Need,well‐being and outcomes: the development of policy‐thinking for children's services 1989–2004

This paper describes how government policy thinking about the well‐being of children and young people developed between the Children Act 1989 and the Children Act 2004. These two Acts are milestone statements about how services to children in England and Wales should be delivered. It is an account informed by the author's own experience as a government adviser on children's social care over much of this period and supporting documentation. It traces the strands of government policy thinking about how to deliver services for children from children in need to the articulation of the five Every Child Matters outcomes. It argues that attempts to achieve coordinated service planning for children and young people played a significant role in the formulation of shared objectives and the articulation of child outcomes. However, it argues that looking at real outcomes exposes how children in the UK do relatively badly compared with other rich nations. It questions whether we can realistically expect our services to deliver significantly improved outcomes given the impact of enduring inequality in our society. This paper is dedicated to the memory of David Lambert CBE, former Assistant Chief Inspector of the Social Services Inspectorate in London, who died suddenly on 7 October 2010. He lent me articles to assist me in writing this paper.     

Health Risk,Inequality Indexes,and Environmental Justice

Inequality indexes have long been used to analyze distributions of income. Studies have recently begun to use these tools to evaluate the equity of distributions of environmental harm. In response, issues have been raised regarding the appropriateness of using income-based measures in the context of undesirable outcomes. We begin from first principles, identifying a theoretical preference structure under which income-based tools can be appropriate for ranking distributions of “bads.” While some critiques of existing applications are valid, they are not a justification for rejecting the approach altogether. Instead, we show how standard income-based measures can be adjusted to accommodate bad outcomes. Rather than inequality indexes, we argue that equally distributed equivalents (EDEs) are well-suited for this purpose since they account for levels and dispersion of outcome distributions. The Kolm–Pollak EDE is particularly useful, having the advantage of consistently evaluating both bads and their complementary goods (e.g., mortality risk and survival probability). As an illustration, we show how these tools can inform an environmental justice analysis of a proposed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule addressing indoor air pollution.     

如何从生命周期理解我国的收入不平等

文章从生命周期的角度入手,以期为理解收入不平等提供一个不同的视角.基尼系数本质上衡量的是结果的不平等,收入所得税等政府政策也侧重对结果不平等的调整,但收入结果的不平等起源于机会的不平等,强化于过程的不平等,最终才表现为结果的不平等.机会不平等、过程不平等和结果不平等对应不同的生命周期阶段,需要不同的政策措施.对于机会不平等,政府应着眼于消除户籍制度等对不同人群的制度性歧视,减少我国区域发展水平的差距;推动幼儿和青少年教育与医疗服务的均等化,为他们创造一个公平的养教环境.对于过程不平等,一个重要的方面是建立对各种所有制员工和不同雇佣关系职工都公平的城乡统一的市场环境,消除劳动力市场中同工不同酬等歧视现象,尤其是取消国家制度和政策造成的劳动力市场分割.对于结果不平等,要兼顾公平和效率,在现有个人所得税、最低生活保障制度等基础上,逐步建立城乡统一、公平公正的收入调节和社会保障体系.     

Oracle Inequalities for Convex Loss Functions with Nonlinear Targets

This article considers penalized empirical loss minimization of convex loss functions with unknown target functions. Using the elastic net penalty, of which the Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (Lasso) is a special case, we establish a finite sample oracle inequality which bounds the loss of our estimator from above with high probability. If the unknown target is linear, this inequality also provides an upper bound of the estimation error of the estimated parameter vector. Next, we use the non-asymptotic results to show that the excess loss of our estimator is asymptotically of the same order as that of the oracle. If the target is linear, we give sufficient conditions for consistency of the estimated parameter vector. We briefly discuss how a thresholded version of our estimator can be used to perform consistent variable selection. We give two examples of loss functions covered by our framework.     

中国快递业发展的区域不平衡性测度研究

选取大陆31个省份2007—2014年样本数据,分别测算三区域、八区域分组下快递业发展的不平衡性及极化趋势。研究结果表明:中国快递业发展存在较强的区域不平衡性,且这种不平衡性还呈现不断加大趋势;东中西快递业发展不平衡性明显,总体呈现东部强中西部弱的特点,基尼系数分解结果显示,东中西组间差异为不平衡性贡献了70%以上的份额,同时东部和西部地区内部也存在相当程度的不平衡性;八区域不平衡性也非常明显,总体呈现沿海强内陆弱、东强西弱、南强北弱的基本格局,组间差异贡献了88%左右的份额,就区域内而言,南部沿海和西北地区不平衡性较强,东部沿海、长江中游及东北地区则较为平衡;三区域及八区域分组下快递业不平衡发展均呈现出不断增强的极化趋势。     

中国儿童基本机会多维不平等的综合测度研究

遵循国际规范,基于世界银行用于测度单一机会不平等的人类机会指数(Human Opportunity Index,HOI),借鉴最新的综合测度方法和多维机会指数(Multidimensional Human Opportunity Index,MHOI),首次对中国儿童的教育、医疗保险、安全饮水、卫生设施及家庭用电5种基本机会不平等进行综合测度。实证结果显示,2011年,中国7¹2岁儿童最少享有2种基本机会,所有基本机会全部享有的儿童不到60%。在所考虑的基本机会中,儿童卫生设施的覆盖率、公平性和HOI是最低的,其次是安全饮水;卫生设施和安全饮水的HOI表现出较大的地区和城乡差异。从而导致MHOI较大的地区和城乡差异;动态分析结果表明,近10多年来,中国儿童各种基本机会的覆盖率和公平性都得到了持续的改善,但各基本机会的HOI和MHOI仍存在较大的改善空间。这些量化结论具有一定的政策指导意义。     

我国区域不均等:分解方法与实证分析

在对区域不均等度量指标及分解方法进行归纳性阐释的基础上,运用泰尔指数分析了我国自20世纪80年代中后期以来的区域不均等,并对我国区域差异中的城乡收入差距,东中西部农村地区的收入差距进行了分解。结果表明,在总的不均等中约70-80%的不均等来自城乡之间,只有20%-30%是由城市和农村内部引起的。东中西之间的不均等对总不均等的贡献大约只有20-30%,剩下的70-80%则归因于东中西各自内部不同省份之间的差距。     

Cultural capital or relative risk aversion? Two mechanisms for educational inequality compared1

In this paper we empirically examined two explanatory mechanisms for educational inequality: cultural reproduction and relative risk aversion, using survey data taken from secondary school pupils in Amsterdam. Cultural reproduction theory seeks to explain class variations in schooling by cultural differences between social classes. Relative risk aversion theory argues that educational inequalities can be understood by between-class variation in the necessity of pursuing education at branching points in order to avoid downward mobility. We showed that class variations in early demonstrated ability are for a substantial part cultural: cultural capital - measured by parental involvement in highbrow culture - affected school performance at the primary and secondary level. However, relative risk aversion - operationalized by being concerned with downward mobility - strongly affects schooling ambitions, whereas cultural capital had no effect. Thus, we conclude that 'primary effects' of social origin on schooling outcomes are manifested through cultural capital and not through relative risk aversion (in addition to other potential sources of class variations such as genetics). Relative risk aversion, and not cultural capital, affects schooling ambitions, which is relevant for our understanding of secondary effects.     

Driven by Inequalities: Exploring the Resurgence of Domestic Work in U.S. Cities

Domestic work, once the most common occupation for women around the globe, was thought to be well on its way to extinction at the end of the twentieth century. However, in the 1980s and 1990s, evidence began to appear that domestic work was in many places again becoming a growth occupation. My goal in this article is to examine the factors related to the recent expansion of domestic work in countries in the Global North, using the United States as a case study. I draw on U.S. Census data to document the resurgence of domestic work both nationally and in many large cities across the country, and then use multivariate analysis to compare rates of domestic work across these cities. The results indicate that rates of domestic work are highly related to variables measuring structural inequalities (racialization of the labor force, immigration, and economic polarization), while showing little relationship with variables measuring unmet care needs (care dependency ratios, female/maternal labor force participation, and availability of institutional care options). These findings underline the urgency of providing protections to domestic workers and point to the need for scholarship that better theorizes the relationships among unpaid care and different forms of paid care.     

Will You Die for Your Country? Workplace Death in an Era of Mass Incarceration

People with criminal records in the United States continue to face limited employment opportunities due to social stigma and legal barriers. In contrast to the civilian sector, the military conducts a “whole person” evaluation to screen potential recruits and regularly hires people with felony and misdemeanor records. Moreover, evidence suggests that the military serves as a socially integrative institution and may facilitate desistance from future crimes. However, critics argue that the military exacerbates inequalities by subjecting marginalized communities to the unequal burden of service. Using the data obtained from the Army, we examine the relative risks of combat exposure and casualties between enlisted soldiers with and without criminal records who joined between 2002 and 2009. The results suggest that soldiers with felony and misdemeanor records are more likely to be assigned to combat occupations than those without criminal records. We also find that among soldiers assigned to positions with low combat exposure, ex-offenders face a higher risk of death compared to those without criminal records. Findings do not dispute the idea that the military facilitates desistance from future crimes and provides second chances to people with criminal records, but reaffirm the fact that military service costs lives and limbs.