Housing Cost Burden,Poverty Status,and Economic Hardship among Low-income Families

This study examined the relative effects of housing cost burden versus poverty thresholds to explain the economic hardship of low-income families and compared the differences in these effects among White, Black, and Hispanic families with children in the United States of America. The findings from the multivariate analyses indicate that poverty status better explains variations in economic hardship than housing cost burden status. In respect to group differences, association between poverty status and economic hardship score are different between White and Black families. The results of this study raise the issues of housing cost burden and economic hardship that the country’s low-income Black families disproportionately experience relative to their White and Hispanic counterparts.

‘What can I do’? Child welfare workers’ perceptions of what they can do to address poverty

Within the field of child welfare, critical questions have been posed about the intersecting issues of child maltreatment and poverty. The study of the quality and nature of this intersection has continued relevance in light of evidence showing the increased likelihood of maltreatment of children living in poverty. Although child welfare workers interact directly with families involved with the child welfare system, the study of workers’ perceptions of whether or not they address families’ poverty and, if so, how they go about it has not yet been conducted. The study presented begins to address this gap. Analysis from individual interviews with 30 child welfare workers revealed that they differed in their perception of whether or not poverty should be addressed by child welfare and how. Findings suggest workers do what they can despite various barriers, including families’ limitations and the fragile US social welfare safety net. Based on the findings, current practice models and policies that impact poverty and child maltreatment reduction are discussed.     

相对贫困的理论与政策聚焦 ——兼论建立我国相对贫困的治理体系

贫困一直是世界各国首要解决的社会问题。本文基于我国全面进入小康社会,需要建立解决相对贫困长效机制这一战略转换背景,从相对贫困与绝对贫困关系入手,围绕相对贫困内涵的争论,聚焦我国相对贫困的表现形式,并基于我国国情,提出建立相对贫困治理体系的建议。在机制上,充分发挥基本公共服务的作用,建立相对贫困人口发展的基础性机制;形成"政府主导、社会参与、市场促进"的贫困治理的整体性机制;建立干预代际贫困传递的阻断性机制。在具体措施上,围绕低收入家庭,要建立生活负担减免制度;健全以生产帮扶和就业帮扶为主的专项援助制度;按需救助,对低收入户开展"救助会诊";建立相对贫困家庭陪伴式服务制度。     

The Charged Economic Environment: Its Role in Parental Psychological Distress and Development of Children,Adolescents, and Young Adults

The current downward economic spiral has manifested in increased joblessness, unemployment, and new faces in the landscape of American poverty. More Americans are living in poverty, and vulnerable populations are experiencing psychological distress and despair. This paper addresses the psychological impact of the ongoing economic impasse. There is a call for policymakers, and practitioners to collaborate in facilitating youth and families to develop support strategies (of support) for sustaining them through these challenging times. Case examples illustrate how the economy impacts children and families. Relational/cultural theories and the life course perspective are used to understand the impact of the economy on vulnerable populations.     

Social Change and Social Policy in Taiwan: New Poverty, M-shaped Society and Policy Implications

Along with radical changes in the global economy and family structure, Taiwan has experienced the re-emergence of the poverty problem that was thought disappearing after remarkable economic growth in the 1980s. This article would like to provide an updated profile of social changes in Taiwan, with special reference to the related poverty issues like new poverty and the M-shaped society, as Ohmae defines it in his well-known book. To begin with, we place some of the most recent developments in the context of unbalanced growth and increasing family crises. Ironically, people in Taiwan have widely used the terms of new poverty and M-shaped society since the end of 1990s, while the "economic miracle" the island wrought still remains a fond memory. Official statistics on poverty, unemployment, divorce, mental disease, and child abuse have all shown increases. The trend is a matter of serious concern. Unlike in Japan, the earnings of workers in Taiwan did not significantly decrease in recent years. Taiwan seems to deviate from the M-shaped society. We have developed two tentative but handy yardsticks for examining the shift of the middle class: the "balance index" and the "M-ratio". The former provides as a relative measure among different income groups, while the latter is designed to indicate the change of the middle class relative to the overall contribution of the people. Finally, we also discuss its implications to social policy in Taiwan.     

Explaining heterogeneity in the child poverty rate among immigrant families: Differences by parental citizenship

Much of the debate about child poverty among immigrant families has centered on factors that place immigrant children at a high risk for poverty. What is missing in this debate and the literature is that children in immigrant families are economically heterogeneous and that children in naturalized families are doing as well as or better than children in native families in terms of economic status. To examine the heterogeneous economic status of children in immigrant families, this study compared children's poverty rates by parental nativity and citizenship status, decomposing demographic risk factors of child poverty. The results indicate that whereas lower parental education and employment status largely explain the relatively higher poverty rate among children in noncitizen families, higher parental education and employment rates and a lower rate of single parenthood explain why children in naturalized families have a lower rate of poverty than those in noncitizen families. Implications of these findings are discussed in detail.     

Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction by Region: Chile 1990‐96

This article examines the evolution of poverty in Chile during 1990‐96, a period of rapid economic growth. It shows that Chile has embarked on a significant poverty‐reduction trajectory. The robustness of this result is examined by using nonparametric estimates of the income distribution and a stochastic dominance test. Growth is an important factor in explaining the poverty reduction that has occurred. Using the Datt‐Ravallion decomposition, it accounts for over 85% of poverty reduction at the national level. However, the pattern varies significantly across regions. Both growth, and its contribution to poverty reduction, vary significantly among regions. This seems to reflect the sectoral composition of growth across regions, with export‐oriented activities producing a larger poverty‐reduction impact.     

Verarmungsrisiken nach kritischen Lebensereignissen in Deutschland und den USA

We study how the impact of job loss, sickness, retirement, and family dissolution on the risk of relative income poverty differs between Germany and the United States, and whether the impact of these events has changed between 1980 and 2009. Americans are more likely than Germans to enter poverty after any of the four events, yet they also recover more quickly from job loss and family dissolution. Comparisons over time do not indicate a secular rise in the impact of critical life events on poverty risks, but our results show that poverty trajectories are subject to stronger cyclical fluctuations in the United States: Through its emphasis on market mechanisms, the liberal American welfare state raises the importance of (re-)employment opportunities for coping with the consequences of adverse life events. The absence of clear long-term trends leads to a reassessment of common views about welfare state change such as Jacob Hacker??s thesis of a ??Great Risk Shift?? or the notion of an ??Americanization?? of Continental European welfare states. So far, there is also little evidence that the often claimed recalibration of welfare states towards ??new social risks?? has alleviated the adverse economic consequences of family dissolution.     

Making Child Care "Affordable" in the United States

Two alternative federally financed plans are presented as modelsfor a program which would make child care of acceptable quality"affordable" for millions of American families. Taking a cuefrom currently operating state programs, care is defined as"affordable" if it costs parents no more than 30 percent ofthe amount by which their income exceeds the poverty line. Thefirst plan would cost the government $25 billion per year andwould concentrate help on families with incomes up to twicethe poverty line. The second would cost $39 billion per year,would provide higher quality care, and would allow all UnitedStates families to have access to care that was "affordable"by our definition. Costs of these magnitudes preclude financingof any significant part by employers or philanthropies. Whilesome government savings might result from the beneficial effectsof these programs, the main rationale for them rests, not onthe calculation that they will save the government money (althoughthey might), but on the fact that they will prevent considerablemisery to children and their families. Making quality childcare affordable to all families would result in safer, moreeducational, and more enjoyable care for children, and wouldgive a financial boost to families pitifully short of resourcesin a non-stigmatizing way. It would reduce child poverty andreduce enrollment in welfare-type programs. It would also giveparents a chance to particiopate in the world of work and toachieve the gains in resources and status that such a participationwould alllow.     

Marriage Promotion Policy and Family Inequality

In 1996, Congress overhauled welfare policy to promote marriage and work as ways to lift American families out of poverty. Almost all of the funding for governmental marriage promotion has been devoted to relationship skills programs intended to help couples strengthen their relationships, encourage them to marry, and thereby prevent poverty. Marriage promotion policy has sparked intense debate, especially over the connection between marriage and family inequality. While advocates of the policy argue the government should promote marriage because it fosters social and economic well‐being, critics challenge the assumption that marriage itself causes these benefits or will help lift poor families out of poverty. Recent sociological research on why poor and low‐income couples marry less finds that they tend not to marry if they cannot meet a specific economic threshold. This suggests that rather than promoting the view that relationship skills en route to marriage can help prevent poverty, marriage promotion policy could likely better serve disadvantaged families by acknowledging and addressing the socioeconomic roots of family inequality.     

Changing Economic Opportunities,Family Structure,and Poverty in Rural Areas1

Abstract Instrustrial restructuring in the 1980s ushered in a new pattern of growing economic diversity over geographic space. The objective of this study is to examine the extent and etiology of changing spatial inequality between and within metropolitan (metro) and nonmetropolitan (nonmetro) areas, as measured by increasing or decreasing county poverty rates. Results based on data from the 1980 and 1990 census summary tape files suggest several conclusions. First, poverty rates increased more rapidly in nonmetro than metro counties during the 1980s; historical patterns of metro-nonmetro economic convergence slowed over the past decade. Second, poverty rates tended to decline in nonmetro counties with traditionally high rates of poverty, thus providing counter-evidence to arguments suggesting that the gap between traditionally poor and nonpoor nonmetro counties has widened. Third, spatial differences in poverty rates and relative increases in county poverty rates over the 1980s were most strongly associated with women's employment and headship status. The results raise questions about the extent to which traditional rural economic development strategies address the potentially deleterious economic effects of rising percentages of poor female-headed families.     

The Volunteer Citizen After Welfare Reform in the United States: An Ethnographic Study of Volunteerism in Action

In the United States, neoliberal strategies for social, economic, and state organization have been accompanied by frequent calls for volunteers to solve serious social problems. A case study of a community mobilization of middle-class volunteers to provide one-on-one support to families in poverty shows both possibilities and limitations. Volunteers provide social support to families in poverty, thus alleviating social isolation. Volunteers learn about systemic forces that cause poverty, its effects on families and communities, and about themselves and their capacities to engage in poverty work. However, social isolation is but one of many problems associated with poverty, and even a more knowledgeable amateur volunteer corps cannot take the place of substantial social, economic, and political change.     

The future in anti-poverty strategies

The uneven distribution of income and assets in the United States continues to have negative effects on the personal, social, and economic well-being of adults and children. Poverty affects the entire family and is often associated with household instability, school dropouts, teen pregnancies, and intergenerational poverty. Although income-based anti-poverty policy initiatives have helped individuals with children meet their basic consumptive needs, they have done little to help families lay a foundation for their futures. The implementation of asset-building programs that provide Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) to both adults and children reflects an approach to reducing the incidence and impact of poverty in the United States. Current state and federal policy initiatives that are designed to help economically vulnerable individuals build assets are also described in this paper. Implications of asset-building program and policy initiatives on the well-being of low-income children and adults, households, and communities are discussed to demonstrate the impact that resources and opportunities have on the social and economic growth of the entire family.     

Finance-growth-poverty nexus in South Africa: A dynamic causality linkage

This paper attempts to examine the dynamic causal relationship between financial development, economic growth and poverty reduction in South Africa—using a trivariate causality model. The study attempts to answer one critical question. Which sector leads in the process of poverty reduction in South Africa—the financial sector or real sector? Using cointegration and error-correction models, the empirical results of the study show that both financial development and economic growth Granger—cause poverty reduction in South Africa. The study also finds that economic growth Granger-causes financial development and, therefore, leads in the process of poverty reduction in South Africa. This applies irrespective of whether the causality test is conducted in the short-run or in the long-run. The study, therefore, recommends that policies geared towards increasing economic growth should be intensified in South Africa in order to make the economy more monetised, and to reduce the high level of poverty currently prevailing in the country.     

Do families in poverty need child and family social work?

This article attempts to contribute to the historically relevant debate about the role of social work in poverty situations, focusing on the emblematic and radical question whether the poor actually need social work. In the context of the currently dominant policy framework in European welfare states, that is underpinned by the emerging paradigm of social investment, we argue that it is extremely relevant to readdress this question. Within this development, the eradication of child poverty has been considered a key target of poverty reduction strategies and child and family social work has consequently been assigned a pivotal role in the fight against the intergenerational transmission of poverty. We demonstrate that the rhetoric of social investment has found a practical implementation in social work constructing the problem of poverty in terms of education and activation of both the child and the individual parent. Based on an extensive review of literature, we discuss underlying assumptions, consequences and pitfalls of the paradigm of social investment for social work and tease out whether, and on which conditions, poor families need child and family social work.     

Does caregiving increase poverty among women in later life? Evidence from the Health and Retirement survey

Given the rapid aging of the U.S. population and reductions in federal funding, elder care has become a major issue for many families. This paper focuses on a long-term consequence of elder care by asking how caring for elderly parents affects women's subsequent risks of living in poverty. Using longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study, we examine whether and how caregiving for parents in 1991 increases women's risks of living in households with incomes less than the poverty threshold, receiving public assistance, and receiving Medicaid in 1999. Our findings illustrate that caregiving in earlier life raises women's poverty risks in later life by intensifying the negative effects of stopping work and declining health on women's economic well-being.     

Measuring the impact of price changes on poverty

This paper develops a methodology to measure the impact of price changes on poverty measured by an entire class of additive separable poverty measures. This impact is captured by means of the price elasticity of poverty. The total effect of changes in price on poverty is explained in terms of two components, income and distribution effects. The income effect measures the change in poverty when all prices increase uniformly, whereas the distribution effect captures the change in poverty because of changes in relative prices. Using this decomposition, the paper derives an empirically operational index, which reveals whether the price changes have been pro-poor or anti-poor. The paper also derives a new price index for the poor. While this index can be computed for any poverty measures, our empirical analysis applied to Brazil is based on three poverty measures, the head-count ratio, the poverty gap ratio and the severity of poverty. The empirical analysis shows that price changes in Brazil during the 1999–2006 periods have been anti-poor. Nevertheless, during the last 2 to 3 years, the price changes have affected the poor less adversely than the non-poor.     

Working Poverty across the Metro‐Nonmetro Divide: A Quarter Century in Perspective, 1979–2003

Researchers are increasingly recognizing space as a key axis of inequality. Scholars concerned with spatial inequality have called for special attention to issues of comparative advantage and disadvantage across space as well as the consideration of the subnational scale. This study draws on these ideas by examining the relationship between work and poverty in the United States with an explicit comparative focus on metropolitan (metro) and nonmetropolitan (nonmetro) areas. Moreover, this study joins space with its counterpart time by exploring how this relationship has changed over the last quarter century. Using data from the March Current Population Survey, the results show that working poverty persistently had a disproportionate impact on nonmetro families between 1979 and 2003. However, the results also show a trend of residential convergence, as working poverty in metro areas has climbed toward the levels experienced in nonmetro areas. Logistic‐regression models exploring the effects of residence, family labor supply, and period confirm that labor supply has consistently provided nonmetro families with less protection from poverty than their metro counterparts, but also show that this disadvantage has waned in recent years. The findings underscore the need for policies that support those working on the economic margins and recognize the variable opportunity costs of employment across the rural‐urban continuum.     

Female‐Headed Families and Poverty in Rural America*

Abstract Employing data from the 1980, 1990, and 2000 March supplements of the Current Population Surveys, this study examines changing household and family structure in metro and nonmetro areas and corresponding changes in poverty, emphasizing female‐headed families with children under age 18. We also pay particular attention to the structure and economic conditions of subfamilies with children during this period. Household and family structure in suburban metro and nonmetro areas were quite similar by 2000. In contrast, families and households in nonmetro and metro central city areas were similar in their high prevalence of poverty. Finally, the risk of female‐headed families and subfamilies with children living in poverty is highest for nonmetro residents, and their individual characteristics suppress rather than account for this disadvantage. This pattern persisted across the decades studied, despite economic growth during the 1990s.     

Distributional Effects of FDI: How the Interaction of FDI and Economic Policy Affects Poor Households in Bolivia

This article provides a CGE analysis of the medium to long‐run impact of FDI inflows on poverty and income distribution in Bolivia. The simulation results suggest that FDI inflows enhance economic growth and reduce poverty. However, the income distribution typically becomes more unequal. In particular, FDI widens disparities between urban and rural areas. The Bolivian government may promote the growth‐enhancing and poverty‐alleviating effects by overcoming labour‐market segmentation and providing complementary public investment in infrastructure. But simulated policy reforms or alternative productivity scenarios are hardly effective in reducing the economic divide.