Income Inequality and Economic Convergence in Turkey

Even though the convergence of regional per capita incomes has been a highly debated issue internationally, empirical evidence regarding Turkey is both limited and contradictory. This paper is an attempt to investigate regional income inequality and convergence dynamics in Turkish gross domestic product. First, the Theil coefficient of concentration index has been employed in order to analyze the dispersion aspects of the convergence process which shows a procyclical character. Then, we investigate the convergence dynamics, taking regional interdependencies into account. Empirical results indicate that there is convergence at the national level. Moreover, the spatial error model is preferred by the model selection criteria, indicating that the typical least-squares regional convergence model is misspecified.     

Income and Life Satisfaction After Marital Disruption in Germany

Divorce in Germany and in many other countries is often instigated by the wife, even though marital disruption has much more negative economic consequences for women than for men. Both observations, however, are not necessarily a contradiction. Women may gain something that makes up for the economic loss. On the one hand, using data on income and (general) life satisfaction from the German Socio‐Economic Panel Study, this article shows that negative economic changes, as measured by data on household income, are real in the sense that they are reflected in subjective assessments of economic well‐being. On the other hand, these changes are relative because other aspects of life improve after marriage dissolution, and this is especially true for women.     

Trend Analysis of Anticipated Lifetime Income Inequality among Post‐war Japanese Youth

This study aims to measure the inequality of anticipated lifetime income and the inequality of annual income among the younger generation (24–29‐year‐old men), and to examine any trends that can be found in terms of inequality between 1955 and 2005 in Japan. Anticipated lifetime income is defined in this study as the present value of the total anticipated annual income that one is likely to earn each year between the ages of 24 and 59 years, assuming that there is no intragenerational class mobility. The anticipated lifetime income for each young male is estimated using the Social Stratification and Social Mobility Survey dataset, which is a Japanese national cross‐sectional survey of social stratification and social mobility. An inequality in the anticipated lifetime income can be regarded as an “inequality of outlook” among the younger generation. As a result of this analysis, it was found that the Gini coefficient, the most general measurement of income inequality, had significantly increased for anticipated lifetime income between 1995 and 2005. At the same time, the gap between the Gini coefficient of anticipated lifetime income and that of annual income had narrowed. It is suggested that “inequality of outlook,” which cannot be easily identified using a superficial index, has increased significantly.     

Household Income and Trajectories of Marital Satisfaction in Early Marriage

Are the marriages of lower income couples less satisfying than the marriages of more affluent couples? To address this question, we compared trajectories of marital satisfaction among couples with a wide range of household incomes. The marital satisfaction of 862 Black, White, and Latino newlywed spouses (N = 431 couples) was assessed five times, each 9 months apart, during the first 4 years of marriage. Lower income couples did not have less satisfying marriages on average, nor did their satisfaction decline more steeply on average. They did, however, experience (a) significantly greater fluctuations in marital satisfaction across assessments and (b) significantly more variability between husbands and wives. If efforts to support the marriages of low‐income couples are to address the unique characteristics of their marital development, these findings suggest that efforts to stabilize their marriages may be more effective than efforts to improve their satisfaction alone.     

Satisfaction with home-based employment

Using data from nine state regional research project on at-home income generation, the relationships of three satisfaction variables to demographic and work situation variables of 899 household managers in households with home-based employment are investigated. The satisfaction variables include quality of life, family income, and control over everyday life. The majority of households are satisfied with their quality of life and control over life although only moderately satisfied with income. One variable is related to the three satisfaction variables, the wage earner's control over the amount of work done in a day.This paper reports results from the Cooperative Regional Research Project, NE-167, entitled, At-Home Income Generation: Impact on Management, Productivity and Stability in Rural and Urban Families, partially supported by Cooperative States Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Experiment Stations at the University of Hawaii, Iowa State University, Lincoln University (Missouri), Michigan State University, Cornell University (New York), The Ohio State University, The Pennsylvania State University, Utah State University, and the University of Vermont. This article was accepted in 1992 under the editorship of Charles B. Hennon.Her research interests include evaluation of teaching/learning, program evaluation, and entrepreneurship. She received her Ph.D. from Cornell University.     

Inequality and welfare evaluation of heterogeneous income distributions

This paper establishes the principles that should govern the welfare and inequality analysis of heterogeneous income distributions. Two basic criteria – the equity preference condition and the compensation principle – are shown to be fundamentally incompatible. The paper favours the latter, thereby vindicating the traditional method of dealing with heterogeneous samples. However, inequality and welfare comparisons will usually be well defined only if equivalent incomes are obtained using constant scale factors; and researchers will need to distinguish clearly between inequality of nominal incomes and inequality of living standards. Furthermore, household observations must always be weighted according to family size.     

Couples,Money, and Expectations: Negotiating Financial Management Roles to Increase Relationship Satisfaction

How couples handle money has become a popular subject among scholars, practitioners, and the popular press. However, little is known about how finances should be treated within a clinical context. This study examined the financial management roles in which couples participate and their satisfaction level with these roles as well as couples' communication tactics surrounding money and their impact on relationship and financial satisfaction. Results suggested that having shared goals and values about money were a stronger predictor of relationship satisfaction than were communication strategies. In addition, satisfaction with one's financial management role participation may be more important than self-reported financial management roles each partner performs. In this study, financial management roles included 19 areas, including responsibilities such as bookkeeping, financial decision-making, and taxes.     

Inequality measurement and the time structure of household income in Israel

The aim of this paper is to empirically evaluate the effect of the length of the accounting period on indices of inequality of household income in Israel. There are three main findings: (1) The analysis of the impact of the accounting period on the Gini index of inequality can be done in a way which is identical to analyzing the effect of the accounting period on the coefficient of variation; (2) changing the accounting period from one to three months decreases, on average, the Gini index of inequality by about 1.7%. Furthermore, the Gini index calculated from a three-month accounting period was 3.9%–4.1% higher than the index based on a 12-month period. The change in the accounting period from 12 months to three months accounts for 27% to 37% of the increase in inequality in the last two decades, depending on the type of income considered. (3) The above relationship is stable over the years but is sensitive to the definition of income.     

A New Kuznetsian Dynamic: The Knowledge Economy and Income Inequality in the United States, 1917–2008

The rise of the knowledge economy resulted in higher levels of income inequality in the United States and forced many to question the Kuznets Inverted‐U hypothesis. However, this study argues that the establishment of a knowledge economy does not negate the importance of employment shifts for income inequality. Instead, the expansion of knowledge employment alters the major sectors that are responsible for the overall distribution of income. To this end, this article presents the key argument that the current service–knowledge transition impacts income inequality trends, of today, in a way that is similar to the agricultural–industrial transition, of the past. According to the autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity regressions, the agricultural–industrial transition returns stronger associations with income inequality in the United States before 1950. The agricultural–industrial transition's impact diminishes thereafter as the service–knowledge transition shares a more robust association with income inequality after 1980.     

Inequality and economic growth: Trickle‐down effect revisited

The purpose of this study is to investigate the validity of trickle‐down effect by using unbalanced panel data analysis for 65 countries in the period of 1995–2011. The estimation results point out that an increase in the incomes of the rich raises the incomes of the poor and vice versa. Nevertheless, it can clearly be seen that the contribution of the income transfer of the poor to the rich is more dominant than vice versa. Therefore, the invalidity of trickle‐down effect can be stated for 65 countries.     

Income inequality,poverty and crime across nations

We examine the relationship between income inequality, poverty, and different types of crime. Our results are consistent with recent research in showing that inequality is unrelated to homicide rates when poverty is controlled. In our multi‐level analyses of the International Crime Victimization Survey we find that inequality is unrelated to assault, robbery, burglary, and theft when poverty is controlled. We argue that there are also theoretical reasons to doubt that the level of income inequality of a country affects the likelihood of criminal behaviour.     

Housing Cost Burden and Marital Satisfaction

This study assessed the relationship between housing burden ratios and marital satisfaction. We also examined whether economic pressure might mediate this association and whether housing satisfaction would moderate it. Using existing data from the National Survey of Families and Households (n = 5,109 participants), results suggested that participants' housing burden ratio was negatively associated with marital satisfaction. Among homeowners, having a paid-off home mortgage was positively associated with marital satisfaction. These relationships were fully mediated by feelings of economic pressure. Although housing satisfaction was positively associated with marital satisfaction, it did not mediate the association between participants' housing burden ratio and their reported marital satisfaction.     

Sexual Satisfaction and Relationship Satisfaction in Dating Couples

Abstract

This study assessed the merits of an amended Interpersonal Exchange Model of Sexual Satisfaction (IEMSS; Lawrance & Byers, 1992, 1995) that includes a measure of relationship communality, a construct not adequately captured by existing exchange models of sexual/relationship satisfaction. A total of 189 undergraduates (102 female) in sexually active dating relationships completed measures of sexual satisfaction, relationship satisfaction, favorability of sexual exchanges, and the extent to which their romantic relationships were characterized by mutually communal behaviors (i.e., relationship communality). Analyses revealed that relationship communality made a small but unique contribution to sexual satisfaction and a large contribution to relationship satisfaction, even after controlling for sexual satisfaction and favorability of sexual exchanges. Implications for understanding the dynamics of sexually active dating relationships are discussed.     

Ranking Income Distributions According to Equality of Opportunity

According to the opportunity egalitarian ethics, economic inequalities due to factors beyond the individual responsibility are inequitable and to be compensated by society, whereas inequalities due to personal responsibility are equitable and not to be compensated. In this paper we derive welfare and inequality criteria that respect this principle of justice. We characterize axiomatically classes of opportunity egalitarian social evaluation functions. Then, by requiring unanimous agreement among such classes, we provide simple distributional conditions to rank income distributions. These criteria extend the Lorenz and generalized Lorenz partial orderings, commonly used in the unidimensional case of income distributions, to the current context of equality of opportunity.     

Perceived Freedom and its Sociological Effects: An Inquiry into the Relationship Between Liberalism and Inequality

Abstract:  Individual freedom has been regarded as one of the most important criteria for a desirable society and life. Recently, the theories of liberalism and distributive justice have received increasing attention as a theoretical basis for tackling problems pertaining to socioeconomic inequality and poverty. However, few quantitative analyses focus on the meaning of freedom in the context of socioeconomic inequality and political order in an existing liberal-democratic society. In this paper, I construct a self-rated measure of freedom—the overall perceived freedom scale—and examine (1) whether socioeconomic inequality is related to inequality of freedom, (2) whether freedom is related to subjective well-being, and (3) whether freedom affects people's political attitude toward inequalities. Analyses using data from a 2005 Japanese national survey ( N  = 1320) reveal the following results: (1) people with higher personal income (not household income), higher education, and better health tend to perceive greater freedom, (2) people with higher perceived freedom are more likely to be satisfied with their life, and (3) individuals with higher perceived freedom are more likely to oppose the government's egalitarian policy, and their opposition is based on the liberal principle of freedom and self-responsibility. On the basis of these findings, the double-edged possibility of individual freedom and liberalism as an "enhancer" and "moderator" of socioeconomic inequalities and political conflicts is suggested.     

Testing the Longitudinal Impact of Work Variables and Performance Appraisal Satisfaction on Subsequent Overall Job Satisfaction

Using a longitudinal sample of medicaltechnologists (MTs) this study found, after controllingfor prior overall job satisfaction, individualdifference, and organization-level variables, that taskresponsibilities and employee performance appraisal satisfactionsignificantly affected subsequent overall MT jobsatisfaction. Overall job satisfaction significantlydeclined for repeat-respondents over the 4-year period. Data also suggested that the impact of taskresponsibilities on overall job satisfaction candissipate over time, and that the supervisor's role inaffecting employee job satisfaction is important.Results and limitations are discussed.     

A Diverging Trend in Marital Dissolution by Income Status

Was the divorce plateau of the 1980s experienced by people of all incomes? Using the 2001 and 2004 Survey of Income and Program Participation, this study (N = 13,131) examined if there was a significant income class difference in marital dissolution within 10 years of first marriage and if this difference increased from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. The findings indicated that there was a significant income class difference in marital dissolution and that the difference was growing during the study period. Whereas the dissolution rates of higher income women had gone down, the rates for women with the lowest incomes had significantly increased, especially for Black women after the 1980s, indicating a diverging trend in marital dissolution by income status.     

Income inequality,cultural capital,and high school students' academic achievement in OECD countries: A moderated mediation analysis

This study examines how social context, in this case, income inequality, shapes the role of cultural capital in educational success. First, we revisit the associations between (objectified) cultural capital and academic achievement, and cultural capital's role in mediating the relationship between family SES and academic achievement. More importantly, we explore how national-level income inequality moderates these two relationships. By analyzing a multilevel dataset of 32 OECD countries, a combination of PISA 2018 data and several national indexes, we find that: (1) cultural capital not only has a positive association with students' academic achievement but also acts as a significant mediator of the relationship between family SES and academic achievement in OECD countries; (2) both cultural capital's association with academic achievement and it's mediating role are stronger in more equal countries than in unequal ones. The findings shed new light on understanding how cultural capital shapes intergenerational education inequality across countries with different levels of inequality.     

Income Inequality,Globalization, and the Welfare State: Evidence from 23 Industrial Countries, 1990–2009

The debate regarding the welfare state–weakening effect and the income inequality‐increasing effect of globalization remains a contentious issue among stratification scholars. For some, globalization increases income inequality, while for others, globalization has no, or a negligible, effect on income inequality. This study brings new evidence to bear on this debate by separately investigating effects of multiple indicators of globalization (international trade, foreign direct investment [FDI] and immigration), and of welfare state generosity (government social‐protection spending) on (1) income inequality before taxes and transfers and (2) income inequality after taxes and transfers, using data from 23 Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) countries over 1990–2009. First, results show a positive effect of international trade, a negative effect of immigration, but no effect of FDI and government social‐protection spending on income inequality before taxes and transfers. Second, results show no effect of the globalization indicators but a negative effect of government social‐protection spending on income inequality after taxes and transfers. These findings suggest that (1) globalization has inequality‐increasing effects depending on measures of income inequality; (2) the welfare state, in many OECD countries, continues to shape income distribution; and (3) in contrast with the popular narrative, immigration may decrease income inequality.