Measuring the effect of spell recurrence on poverty dynamics—evidence from Spain

Accounting for the time individuals spend below the poverty line is an important dimension in order to design social policies to fight against poverty. The literature is currently aiming to construct a consistent aggregate measure of poverty over time that takes into account individual income lifetime profiles. It is however, far from clear which aspects of the specific patterns of poverty spells should be included. Using longitudinal data for Spain, this paper shows that the effect of spell recurrence on poverty dynamics is relevant. Poverty exit and re-entry rates vary not only with personal or household characteristics but also with spell accumulation and the duration of current and past spells. In general, our main findings support that an aggregate intertemporal poverty index should incorporate full individual poverty lifetime trajectories accounting for both poverty and non-poverty spell durations.     

Self‐Esteem Trajectories among Ethnic Minority Adolescents: A Growth Curve Analysis of the Patterns and Predictors of Change

The current study presents a growth curve analysis of self‐esteem among Black, Latino, and Asian American high school students. A series of hierarchical linear models were used to examine patterns and predictors of change in self‐esteem over time. Results revealed an average increase in self‐esteem with age. Although boys and girls experienced similar trajectories of self‐esteem, ethnicity was a significant moderator of developmental change. Black adolescents reported higher self‐esteem, while Asian American adolescents reported lower self‐esteem, compared with their Latino peers. Latino adolescents experienced a sharper increase in self‐esteem over time compared with Black adolescents. The unique and conjoint effects of adolescents' experiences with peers, family, and school were examined in relation to self‐esteem trajectories. Results revealed that each perceived context was significantly associated with self‐esteem trajectories when examined independently, but family experiences emerged as most strongly related to changes in self‐esteem. Results underscore the need to examine change at the individual level, as well as the importance of studying the unique and conjoint effects of individual and contextual‐level variables on developmental processes among ethnic minority adolescents.     

The sensitivity of income polarization

This study looks at polarization and its components’ sensitivity to assumptions about equivalence scales, income definition, ethical income distribution parameters, and the income accounting period. A representative sample of Danish individual incomes from 1984 to 2002 is utilised. Results show that polarization has increased over time, regardless of the applied measure, when the last part of the period is compared to the first part of the period; primary causes being increased inequality (alienation) and faster income growth among high incomes relative to those in the middle of the distribution. Increasing the accounting period confirms the reduction in inequality found for shorter periods, but polarization is virtually unchanged, because income group identification increases. Applying different equivalence scales does not change polarization ranking for different years, but identification ranks are affected. The welfare state considerably reduces income polarization and inequality, but at the expense of some more identification.      

Moving beyond poverty: neighborhood structure, social processes, and health

We investigate the impact of neighborhood structural characteristics, social organization, and culture on self-rated health in a large, cross-sectional sample of urban adults. Findings indicate that neighborhood affluence is a more powerful predictor of health status than poverty, above and beyond individual demographic background, socioeconomic status, health behaviors, and insurance coverage. Moreover, neighborhood affluence and residential stability interact in their association with health. When the prevalence of affluence is low, residential stability is negatively associated with health. Neighborhood affluence also accounts for a substantial proportion of the racial gap in health status. Finally, collective efficacy is a significant positive predictor of health but does not mediate the effects of structural factors.     

The times they are a changin': marital status and health differentials from 1972 to 2003

Although the meanings and rates of being married, divorced, separated, never-married, and widowed have changed significantly over the past several decades, we know very little about historical trends in the relationship between marital status and health. Our analysis of pooled data from the National Health Interview Survey from 1972 to 2003 shows that the self-rated health of the never-married has improved over the past three decades. Moreover, the gap between the married and the never married has steadily converged over time for men but not for women. In contrast, the self-rated health of the widowed, divorced, and separated worsened over time relative to the married, and the adverse effects of marital dissolution have increased more for women than for men. Our findings highlight the importance of social change in shaping the impact of marital status on self-reported health and challenge long-held assumptions about gender, marital status, and health.     

Trajectories of social engagement and limitations in late life

Although studies have established important links between social relations and health, much of this research does not take into account the dynamic nature of both social relations and health over time. The present study combines person-centered and variable-centered approaches and uses social integration theory within the life course framework to examine patterns of change in social engagement and how those patterns relate to trajectories of physical and cognitive limitations among older adults, using data from the Americans' Changing Lives survey, a nationally representative panel study (N = 1,667). Individuals who had trajectories of high and increasing social engagement experienced lower levels of physical and cognitive limitations over time. The findings suggest the importance of maintaining high levels of social engagement for the physical and cognitive health of older adults.     

Community and anti-poverty targeting

The standard theory of anti-poverty targeting assumes individual incomes cannot be observed, but statistical properties of income distribution in broadly defined groups are known. ‘Indicator targeting’ rules are then derived for the forms of transfers conditioned on group membership of individuals. In this literature the motivating notion of a ‘group’ is purely statistical, even when it is groups such as localities and ethnicities. We focus instead on groups which are ‘communities’, meaning thereby collections of individuals who have access to community-specific public goods, from which non-members are excluded. Such differential access constitutes a source of inequality among poor individuals belonging to different communities, which is not captured by monetary earnings. We show that this formulation of what constitutes a group changes many of the basic results of the indicator targeting literature. Optimal targeting for poverty alleviation leads to seemingly paradoxical rules, such as targeting transfers to the community that is richer. Total wealth of non-poor members of a community and its distribution both become relevant for specifying optimal indicator targeting rules. In addition, a poverty measure that is sensitive to the community identities of poor individuals, yet defined on nominal incomes, may be incompatible with some of the basic axioms in the standard literature on poverty measurement.     

Social assistance trajectories in Switzerland: do they follow discernible patterns?

Dynamic research on poverty to date tends to stress the temporalised and democratised nature of the phenomenon. It describes poverty as a short or transient experience shaped essentially by individual characteristics. Empirical evidence, however, remains inconclusive. Recent studies focussing on social assistance paint a more nuanced picture that reveals the existence of both short- and long-term trajectories. The present study aims to advance this debate by exploring trajectory patterns of social assistance recipients in Switzerland. Trajectory patterns have been substantiated by means of sequence analysis. Multinominal logistic regression analysis was then used to study the effect of individual and contextual factors on these trajectories. Results yield four clearly discernible patterns associated with well-established indicators of poverty risk and social inequalities. The study concludes that poverty, defined as social assistance benefit receipt, is neither a highly temporalised nor a markedly individualised phenomenon.     

Mining the Data: Analyzing the Economic Implications of Mining for Nonmetropolitan Regions

Extractive industries such as logging and mining are generally expected to bring significant economic benefits to rural regions, but a growing number of findings have now challenged that common expectation. Still, it is not clear whether the findings of less–than–desirable economic outcomes are isolated or representative. In this article, we assemble literally all of the relevant quantitative findings on mining that we have been able to identify in published and/or technical literature from the United States. In the interest of rigor, we limit the assessment to cases in which strictly nonmetropolitan mining regions are compared against other nonmetropolitan regions and/or against those regions’ own experiences over time. Overall, 301 findings meet the criteria for inclusion. Contrary to the long–established assumptions, but consistent with more recent critiques, roughly half of all published findings indicate negative economic outcomes in mining communities, with the remaining findings being split roughly evenly between favorable and neutral/indeterminate ones. Positive findings are more likely to be associated with incomes than with poverty or (especially) unemployment rates, and they are more likely to come from the western United States, where much of the mining involves relatively large, new coal strip mines. Over half of all positive findings come from the years prior to 1982. In virtually all other categories, the plurality or majority of findings have been negative. When the patterns of findings are subjected to one–sample means tests, the only way to produce a significantly positive outcome is by combining all neutral/indeterminate findings with the positive ones, while focusing exclusively on incomes; by contrast, in the case of poverty or unemployment rates—as well as for the overall body of findings—the results are consistently and significantly negative, whether the neutral/indeterminate findings are combined with negative ones or omitted from the equations altogether. Until or unless future studies produce dramatically different findings, there appears to be no scientific basis for accepting the widespread, “obvious” assumption that mining will lead to economic improvement.     

A MODEL OF RACIAL RESIDENTIAL HISTORY AND ITS ASSOCIATION WITH SELF-RATED HEALTH AND MORTALITY AMONG BLACK AND WHITE ADULTS IN THE UNITED STATES

We construct a dynamic racial residential history typology and examine its association with self-rated health and mortality among black and white adults. Data are from a national survey of U.S. adults, combined with census tract data from 1970–1990. Results show that racial disparities in health and mortality are explained by both neighborhood contextual and individual socioeconomic factors. Results suggest that living in an established black neighborhood or in an established interracial neighborhood may actually be protective of health, once neighborhood poverty is controlled. Examining the dynamic nature of neighborhoods contributes to an understanding of health disparities.     

Unfair treatment, neighborhood effects, and mental health in the Detroit metropolitan area

Why do racial differences in many indicators of mental and emotional well-being show inconsistent patterns? We propose that mental and emotional well-being are influenced by aspects of the social context, including experiences of unfair treatment and the concentration of households with incomes below the poverty level, and that differential exposure to these factors influences racial differences in mental well-being. We analyze the reporting of psychological distress and life satisfaction in a multistage area probability sample of 1,139 African American and white residents of the Detroit metropolitan area aged 18 and older. Both psychological distress and life satisfaction are significantly associated with exposure to unfair treatment and with the proportion of households in the census block group that were below the poverty level. Racial differences in psychological distress and life satisfaction were eliminated or reversed once differentials in the percent of households living below the poverty line and exposure to unfair treatment were accounted for. These findings contribute to a growing body of evidence that "race" effects operate through multiple pathways that include race-based residential segregation and its attendant economic disinvestment at the community level, and interpersonal experiences of unfair treatment.     

The multifaceted nature of poverty and differential trajectories of health among children

The relationships between poverty and children’s health have been well documented, but the diverse and dynamic nature of poverty has not been thoroughly explored. Drawing on cumulative disadvantage and human capital theory, we examined to what extent the duration and depth of poverty, as well as the level of material hardship, affected changes in physical health among children over time. Data came from eight waves of the Korea Welfare Panel Study between 2006 and 2013. Using children who were under age 10 at baseline (N?=?1657, Observations?=?13,256), we conducted random coefficient regression in a multilevel growth curve framework to examine poverty group differences in intra-individual change in health status. Results showed that chronically poor children were most likely to have poor health. Children in households located far below the poverty line were most likely to be in poor health at baseline, while near-poor children’s health got significantly worse over time. Material hardship also had a significant impact on child health.     

Examining the trajectories of children providing care for adults in rural Kenya: Implications for service delivery

Research on caregiving children tends to be limited to children's caregiving experiences of parents with a specific disease or disability. This has led to a common perception that children's caregiving is a single, uniform and often long-term experience. Whilst this is most certainly the case for many children in economically more advanced countries, this may not hold true in rural Africa, where poverty and AIDS can have significant knock-on effects on entire families and communities. This paper seeks to develop a more complex understanding of children's caring experiences by asking children whom they have cared for over time and explore the different pathways that lead to their caregiving at different stages of their lives. The study reports on qualitative data collected from 48 caregiving children and 10 adults in the Bondo district of western Kenya in 2007. A multi-method approach was adapted, with historical profiles, Photovoice and draw-and-write essays complementing 34 individual interviews and 2 group discussions. A thematic network analysis revealed that children's caregiving was not confined to a single experience. Children were observed to provide care for a number of different family and community members for varying periods of time and intensities. Although their living arrangements and life circumstances often gave them little choice but to care, a social recognition of children's capacity to provide care for fragile adults, helped the children construct an identity, which both children and adults drew on to rationalise children's continued and multiple caring experiences. The study concludes that agencies and community members looking to support caregiving children need to consider their care trajectories — including whom they care for as well as the order, intensity, location and duration of their past and likely future caring responsibilities.     

The Migration–Development Nexus and Organizational Time

While some migration research looks at how time influences individual migration trajectories, little attention has been paid to the ways in which temporal considerations influence migration and development. We propose the idea of “organizational time” and argue that bringing time into sharper focus calls into question how the categories of migration and return affect organizational change; reveals how the career stage at which migrants leave affects their ability to influence organizational change when they return, and shows how the role of senders and receivers of social remittances shifts over time. We draw on research on the impact of return migration and social remittances on institutional capacity building and policymaking in the health sectors in Gujarat, India to make these arguments.     

Sequential procedures for poverty gap dominance

Poverty evaluations differ from welfare evaluations in one significant aspect, the existence of a threshold or reference point, the poverty line. We build up normative evaluation models in which comparisons are made taking distances from this reference point rather than from the origin to be ethically relevant, by focussing upon poverty gaps and not incomes. When poverty lines differ for different groups in a socially heterogeneous population, choosing poverty gaps instead of incomes as the relevant indicator brings in normatively appealing classes of poverty indices not previously accommodated, for which poverty comparisons are implemented through sequential poverty gap curves (or poverty gap distributions) dominance. These conditions are logically related to those suggested by Atkinson and Bourguignon (Arrow and the foundations of the theory of economic policy, Macmillan, London, 1987) and Bourguignon (J Econom 42:67–80, 1989) for welfare comparisons. However, the proportion of poor individuals in the society and their average poverty gap play a role in our comparisons, though they do not in the existing poverty dominance criteria for heterogeneous populations.     

Health and income poverty in Ireland, 2003�C2006

Recent advances in the measurement of bi-dimensional poverty are applied to a measure of poverty which incorporates income and health poverty. The correlation between income and poverty is examined using the Receiver Operating Characteristics curve. Following from this uni-dimensional and bi-dimensional poverty indices are calculated for Ireland for the years 2003–2006. Income poverty shows a fall over the period while health poverty falls and then rises. Bi-dimensional poverty generally moves in line with the individual indices depending upon the relative weight for each dimension. The results are generally not sensitive to the degree of poverty aversion or the substitutability between the different dimensions of poverty.     

Parental health and children's economic well-being

The life course perspective emphasizes that past economic experiences and stage in the life course influence a family's ability to cope with negative life events such as poor health. However, traditional analytic approaches are not well-suited to examine how the impact of negative life events differs based on a family's past economic experiences, nor do they typically account for the potentially spurious association between negative life events and family economic well-being. We use finite mixture modeling to examine how changes in parental health affect children's exposure to poverty. We find that for some children the association between family head's health and children's exposure to poverty is spurious, while for other children family head's poor health is associated with increased risk of economic deprivation. The extent to which a family head's poor health alters children's economic well-being depends on a child's family's underlying economic trajectory and past history of exposure to disadvantage.     

Understanding the diverse needs of the Medicare population: implications for Medicare reform

Meeting the health care needs of millions of elderly and disabled Americans is central to the debate over Medicare's future. Using data from a nationally representative survey of 3,309 beneficiaries, Medicare's most vulnerable beneficiaries were profiled, examining variations in coverage, satisfaction, access, and financial difficulties. A substantial portion of the Medicare population--two thirds--were found to have health problems or low incomes. The analysis found that about 40% of beneficiaries with incomes below the poverty level, in fair or poor health, or with ADL limitations, have difficulties paying their medical bills or getting needed health care. Medicare's disabled, under-65 beneficiaries are at even higher risk: nearly half (47%) have health care access problems or deal with financial hardship due to medical bills. The diverse needs and experiences of the Medicare population are underscored, providing new insights into the challenge of maintaining or improving protection for those with greatest need while assuring the long-term fiscal viability of the program.     

Stress in Childhood and Adulthood: Effects on Marital Quality Over Time

We work from a stress and life course perspective to consider how stress affects trajectories of change in marital quality over time. Specifically, we ask whether stress is more likely to undermine the quality of marital experiences at different points in the life course. In addition, we ask whether the effects of adult stress on marital quality depend on childhood family stress experiences. Growth curve analysis of data from a national longitudinal survey (Americans' Changing Lives, N = 1,059 married individuals) reveals no evidence of age differences in the effects of adult stress on subsequent trajectories of change in marital experiences. Our results, however, suggest that the effects of adult stress on marital quality may depend on childhood stress exposure. Stress in adulthood appears to take a cumulative toll on marriage over time-but this toll is paid primarily by individuals who report a more stressful childhood. This toll does not depend on the timing of stress in the adult life course.     

Gender inequality in the one percent: A look under the hood of high incomes in Germany

Gender differences in economic outcomes are important topics in social science research. However, the study of gender differences among economic elites—“the top one percent”—has received surprisingly little attention, likely also due to a lack of empirical data. This paper investigates gender differences in individual and household income among the top one percent of individual monthly net incomes and top two percent of net household incomes using data from the German Microcensus from 2006 to 2016 covering more than 3.3 million individuals. I find that women account for only around 14% of the one percent in individual incomes. Additionally, regarding the household level, women's incomes are sufficient to achieve two percent status in fewer than 10% of all households. Both numbers did hardly change over the decade from 2006 to 2016. Furthermore, women's pathways to belonging to a high-income household are far more dependent on their partner's education and employment status than men's. Overall, the findings thus show dramatic gender differences among the German economic elite that do not narrow over time.