience poverty. Our analysis of British data suggests that whilst the extent of poverty increased over the period 1985–2001, its intensity, under some measures, declined. In terms of hours constraints, we find that even the most generous elimination of underemployment vis allowing workers to supply as many hours as they prefer (but not as few) without encountering any negative employment and/or hourly wage implications, leaves the poverty rate and poverty gap virtually unchanged.      

Targeting,Universalism, and Single-Mother Poverty: A Multilevel Analysis Across 18 Affluent Democracies

We examine the influence of individual characteristics and targeted and universal social policy on single-mother poverty with a multilevel analysis across 18 affluent Western democracies. Although single mothers are disproportionately poor in all countries, there is even more cross-national variation in single-mother poverty than in poverty among the overall population. By far, the United States has the highest rate of poverty among single mothers among affluent democracies. The analyses show that single-mother poverty is a function of the household’s employment, education, and age composition, and the presence of other adults in the household. Beyond individual characteristics, social policy exerts substantial influence on single-mother poverty. We find that two measures of universal social policy significantly reduce single-mother poverty. However, one measure of targeted social policy does not have significant effects, and another measure is significantly negative only when controlling for universal social policy. Moreover, the effects of universal social policy are larger. Additional analyses show that universal social policy does not have counterproductive consequences in terms of family structure or employment, while the results are less clear for targeted social policy. Although debates often focus on altering the behavior or characteristics of single mothers, welfare universalism could be an even more effective anti-poverty strategy.     

Poverty,Inequality and Deprivation in South Africa: An Analysis of the 1993 SALDRU Survey

This paper analyses poverty and inequality in South Africa based on data from a comprehensive multi-purpose household survey undertaken in 1993 to provide baseline statistics on poverty and its determinants to the new government. The paper shows that South Africa has among the highest levels of income inequality in the world and compares poorly in most social indicators to countries with similar income levels. Much of the poverty in the country is a direct result of apartheid policies that denied equal access to education, employment, services, and resources to the black population of the country. As a result, poverty has a very strong racial dimension with poverty concentrated among the African population. In addition, poverty is much higher in rural areas, and particularly high in the former homelands. Poverty among female-headed households and among children is also higher than average. Moreover, poverty is closely related to poor education and lack of employment. The poor suffer from lack of access to education, quality health care, basic infrastructure, transport, are heavily indebted, have little access to productive resources, and are heavily dependent on remittances and social transfers, particularly social pensions and disability grants. The paper uses an income-based definition of poverty for most of the analysis. In addition, it develops a broad-based index of deprivation including income, employment, wealth, access to services, health, education, and perceptions of satisfaction as its components. While on average the two indicators correspond fairly closely, the income poverty measure misses a considerable number of people who are severely deprived in many of the non-income measures of well-being. This group of severely deprived not identified by the income poverty measure consists predominantly of Africans living in rural areas, concentrated particularly in the province of KwaZulu/Natal.     

Relationship Between Household Food Poverty and Vulnerability to Food Poverty: Evidence from Nigeria

Poverty and vulnerability to poverty are major challenges facing developing countries and have attracted the attention of development economists and policy analysts in recent years. This study examined the relationship between household food poverty and vulnerability to food poverty in Nigeria based on data from Nigeria Living Standard Survey (NLSS) (2004) obtained from the National Bureau of Statistics. A least-cost technique associated with the food-energy-intake approach was used to compute zone-specific food poverty lines based on the food baskets common to each geo-political zone; the Foster–Greer–Thorbecke (FGT) poverty index was used in computing food poverty incidence; the three-step feasible generalised least squares (3FGLS) procedure was used in estimating the magnitude of vulnerability to food poverty; cross tabulation and Pearson’s product moment correlation coefficient were utilised for the purpose of analysing the association between household food poverty and vulnerability to food poverty. The food poverty incidence was 50.23 % while the vulnerability to food poverty incidence was 61.68 % and the vulnerability to food poverty/food poverty ratio was 1.228. The food poor were more vulnerable to food poverty than the non food poor. There was significant positive correlation between food poverty incidence and vulnerability to food poverty incidence even though the correlation was not very strong. Thus, policies and programmes that will optimally reduce food poverty and vulnerability to food poverty should be adopted in Nigeria; these should be targeted more on the food poor. This is a major way to break the yoke of underdevelopment in Nigeria.