A comparison of poverty in seven European countries and regions using subjective and relative measures

This paper presents comparative results on poverty in seven countries and regions of the European Community: Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Lorraine, Ireland, Catalonia and Greece. The data are obtained from comparable socio-economic surveys in each country. Subjective as well as relative poverty lines are used. The results indicate that the subjective poverty lines are plausible in a comparative context, although the levels of the subjective standards are rather generous. The estimated equivalence scales are much flatter than the one recommended by the OECD. The extent of poverty is much greater in the peripheral EC-countries than in the central ones. Though similar factors are found to be associated with poverty in all countries, there are also important differences in the characteristics of the poor across countries. The impact of social security transfers on poverty appears to be much smaller in the southern countries Greece and Catalonia, than in the Benelux and Lorraine.     

Comparing two global measures of perceived neighborhood quality

This article examines and compares two global measures of perceived neighborhood quality: satisfaction and attachment. In doing this, the article expands upon the general satisfaction model by developing and testing a model of perceived neighborhood quality which is appropriate to both of these summary measures. Using survey data, the article demonstrates that satisfaction and attachment are each affected by social interaction in the neighborhood and that each can be distinguished by how strongly it taps the cognitive and affective components of well-being. The article also demonstrates the differential impact of general and local social status variables on each of the global measures as well as the impact of perceived homogeneity.     

Shifting family definitions: The effect of cohabitation and other nonfamily household relationships on measures of poverty

The current official poverty measure compares income to needs within a family. Some have suggested including cohabiting couples as part of this family. Others have suggested that the household be used as the unit of analysis for poverty measurement. I explore issues involved in expanding the unit of analysis, including the stability of cohabiting and other nonfamily household relationships and the degree of resource sharing that takes place among different types of people within households. Instability in households with nonfamily members is not a serious problem for inferring poverty from cross-sectional studies. On the other hand, income from people in nonfamily household roles contributes slightly less to helping other household members avoid financial hardship, implying that nonfamily housemates have a greater tendency to keep income to themselves.     

Comparing relative effects of education and economic resources on infant mortality in developing countries

Research on the social determinants of health has often considered education and economic resources as separate indicators of socioeconomic status. From a policy perspective, however, it is important to understand the relative strength of the effect of these social factors on health outcomes, particularly in developing countries. It is also important to examine not only the impact of education and economic resources of individuals, but also whether community and country levels of these factors affect health outcomes. This analysis uses multilevel regression models to assess the relative effects of education and economic resources on infant mortality at the family, community, and country level using data from demographic and Health Surveys in 43 low-and lower-middle-income countries. We find strong effects for both per capita gross national income and completed secondary education at the country level, but a greater impact of education within families and communities.     

贫困地区农村计划生育社会保障的必要性及其途径——以宁夏西海固地区为例

贫困地区人口增长快 ,计划生育工作难度大 ,除了“不孝有三、无后为大”的思想观念以外 ,农村社会保障制度的薄弱与不健全 ,是贫困地区农民“多子多富”“养儿防老”的物质根源。在贫困地区要解决“养儿防老”的现实问题 ,必须建立一种新的社会保障制度———计划生育社会保障制度     

A consumption model for measuring poverty: An exploratory exercise

The general purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate a consumption model to estimate poverty level of paddy farmers in Malaysia. The consumption model was based on four selected domains of life, namely quality of housing and local facilities, durable ownership, health status, and food intake. The data for this study were taken from the Level of Living Study (1986–1990) conducted by the Department of Human Development, Agriculture University of Malaysia. The sample consisted of 600 paddy farmers, selected randomly. Two consumption models — orthogonal and oblique — were tested using confirmatory factor analysis. The findings revealed that the oblique model was better fitted to the data than the orthogonal model.     

Women and retirement planning: towards the "feminization of poverty" in an aging Hong Kong

Hong Kong's population is aging but retirement research is largely missing from the research agenda in Hong Kong. This study, based on a telephone survey of 1,078 respondents, examines middle-aged adult's retirement planning activities in Hong Kong. The findings show men are more likely to be involved in financial planning, while women are more likely to take part in some forms of health, living arrangement and psychological planning for retirement. Further, there are age, education and income differences in the various forms of retirement planning activities within genders. Women are living longer; because of their lack of financial retirement planning, they are prime candidates for poverty. The discussion concludes with policy implications related to assisting midlife individuals, in particular women, in planning for retirement.     

Comparing gay identity development theory to cognitive development: an empirical study

The relationship between gay identity development and cognitive development, as outlined by Ivey's Developmental Counseling Therapy Model, was explored. The Gay Identity Questionnaire and the Standard Developmental Counseling Interview were administered to 78 gay men. Results suggested that there is a relationship between gay identity development and cognitive development. In addition, the findings provide evidence that gay identity development can be categorized by concrete and abstract frames of reference.     

Individual and structural explanations of poverty

This article illustrates the difference between individual and structural accounts of poverty in the U.S. Some of the correlates of poverty among individuals are job loss, low skills, female family head, discrimination against blacks and hispanics, family size, and age at marriage. The structural factors producing a high rate of poverty are the reproduction of the class system, macroeconomic policies, the vicious circle of poverty, the structure of the electoral process, the structure of the economy, institutionalized gender discrimination, and institutionalized ethnic discrimination. Thus, the variables accounting for each phenomenon are different. A theoretical rationale for the relationship between social structure and rates of events is presented, and similarities between the approach used here and research in other disciplines are noted.     

Individual and institutional determinants of multidimensional poverty: A European comparison

In this article we evaluate to what extent between-country differences in the probability of being ‘multidimensional’ poor can be explained by a range of ‘domain-specific’ indicators of welfare regime arrangements. To this end, a so-called micro-macro model is estimated, testing the ‘independent’ effect of institutions, as opposed to alternative explanations such as between-country differences in population composition and economic affluence. Although we conclude that institutional arrangements do influence the risk of multidimensional poverty in the expected direction, we also find that bringing the ‘economy’ back into the analyses has a non-trivial impact. Our results point at several avenues for further discussion and research. First, although the more elaborate welfare regimes generally do a better job in preventing poverty, the level of transfers is not always ‘proportional’ to the general standard of living in these countries. Second, we only find partial confirmation for the often cited ‘negative’ impact of labour market flexibility and the related equality-jobs trade-off. While stricter employment regulations do reduce the poverty risk (be it only after controlling for economic affluence), flexibility in terms of the availability of fixed-term labour seems to be preferable to unemployment, even if at the individual level, labour market flexibility increases the likelihood of being poor quite severely.

Measurement of poverty and equity: Some Asean social indicators experience

In ASEAN countries, improvements in measurements of poverty and equity can take several forms. First, some poverty lines should be officially adopted, e.g., a poverty threshold of $300 and a subsistence threshold of $150 (per capita per year, ‘Kravis’ dollars, mid-1970s). Second, target distributive groups should be identified and new indicators, such as a proposed index of ethnic imbalance in Malaysia, could be designed where needed. Third, quick-response well-being surveys, as in the social weather station experiment in the Philippines, could help in both the technical and the social understanding of the state of equity.     

Secluded and Proximate Illiteracy: Comparing Situations

Triplot is used to portray the three-dimensional concepts – literate, proximate illiterate and secluded illiterate. Pictographic portrayal complemented with a method proposed to calculate distance between situations enhances comparison. Illustration with Indian data explains change over time, rural-urban divide, and social gap.     

计划生育对人力资本提升的促进作用——以湖南省为例

计划生育对中国所产生的社会及经济方面的效益是十分巨大的。湖南省计划生育效益评估课题组对湖南省计划生育效益进行了定量的分析。本文以他们的一些数据为基础,以湖南为例,从人口数量的控制和优生优育两方面,分析了计划生育对人力资本提升的促进作用。     

人口流动与区域经济发展关系的实证分析——以宁夏固原市为例

中外人口迁移和流动理论在宏观和微观两个层面上对人口迁移和流动引起的社会变动做出了普遍意义上的理论解释和分析,但关于人口流动与区域经济发展的关系,特别是人口流动结构与区域经济发展的关系研究不多,以宁夏固原市为例,从人口流动与区域经济发展的角度出发,运用灰色关联理论加以实证分析。得出结论,流动人口对当地经济的发展具有极高的关联性,区域间人口流动性对经济发展的贡献优于区域内人口流动。     

A Marxian-Malthusian view of poverty and development

Abstract The names of Marx and Malthus are often linked in disjunction but never in conjunction. Nevertheless, the thesis argued in this paper is that the two historically dominant theories of poverty, the Marxian and the Malthusian, are not inconsistent, but complementary; that a union of the two yields a basic fourfold typology of social classes by differential ownership of property and differential fertility; that this typology can also be viewed as a way of disaggregating the meaningless average of 'GNP per head' in a way which gives social content (i.e. a distributional dimension) to the concept; that the typology provides more satisfactory definitions of 'development' and 'overpopulation'; and that these four categories are improved, or usefully supplemented, by replacing the flowof income by the stock of wealth in each case. Also the universality of the typology is discussed along with some preliminary empirical considerations.     

Urban poverty and health in developing countries: Household and neighborhood Effects

In the United States and other high-income countries, there is intense scholarly and programmatic interest in the effects of household and neighborhood living standards on health. Yet few studies of developing-country cities have explored these issues. We investigated whether the health of urban women and children in poor countries is influenced by both household and neighborhood standards of living. Using data from the urban samples of 85 Demographic and Health Surveys and modeling living standards using factor-analytic MIMIC methods, we found that the neighborhoods of relatively poor households are more heterogeneous than is often asserted. Our results indicated that poor urban households do not tend to live in uniformly poor neighborhoods: about 1 in 10 of a poor household’s neighbors is relatively affluent, belonging to the upper quartile of the urban distribution of living standards. Do household and neighborhood living standards influence health? Using multivariate models, we found that household living standards are closely associated with three health measures: unmet need for modern contraception, attendance of a trained health care provider at childbirth, and young children’s height for age. Neighborhood living standards exert a significant additional influence in many of the surveys we examined, especially for birth attendance.     

The Multidimensional Measurement of Poverty in Belgium and Britain: A Categorical Approach

In recent years, both in socialscience and policy circles, there has been agrowing consensus on the multidimensionalnature of poverty. However, theoperationalisation of the concept has notfollowed this development, as most studies arestill primarily based on income. In thisarticle, we propose to measure the concept ofpoverty using both monetary and non-monetaryindicators. To this end, a latent classmeasurement model is used, allowing us to takeaccount of the multidimensionality of the dataand the discrete nature of most availablepoverty indicators. The proposed measurementinstrument allows for poverty to manifestitself in different ways or forms for differentsubgroups in the population. Furthermore, theoccurrence of multiple deprivation, rather thana `negative' score on only one indicator, istaken into account. In addition, specialattention is paid to the feasibility ofconstructing a multidimensional poverty measurewhich can be used to study poverty dynamicswith longitudinal panel data. We presentfigures on the size and the social distributionof the `poor' population in Belgium andBritain. These figures indicate that theresults of our multidimensional measurementprocedure are both plausible and substantivelyinterpretable.     

Choosing fields in an expansionary era: Comparing two cohorts of baccalaureate degree-holders in the United States and Canada

In an era of expanding postsecondary markets and heightened student and institutional competition, students’ field of study decisions may be becoming an increasingly important point of differentiation in the process of social mobility. Drawing on the two most recent cohorts of the Baccalaureate and Beyond and National Graduates Surveys, this paper examines and compares field of study choices among American and Canadian baccalaureate degree-holders. Consistent with existing research, gender remains an important and consistent predictor of field of study choices. In Canada, the analyses show some evidence that the gender gap for business and management is shrinking, but the engineering and mathematics gap remains significant. In the U.S. the situation was reversed, as the engineering gap shrunk and the business and management gap did not change across cohorts. Moderate family background effects, strong and consistent academic ability effects and growing academic aspiration effects were found across most analyses, lending support to theories that predict family background has direct and indirect effects on higher education choices.