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Our aim in this paper is to resolve a paradox. Since the 1970s, there has been a downward secular trend in the average real and relative earnings of young adults under the age of 35. Despite the fact that most young children live in households headed by adults under 35, there has been no corresponding secular rise in the incidence of low income among children. Rather child poverty has followed the usual fluctuations of the business cycle. We show that the relative stability in child poverty rates in the face of declining labour market earnings is a result of two factors. First, the decline in market income in young households with children has been offset by rising transfers. Since the 1970s, social transfers have replaced earnings as the main source of income among low income families with children. Second, changes in the fertility behaviour and labour market characteristics of young adults have sharply reduced the risk of young children growing up in low income households. Today's young parents are better educated, working more hours, having fewer children, and postponing childbirth until later ages when earnings are higher. Although more children do find themselves in single parent families, this change has been swamped by other changes in family patterns and labour market behaviour that have reduced the risk of child poverty. Thus, the upward pressure on low income among children stemming from the labour market has been offset by social transfers, on the one hand, and by changes in family formation and the labour market behaviour of young adults, on the other. Except for cyclical variations, the result has been relative stability in the incidence of low income among children over the 1980s and early 1990s. Whether these offsetting patterns will continue in the last half of the 1990s remains to be seen.
The strengths and abilities children develop from infancy through adolescence are crucial for their physical, emotional, and cognitive growth, which in turn help them to achieve success in school and to become responsible, economically self-sufficient, and healthy adults. Capable, responsible, and healthy adults are clearly the foundation of a well-functioning and prosperous society, yet America's future is not as secure as it could be because millions of American children live in families with incomes below the poverty line. A wealth of evidence suggests that a lack of adequate economic resources for families with children compromises these children's ability to grow and achieve adult success, hurting them and the broader society. A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty reviews the research on linkages between child poverty and child well-being, and analyzes the poverty-reducing effects of major assistance programs directed at children and families. This report also provides policy and program recommendations for reducing the number of children living in poverty in the United States by half within 10 years.
Our aim in this paper is to resolve a paradox. Since the 1970s, there has been a downward secular trend in the average real and relative earnings of young adults under the age of 35. Despite the fact that most young children live in households headed by adults under 35, there has been no corresponding secular rise in the incidence of low income among children. Rather child poverty has followed the usual fluctuations of the business cycle. We show that the relative stability in child poverty rates in the face of declining labor market earnings is a result of two factors. First, the decline in market income in young households with children has been offset by rising transfers. Since the 1970s, social transfers have replaced earnings as the main source of income among low income families with children. Second, changes in the fertility behavior and labor market characteristics of young adults have sharply reduced the risk of young children growing up in low income households. Today's young parents are better educated, working more hours, having fewer children, and postponing child-birth until later ages when earnings are higher. Although more children do find themselves in single parent families, this change has been swamped by other changes in family patterns and labor market behavior that have reduced the risk of child poverty. Thus, the upward pressure on low income among children stemming from the labor market has been offset by social transfers, on the one hand, and by changes in family formation and the labor market behavior of young adults, on the other. Except for cyclical variations, the result has been relative stability in the incidence of low income among children over the 1980s and early 1990s. Whether these offsetting patterns will continue in the last half of the 1990s remains to be seen.
Evidence indicates that actions within four main themes (early child development fair employment and decent work social protection and the living environment) are likely to have the greatest impact on the social determinants of health and health inequities. A systematic search and analysis of recommendations and policy guidelines from intergovernmental organizations and international bodies identified practical policy options for action on social determinants within these four themes. Policy options focused on early childhood education and care; child poverty; investment strategies for an inclusive economy; active labour market programmes; working conditions; social cash transfers; affordable housing; and planning and regulatory mechanisms to improve air quality and mitigate climate change. Applying combinations of these policy options alongside effective governance for health equity should enable WHO European Region Member States to reduce health inequities and synergize efforts to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Social Differentiation examines the economic, political, and normatively defined relations that underlie the construction of social categories. Social differentiation, embedded in inequalities of power, status, wealth, and prestige, affects life chances of individuals as well as the allocation of resources and opportunities. Starting with a theoretical framework that challenges many traditional analyses, the contributors focus on four specific strands of social differentiation: gender, age, race/ethnicity, and locality. They explore the historically specific social practices, policies, and ideologies that produce distinct forms of inequality, in turn revealing and explaining such issues as the formation and maintenance of a gendered order; the privileging of prime-age workers; the penalties incurred by visible minorities in the labour market; the highly disadvantaged position of Aboriginals; and the economic decline of agriculture, resource, and fishing dependent regions. By paying special attention to political processes, norms, and representations, and by indicating how social policies shape economic functioning and relate to normative definitions, this book will interest policy-oriented researchers and decision-makers.
This paper presents a semiparametric procedure to analyze the effects of institutional and labor market factors on recent changes in the U.S. distribution of wages. The effects of these factors are estimated by applying kernel density methods to appropriately 'reweighted' samples. The procedure provides a visually clear representation of where in the density of wages these various factors exert the greatest impact. Using data from the Current Population Survey, we find, as in previous research, that de-unionization and supply and demand shocks were important factors in explaining the rise in wage inequality from 1979 to 1988. We find also compelling visual and quantitative evidence that the decline in the real value of the minimum wage explains a substantial proportion of this increase in wage inequality, particularly for women. We conclude that labor market institutions are as important as supply and demand considerations in explaining changes in the U.S. distribution of wages from 1979 to 1988.
In 1999, one in four British children lived in poverty—the third highest child poverty rate among industrialized countries. Five years later, the child poverty rate in Britain had fallen by more than half in absolute terms. How did the British government accomplish this and what can the United States learn from the British experience? Jane Waldfogel offers a sharp analysis of the New Labour government's anti-poverty agenda, its dramatic early success and eventual stalled progress. Comparing Britain's anti-poverty initiative to U.S. welfare reform, the book shows how the policies of both countries have affected child poverty, living standards, and well-being in low-income families and suggests next steps for future reforms. Britain's War on Poverty evaluates the three-pronged anti-poverty strategy employed by the British government and what these efforts accomplished. British reforms sought to promote work and make work pay, to increase financial support for families with children, and to invest in the health, early-life development, and education of children. The latter two features set the British reforms apart from the work-oriented U.S. welfare reforms, which did not specifically target income or program supports for children. Plagued by premature initiatives and what some experts called an overly ambitious agenda, the British reforms fell short of their intended goal but nevertheless significantly increased single-parent employment, raised incomes for low-income families, and improved child outcomes. Poverty has fallen, and the pattern of low-income family expenditures on child enrichment and healthy food has begun to converge with higher-income families. As Waldfogel sees it, further success in reducing child poverty in Britain will rely on understanding who is poor and who is at highest risk. More than half of poor children live in families where at least one parent is working, followed by unemployed single- and two-parent homes, respectively. Poverty rates are also notably higher for children with disabled parents, large families, and for Pakistani and Bangladeshi children. Based on these demographics, Waldfogel argues that future reforms must, among other goals, raise working-family incomes, provide more work for single parents, and better engage high-risk racial and ethnic minority groups. What can the United States learn from the British example? Britain's War on Poverty is a primer in the triumphs and pitfalls of protracted policy. Notable differences distinguish the British and U.S. models, but Waldfogel asserts that a future U.S. poverty agenda must specifically address child poverty and the income inequality that helps create it. By any measurement and despite obstacles, Britain has significantly reduced child poverty. The book's key lesson is that it can be done.
Poverty declined significantly in the decade after Lyndon Johnson's 1964 declaration of "War on Poverty." Dramatically increased federal funding for education and training programs, social security benefits, other income support programs, and a growing economy reduced poverty and raised expectations that income poverty could be eliminated within a generation. Yet the official poverty rate has never fallen below its 1973 level and remains higher than the rates in many other advanced economies. In this book, editors Maria Cancian and Sheldon Danziger and leading poverty researchers assess why the War on Poverty was not won and analyze the most promising strategies to reduce poverty in the twenty-first century economy. Changing Poverty, Changing Policies documents how economic, social, demographic, and public policy changes since the early 1970s have altered who is poor and where antipoverty initiatives have kept pace or fallen behind. Part I shows that little progress has been made in reducing poverty, except among the elderly, in the last three decades. The chapters examine how changing labor market opportunities for less-educated workers have increased their risk of poverty (Rebecca Blank), and how family structure changes (Maria Cancian and Deborah Reed) and immigration have affected poverty (Steven Raphael and Eugene Smolensky). Part II assesses the ways childhood poverty influences adult outcomes. Markus Jäntti finds that poor American children are more likely to be poor adults than are children in many other industrialized countries. Part III focuses on current antipoverty policies and possible alternatives. Jane Waldfogel demonstrates that policies in other countries—such as sick leave, subsidized child care, and schedule flexibility—help low-wage parents better balance work and family responsibilities. Part IV considers how rethinking and redefining poverty might take antipoverty policies in new directions. Mary Jo Bane assesses the politics of poverty since the 1996 welfare reform act. Robert Haveman argues that income-based poverty measures should be expanded, as they have been in Europe, to include social exclusion and multiple dimensions of material hardships. Changing Poverty, Changing Policies shows that thoughtful policy reforms can reduce poverty and promote opportunities for poor workers and their families. The authors' focus on pragmatic measures that have real possibilities of being implemented in the United States not only provides vital knowledge about what works but real hope for change.
Contributors question whether an aging society is necessarily inferior or problematic compared with the recent past, cautioning that exaggerated concerns about population aging can be harmful to rational policy making.
This 1997 book examines the income distributional experience of fifteen developed economies - representing a wide range of social and economic strategies - over the past two decades. Experts from each of the countries have carefully documented the pattern of distributional change in individual earnings and household income in their countries and analysed the driving forces behind these changes. Separate chapters are devoted to the experiences of Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, West and former East Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. The authors examine the effects on the inequality of household income of the development of individual earnings, unemployment, inflation, public sector transfers and taxes, and demographic changes.