Poverty Among Elderly in India

Using consumption expenditure data of the National Sample Survey 2004?C2005, this paper estimates the size of elderly poor and tests the hypotheses that elderly households are not economically better-off compared to non-elderly households in India. Poverty estimates are derived under three scenarios??by applying the official cut-off point of the poverty line to household consumption expenditure (unadjusted), consumption expenditure adjusted to household size and consumption expenditure adjusted to household composition. Results show that an estimated 18?million elderly in India are living below the poverty line. On adjusting the consumption expenditure to household size and composition, there are no significant differences in the incidence of poverty among elderly and non-elderly households in India. This is in contrast to the notion that elderly households are better off than non-elderly households in India. Based on the findings, we suggest that the age dimension should be integrated into social policies for evidence based planning.     

老龄化对储蓄和社会养老保障的影响研究

本文从一个两期的世代交叠模型入手,分析了人口老龄化对储蓄和社会养老保障支出的影响。在此基础上运用动态GMM模型对我国2000～2008年地区面板数据进行实证分析。研究结果表明:第一,人均居民储蓄滞后项对基期储蓄的影响作用较大且高度显著;当期老年人口抚养比对人均居民储蓄的影响为负,上期老年人口抚养比对居民储蓄并没有显著影响。第二,人均养老保障支出滞后项对当期人均养老保障支出影响作用较大且高度显著;当期老年人口抚养比对人均养老保障支出有促进作用,而上期老年人口抚养比抑制了人均养老保障支出的增加。     

Attitude Toward Menopause and Aging: A Study on Postmenopausal Women of West Bengal

We examined the attitude of postmenopausal women toward menopause and aging with respect to sociodemographic variables and postmenopausal years. Four hundred and eighty postmenopausal women representing Bengali-speaking Hindu ethnic group of West Bengal, India were interviewed about their attitude toward menopause and aging. Information on sociodemographic and reproductive characteristics and menopausal symptoms were also collected. The participants were categorized into four groups based on postmenopausal years (Group 1: ≤2; Group 2: >2 to ≤5; Group 3: >5 to ≤8; and Group 4: >8). The attitude did not differ significantly among different groups, but it differed significantly when compared for residential status and per capita monthly household expenditure (pooled groups), for residential and educational status (Groups 3 and 4), and per capita monthly household expenditure (Group 3). Hierarchical linear regression (stepwise) shows per capita monthly expenditure, age at menopause, years after menopause, and menopausal symptoms (irritability and inability to hold urine) significantly predict attitude.     

Food Poverty,Vulnerability, and Food Consumption Inequality Among Smallholder Households in Ghana: A Gender-Based Perspective

We examined gender-based household welfare differences in Ghana among smallholder households. We measured disparities in welfare outcomes (food poverty, vulnerability, and food consumption inequality) across male and female household heads and identified the set of covariates influencing them. The study utilizes a dataset from a farm household survey undertaken in Northern Ghana from October to December 2018. A multistage sampling approach was adopted in selecting 900 farm households. The Oaxaca–Blinder mean and Recentered Inference Function decomposition techniques highlighted the sources of gender differentials in household welfare outcomes. The findings indicate a significant gap in food consumption expenditure per capita and household dietary diversity scores between male- and female- headed households, and these gaps are as high as 28.2% and 18.1%, respectively. However, there are no statistically significant differences in vulnerability to food poverty between male- and female-headed households. The Lorenz curves confirm inequality in gendered households’ food consumption expenditure and dietary diversity scores. This study highlights the existence of systemic female-headed household vulnerability to food poverty in Ghana. This study provides significant evidence of the need for policymakers to address food systems’ structural deficiencies and inequalities with gender in mind.

     

居民消费增长的路径选择——基于省际面板数据的分析

文章利用1991～2009年中国31个省份城镇和农村居民的人口、消费支出和收入的数据,基于居民总消费分解模型,进行省际面板回归估计。实证结果表明,城镇居民消费支出增长对中国居民总消费增长的贡献率最大;农村居民消费支出增长的贡献率位列第二,但呈现出下降的趋势;农村向城镇人口迁移引起的消费支出增长的贡献率位列第三。考虑到城乡收入和消费支出的差异,文章认为,居民总消费增长的路径将主要依赖于城镇居民消费支出增长和农村向城市的人口迁移,并提出通过制度改革增加居民收入、放宽并完善人口迁移政策等建议。     

An Econometric Analysis of the Relationship Between Millennium Development Goals,Economic Growth and Financial Development in South Africa

The relationship between financial development, economic growth and millennium development goals are unsettled in the literature. Using four indicators of financial development, this paper studies the link between the three variables in South Africa. In general, per capita income improves per capita spending on education in the short run. However, total domestic credit to GDP ratio decreases spending on education. There are highly significant long run relationships among the variables. Improving access to private sector credit and increasing per capita incomes are associated with improvement in health outcomes in South Africa. There are no short run nor long run relationships between household spending on clothes, economic growth and financial sector development. Improved private sector credit also improves household spending on food. In general, there are long run relationships between per capita spending on food, per capita income and financial sector development.

     

External Shocks,Household Consumption and Fertility in Indonesia

This paper examines the impact of idiosyncratic income shocks on household consumption, educational expenditure and fertility in Indonesia, and assesses whether the investment in human capital of children and fertility are used to smooth household consumption. Using four different kinds of self-reported economic hardships, our findings indicate that coping mechanisms are rather efficient for Indonesian households that perceive an economic hardship. Only in case of unemployment do we find a significant decrease in consumption spending and educational expenditure while fertility increases. These results indicate that households that perceive an unemployment shock use children as a means for smoothing consumption. Regarding the death of a household member or natural disaster we find that consumption per person even increases. These results are consistent with the argument that coping mechanisms even over-compensate the actual consumption loss due to an economic hardship. One important lesson from our findings is that different types of income shock may lead to different economic and demographic behavioral adjustments and therefore require specific targeted social insurance programs.     

Household dynamics and fuelwood consumption in developing countries: a cross-national analysis

Previous research has suggested a link between household dynamics (i.e., average household size and number of households) and environmental impacts at the national level. Building on this work, we empirically test the relationship between household dynamics and fuelwood consumption, which has been implicated in anthropogenic threats to biodiversity. We focus our analysis on developing countries (where fuelwood is an important energy source). Our results show that nations with smaller average households consume more fuelwood per capita. This finding indicates that the household economies of scale are, indeed, associated with the consumption of fuelwood. In addition, we found that number of households is a better predictor of total fuelwood consumption than average household size suggesting a greater relative contribution to consumption levels. Thus, insofar as declining average household sizes result in increased number of households and higher per capita consumption, this trend may be a signal of serious threats to biodiversity and resource conservation. We also found further support for the ??energy ladder?? hypothesis that economic development reduces demand for traditional fuels.     

Catastrophic household expenditure on caesarean deliveries in India

The objectives of our study were to examine the (1) trends and patterns of caesarean deliveries in India and; (2) differentials in catestrophic household expenditure on caesarean deliveries. The paper used data from 71st round of the National Sample Survey, India. The analysis included 14,310 women, hospitalised for delivery during the last 365 days preceding the survey. The proportion of caesarean sections among institutional deliveries in India was 2.5% in 1992–1993, which increased to 23.9% in 2014. In private facilities, 47.8% deliveries were conducted through caesarean section, while in public facilities, this proportion was 8%. OOPE per delivery was US$157 which was 64.9% of the total cost of maternal health care. OOPE varied by type of delivery; US$283 for caesarean and US$77 for non-caesarean delivery. About 60% of households incurred the expenditure on caesarean section exceeding 40% of their capacity to pay. The incidence of catastrophic delivery expenditure declined with increased education and per-capita expenditure. Caesarean delivery in private facilities and a hospital stay of more than 48 h increased the chances of catastrophic expenditure. Interventions and regulations are necessary for both public and private sector to check unwarranted caesarean deliveries and hospital stays to reduce catastrophic expenditure.

     

Chronic and Transient Poverty and Vulnerability to Poverty in the Philippines: Evidence Using a Simple Spells Approach

This paper uses panel data and two welfare indicators, namely per capita expenditure and per capita food expenditure, to determine the frequency that the households enter poverty and food poverty in the Philippines. Unlike other studies, this paper attributes similar factors to explain transient and chronic poverty but finds that these factors are more pronounced for the chronic case. Significant factors that contribute to both chronic and transient poverty and food poverty are the household heads’ low educational level, affiliation in economically unstable and risky occupations such as those in the agriculture, fishery and resource sectors and those who are unskilled laborers, the lack of health insurance and high dependency burden. The paper also finds that that vulnerability to poverty and food poverty in the Philippines is high especially in the rural districts and areas with armed conflict. Households that experience higher earnings, new job, abundant harvest, better health or receipt of remittance/inheritance are less likely to be chronically poor. Shocks related to labor market affect both transient and chronic food poverty while natural calamities or health deterioration of any household member increase the probability of the household falling into chronic food poverty. Policy suggestions to address both types of poverty are provided.     

中老年家庭灾难性医疗支出的测度及影响因素 ——基于CHARLS数据的实证

基于2011-2015年三期平衡面板数据,对中老年家庭的灾难性医疗支出进行测度并分析其影响因素。研究发现:我国中老年家庭灾难性医疗支出发生率在考察期内进一步扩大,差距也进一步上升。以家庭可支付能力的40%为灾难性医疗支出的界定标准,则在2015年其发生率依然高达25.4%,平均差距为0.069,相对差距为0.272。引入安德森医疗服务利用模型对影响因素进行分析,结果显示家中有住院、门诊及残障人员更容易发生灾难性医疗支出,经济状况对灾难性性医疗支出发生起着显著作用,总体而言灾难性医疗支出具有"亲贫"效应,越是贫困的家庭越容易发生灾难性医疗支出。据此,文章提出应该采取分类管理的措施,通过发放免费医疗服务券、强化医疗费用控制等政策建议来切实降低灾难性医疗支出的发生。     

Assessing Asset Indices

The use of asset indices in welfare analysis and poverty targeting is increasing, especially in cases in which data on expenditures are unavailable or hard to collect. We compare alternative approaches to welfare measurement. Our analysis shows that inferences about inequalities in education, health care use, fertility, and child mortality, as well as labor market outcomes, are quite robust to the economic status measure used. Different measures—most significantly per capita expenditures versus the class of asset indices—do not, however, yield identical household rankings. Two factors stand out in predicting the degree of congruence in rankings. First is the extent to which expenditures can be explained by observed household and community characteristics. Rankings are most similar in settings with small transitory shocks to expenditure or with little random measurement error in expenditure. Second is the extent to which expenditures are dominated by individually consumed goods, such as food. Asset indices are typically derived from indicators of goods that are effectively public at the household level, while expenditures are often dominated by food, an almost exclusively private good. In settings in which individually consumed goods are the main component of expenditures, asset indices and per capita consumption yield the least similar results.     

The National Work–Life Balance Index©: The European Case

More than 5 years since the outbreak of the global financial crisis, a flurry of evidence is emerging on the effects of the ensuing economic downturn on unemployment and poverty rates in rich countries, but less is known about cross-country differences in subjective assessments of the crisis and whether adults in households with children were affected to a greater extent. This paper investigates differences in the perceived impact of the economic crisis between adults in households with and without children in 17 European countries, using data from the Life in Transition Survey 2010 in a multilevel modelling framework. It also explores differences in the coping strategies that households adopted to deal with the decline in income or economic activity. Everything else being equal, perceptions of the crisis were more widespread in countries with higher rates of child poverty, lower economic growth and lower GDP per capita. Across countries, perceptions of the crisis closely trailed subjective indicators of financial difficulties from other international surveys conducted in 2010. Adults in households with children were more likely to report an impact of the crisis, with larger differences in countries with higher rates of monetary child poverty. Adults in households with children also adopted a greater variety of coping strategies than the rest, prioritizing expenditure on basic necessities, while cutting back on luxuries and holidays. Nevertheless, many still reported reduced consumption of staple foods as a result of economic difficulties.     

Living Arrangements and the Elderly: An Analysis of Old-Age Mortality by Household Structure in Casalguidi, 1819–1859

The elevated levels of protection, assistance, and care enjoyed by the elderly living in complex households has long been a key assumption of many family system theories. However, although this hypothesis has been demonstrated for contemporary contexts, quantitative evidence for past populations is particularly scarce, if not nonexistent. This article investigates the relationship between old-age mortality and living arrangements in a mid–nineteenth century Tuscan population, where the joint family system of sharecroppers coexisted alongside the nuclear system of day laborers. Our findings demonstrate that within complex households, the complexity of relationships, gender inequalities, and possible competition for care and resources among the most vulnerable household members—namely, the elderly and the young—weakens the assumption that the elderly benefitted from lower rates of old-age mortality.     

家庭教育支出决定因素分析--来自中国城镇住户调查数据的经验证据

利用北京、辽宁、浙江、广东、四川与陕西2002年和2009年的城镇住户调查数据对家庭教育支出行为的决定因素和家庭教育支出的影响机制进行了实证检验与扩展分析。结论表明；（1）2002年家庭教育总支出的收入弹性大于2009年的家庭教育总支出收入弹性，且2002年的收入弹性大于1；家庭教育支出行为与户主年龄呈现显著的“U”型关系，且女孩比男孩获得更多的家庭教育资源；（2）各分项教育支出中，培训费支出受家庭可支配收入的影响最大；（3）城市人口规模与家庭教育支出之间呈现正相关关系；（4）总体而言，妻子对家庭教育支出的影响显著大于丈夫的影响，这主要体现在受教育年限方面。     

Seasonal migration of rural labor in India

The impact of seasonal migration has been overlooked by students of migration. A unique data set collected in Dungarpur – one of the less developed districts of India – allows us to closely examine both the determinants and impact of seasonal migration. Detailed information was gathered from all members of 624 households, thus enabling analyses at both individual and household levels. The findings indicate that seasonal migration among rural laborers is wide-spread. Rural households in India use migrant labor offered by their members to improve their well-being by both reducing the impacts of inferior conditions and by raising household's income levels. Migrant labor is a compensating mechanism used by households to reduce their disadvantageous position. Migrant households are characterized by lower education levels, lower levels of income from agriculture, and by an inferior geographical location. However, those households sending migrant labor are found to have higher income levels than those not sending migrant labor. Income from migrant labor accounts for almost 60% of total annual income of households sending at least one migrant laborer. Such findings are in accordance with explanations derived from the `new economics of migration'. We can thus learn that migration-related decisions should not evaluated only on the basis of utility maximization of individual migrants, but also on the basis of risk reducing by households.     

中国老年人储蓄对家庭消费的影响 ——基于CHARLS面板数据的分析

在我国快速老龄化和居民储蓄率居高不下的背景下,结合老年人储蓄偏好和消费特点,构建家庭消费计量分析模型,文章利用CHARLS2011、2013、2015年微观跟踪调查数据,采用工具变量—随机效应模型划分年龄层次和消费类别逐级估计,重点考察老年人储蓄对其家庭消费的影响。研究表明,老年人储蓄水平越高,对家庭消费的促进能力就越强;分城乡来看,农村老年人储蓄对家庭消费的贡献更大;按年龄组别来看,中、低龄老年人储蓄对家庭消费的影响显著,高龄老年人储蓄对家庭消费的影响不显著;按消费类别看,老年人储蓄偏重于家庭基本生活、教育文化、健康等刚性消费支出,城镇和农村老年人储蓄对不同消费类别影响的差异主要表现在日常支出、医疗保健和耐用消费品等方面。此外,研究还发现,老年人拥有房产对家庭消费具有非常明显的提振作用,家庭收入和老年人借贷对家庭消费的贡献显著。     

Demographic Dynamics and Per Capita Environmental Impact: Using Panel Regressions and Household Decompositions to Examine Population and Transport

This paper examines how demographic changes can help explain changes/differences in personal transport using both International Energy Agency country panel regressions and decompositions of U.S. household data. An environmental Kuznets curve for per capita road energy use was rejected; instead, the relationship between income and road energy was found to be monotonic. The ideas that more densely populated countries have less personal transport demands, the young drive more, and smaller households mean higher per capita driving were confirmed. The household decompositions indicated that changes in demand were more important than compositional changes; yet, during some periods the compositional change component was considerable.     

Racial differences in per capita income, 1960–76: The importance of household size,headship, and labor force participation

Racial differences in average per capita income are decomposed, as are changes over time for both races. The 1960–76 decline in household size accounted for 13 percent of the per capita income inprovement of both races. Whereas real increases in earnings of husbands contributed most to improvements in well-being in husband-wife households, increases in income from sources other than earnings were most important to female headed households. During a period in which a growing proportion of both races resided in female headed households and racial differences in living arrangements widened, the per capita income of female headed households relative to husband-wife households declined.     

India's National Family Health Survey provides new information on maternal and child health and AIDS awareness

Teams surveyed a sample of 88,562 households, drawn from 99% of the population of India in 24 states plus the National Capital Territory of Delhi, between April 1992 and September 1993 to collect a basic set of information on all 500,492 household members, with more details on the 89,777 women in the households who had ever been married and were aged 13-49 years. This National Family Health Survey (NFHS) collected information from the women on a range of health topics including child immunization, women's knowledge of AIDS, services and facilities use during pregnancy and childbirth, infant feeding and treatment for diarrhea, and infant, child, and maternal mortality. Levels of infant and child mortality declined in India, but 8% of all children still die before their first birthday and 11% die before reaching age 5. As for maternal mortality, there are an estimated 420 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births annually. That rate implies that at least 100,000 Indian women die each year due to causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. Survey results indicate the need to strengthen vaccination programs and teach women about proper infant feeding practices. They also highlight the need to increase antenatal care and other medical services. In all of these areas, the NFHS results indicate wide variation among India's regions and states. Furthermore, a general lack of AIDS awareness suggests that the government's AIDS awareness campaign, relying primarily upon electronic media, has not yet reached the majority of India's population.