Inequality in Life Spans and a New Perspective on Mortality Convergence Across Industrialized Countries

The second half of the twentieth century witnessed substantial convergence in life expectancy around the world. We examine differences in the age pattern of mortality in industrialized countries over time to show that inequality in adult life spans, which we measure with the standard deviation of life table ages at death above age 10 years, S₁₀, is increasingly responsible for the remaining divergence in mortality. We report striking differences in level and trend of S₁₀ across industrialized countries since 1960, which cannot be explained by aggregate socioeconomic inequality or differential external‐cause mortality. Rather, S₁₀ reflects both within‐ and between‐group inequalities in life spans and conveys new information about their combined magnitudes and trends. These findings suggest that the challenge for health policies in this century is to reduce inequality, not just lengthen life.     

Partisan Conflict and Income Inequality in the United States: A Nonparametric Causality-in-Quantiles Approach

Social Indicators Research - This paper examines the predictive power of a partisan conflict on income inequality. Our study contributes to the existing literature by using the newly introduced...     

Convergence of Health Care Expenditures Across the US States: A Reconsideration

Current evidence on the convergence of health care expenditures across the US states into a single convergence club is non-existent. Against this backdrop, we use a modified panel unit root test that accounts for smooth structural changes, spanning the period of 1966–2009. The results illustrate that the ratio of the individual health care expenditures relative to the cross-sectional average is broken trend-stationary, not only in the aggregate panel, but also across all 50 US states. The findings also document that the evidence of convergence is possibly due to the convergence of personal disposable income across the US states.     

Income Inequality and Persistence Changes

Social Indicators Research - This paper carries out a time series analysis of the Gini coefficient for disposable income in a sample that includes both advanced and emerging economies. Our results...     

中国农村收入、收入差距和健康

本文利用2004年和2006年中国9个省份的家庭调查面板数据,研究收入、相对收入和农村居民健康之间的关系。发现健康状况随着个人收入的增加而改善,呈现出明显的非线性关系;收入差距对健康的滞后影响,呈现倒U型关系。此外,当基尼系数在0.387以下时,农村居民健康水平将会随着基尼系数的扩大而改善,当收入差距进一步扩大时,健康水平将受到损害。而数据显示68%的农村居民在倒U右侧,健康正受到扩大的收入差距侵蚀。     

Income and Well-being Across European Provinces

The majority of studies investigate the effect of income on life satisfaction at either individual or country level. This study contributes with analysis at the (sub-national) province level across West European countries. I use a unique dataset Eurobarometer 44.2 Bis that is representative of province populations in a multilevel model. Provinces are defined according to The Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics at second level (NUTS II). Living conditions measured by regional income increase life satisfaction beyond personal income and national income. There is larger life satisfaction inequality between the rich and the poor in poor provinces than in rich provinces. Personal income matters more for life satisfaction in poor provinces than in rich provinces.     

Educational Assortative Mating and Income Inequality in Denmark

Many writers have expressed a concern that growing educational assortative mating will lead to greater inequality between households in their earnings or income. In this article, we examine the relationship between educational assortative mating and income inequality in Denmark between 1987 and 2006. Denmark is widely known for its low level of income inequality, but the Danish case provides a good test of the relationship between educational assortative mating and inequality because although income inequality increased over the period we consider, educational homogamy declined. Using register data on the exact incomes of the whole population, we find that change in assortative mating increased income inequality but that these changes were driven by changes in the educational distributions of men and women rather than in the propensity for people to choose a partner with a given level of education.     

中国的失业、贫困与收入分配差距

文章利用1999年住户抽样调查和2000年人口普查数据来推算城市失业率、贫困率及基尼系数,并预测今后收入分配的变化趋势。研究结果发现:(1)城市失业率较政府公布值高出近3倍,特别是“下岗失业”问题尤为突出。(2)城市贫困问题日益严重,并已成为加剧城市收入不平等的原因之一。(3)城市与农村间的收入差距不但没有缩小,反而在持续扩大。(4)居民的收入分配在持续恶化。文章还指出,依据库兹涅茨曲线分析,中国尚处于基尼系数上升时期,因而在达到峰值之前收入差距还会扩大,这有可能成为社会和政治不安定的因素。     

Income Inequality in Latin America: Data Challenges and Availability

This article discusses the main challenges faced by nowadays researchers when measuring income inequality in Latin America. The discussion is articulated around the two main approaches to summarize the distributional problem: factor and personal inequality. The article underlines the difficulties, mainly imposed by data availability for inequality measurement under both of them. The article proposes specific lines to advance in the improvement of data quality and availability for inequality measurement (and understanding) in the region.     

Multidimensional Racial Inequality in the United States

This paper measures racial inequalities in the US using a multidimensional ‘wellbeing’ approach that simultaneously considers the distributions of income, health and education. The primary objective is to examine trends in US wellbeing inequality with an emphasis on changes in racial composition. Data is taken from 1990 to 2007 and we observe increases in income inequality, a decline in education inequality and unchanged health inequality over the period. Taken together, these results show a slight increase in the dispersion in multidimensional wellbeing. Stratifying by racial groups shows that this increase is due to widening intra-racial inequalities while inter-racial differences remained unchanged. The method is also used to evaluate wellbeing across groups and we estimate black wellbeing to average around 76 % of whites, while persons from other races average approximately 93 %. Some other changes in composition occur through time and the results are shown to be robust to a number of changes in parametric weightings.     

我国城乡居民收入差距的影响因素分析

本文对我国城乡居民收入差距的主要解释变量作了定量研究,认为农业与二、三产业比较劳动生产率的不断扩大是造成城乡收入差距不断扩大的最重要原因,农村居民与城市居民人力资本的差距拉大是根本的原因,过去若干年来所推进的就业结构转变和城市化,客观上起到了拉大城乡收入差距的作用,而政府财政支出对城乡差距的扩大起到了一定的遏制效果。本文对这种现象进行了理论解释,提出了政府在城乡政策制定上应注意把握的问题。     

农民工汇款与家庭收入不平等:基于反事实收入的分析

本文利用来自于农村劳动力输出大省湖北省的调研数据来考察农民工汇款对输出地家庭收入不平等的影响。研究结果表明,当我们简单将农民工汇款看成外生的转移收入时,农民工汇款能改善农村家庭的收入不平等状况。不过,当考虑到农村劳动力外出务工的选择性,并通过引入工具变量来构建那些外出劳动力户的反事实收入时,我们会得到相反的结论:由于那些外出务工劳动力往往来自于经济状况较好的家庭,农民工汇款扩大了农村家庭的收入不平等状况,家庭人均收入的基尼系数从反事实收入情形下的0.3551上升至实际收入情形下的0.3774。     

中国城镇家庭户收入和财产不平等:1995～2002

利用中国家庭户收入调查收集的1995年和2002年城镇家庭户样本数据,以家庭户作为分析单位,对中国城镇收入和财产不平等进行了考察。数据分析结果表明:中国城镇家庭户收入的大多数不平等测量指标在1995～2002年7年间都存在一个显著的大幅度上升,但家庭户财产不平等在此期间呈现出略有下降的趋势;基于人口分组的分解反映出,区域、户主受教育程度和户主中共党员身份对总的家庭收入和财产不平等具有更大的贡献;总体上,对于1995～2002年的中国城镇而言,分类机制在左右家庭户资源不平等变动中扮演着更为重要的角色。     

Wealth Inequality Among Immigrants: Consistent Racial/Ethnic Inequality in the United States

Wealth is a strong indicator of immigrant integration in U.S. society. Drawing on new assimilation theory, we highlight the importance of racial/ethnic group boundaries and propose different paths of wealth integration among U.S. immigrants. Using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation and quantile regression, we show that race/ethnicity shapes immigrant wealth inequality across the entire distribution of net worth, along with immigrants’ U.S. experience, such as immigrant status, U.S. education, English language proficiency, and time spent in the United States. Our results document consistent racial/ethnic inequality among immigrants, also evidenced among the U.S. born, revealing that even when accounting for key aspects of U.S. experience, wealth inequality with whites for Latino and black immigrants is strong.     

Education Expansion, Educational Inequality, and Income Inequality: Evidence from Taiwan, 1976–2003

The expansion of higher education in Taiwan starting from the late 1980s has successfully raised the average level of education. Using the concept of the education Gini, we find that the educational inequality declined as average schooling rose during the period of 1976–2003. The impacts of a rising average schooling and a declining educational inequality are also tested empirically in this paper. The evidence supports that a higher level of average schooling will generate a lower income inequality. On the other hand, a lower educational inequality, as measured by education Gini coefficient, will also cause a lower income inequality. Skill-biased technological change that shifts the labor demand from unskilled workers toward skilled workers is the most likely cause for the rising income inequality in Taiwan. However, the trend of rising income inequality could be reversed due to possible future over-education and unemployment in the labor market.     

Satisfaction with Job and Income Among Older Individuals Across European Countries

Using data on individuals of age 50 and older from 11 European countries, we analyze two economic aspects of subjective well-being of older Europeans: satisfaction with household income, and job satisfaction. Both have been shown to contribute substantially to overall well-being (satisfaction with life or happiness). We use anchoring vignettes to correct for potential differences in response scales across countries. The results highlight a large variation in self-reported income satisfaction, which is partly explained by differences in response scales. When differences in response scales are eliminated, the cross-country differences are quite well in line with differences in an objective measure of purchasing power of household income. There are common features in the response scale differences in job satisfaction and income satisfaction. French respondents tend to be critical in both assessments, while Danish and Dutch respondents are always on the optimistic end of the spectrum. Moreover, correcting for response scale differences decreases the cross-country association between satisfaction with income and job satisfaction among workers.     

Antipoverty Effects of Various Social Transfers and Income Taxes Across Countries

Social Indicators Research - Most welfare states design their tax/benefit-system to combat income poverty. This paper analyzes the effectiveness of social transfers and income taxes in alleviating...