IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lis/liswps/371.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Reconsidering the Divergence between Elderly, Child and Overall Poverty

Author

Listed:
  • David Brady

Abstract

This study challenges the conventional wisdom that elderly, child and overall poverty are divergent. Comparing the official U.S. measure with the Luxembourg Income Study's (LIS) measure, I show that the official measure underestimates elderly poverty by a significant amount and child poverty by a lesser amount. The elderly were considerably more likely to be poor than children in the 1970s, children were more likely to be poor 1984-1997, but the elderly were more likely to be poor in 2000. Both the elderly and children are much more likely to be poor than the overall population. Analyses of 18 rich Western democracies show that overall and child poverty are very strongly positively correlated, while elderly poverty is moderately correlated with those two. Multivariate analyses show some commonalities and some differences in the sources of these three. Two measures of the welfare state significantly reduce overall, elderly and child poverty. While female labor force participation reduces all three, manufacturing employment, economic performance and demographic variables only influence one or two of the dependent variables.

Suggested Citation

  • David Brady, 2004. "Reconsidering the Divergence between Elderly, Child and Overall Poverty," LIS Working papers 371, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    • Handle: RePEc:lis:liswps:371
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.lisdatacenter.org/wps/liswps/371.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Foster, James E, 1998. "Absolute versus Relative Poverty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(2), pages 335-341, May.
    2. Samuel Preston, 1984. "Children and the elderly: Divergent paths for America’s dependents," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 21(4), pages 435-457, November.
    3. Jay Teachman & Greg J. Duncan & W. Jean Yeung & Dan Levy, 2001. "Covariance Structure Models for Fixed and Random Effects," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 30(2), pages 271-288, November.
    4. John Iceland & Kathleen Short & Thesia I. Garner & David Johnson, 2001. "Are Children Worse off?: Evaluating Well-Being Using a New (And Improved) Measure of Poverty," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 36(2), pages 398-412.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Markus J ntti & Janet Gornick, 2011. "Child Poverty in Comparative Perspective: Assessing the Role of Family Structure and Parental Education and Employment," LIS Working papers 570, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    2. Maria Iacovou & Alexandra J. Skew, 2011. "Household composition across the new Europe: Where do the new Member States fit in?," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 25(14), pages 465-490.
    3. Amie Bostic, 2023. "Family, Work, Economy, or Social Policy: Examining Poverty Among Children of Single Mothers in Affluent Democracies Between 1985 and 2016," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 42(4), pages 1-57, August.
    4. Inhoe Ku & Chang-O Kim & J Scott Brown, 2020. "Decomposition Analyses of the Trend in Poverty Among Older Adults: The Case of South Korea," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 75(3), pages 684-693.
    5. Callan, Tim & Coleman, Kieran & Nolan, Brian & Walsh, John R., 2006. "Child Poverty and Child Income Supports: Ireland in Comparative Perspective," Papers BP2007/2, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    6. Marchand, J. & Smeeding, T., 2016. "Poverty and Aging," Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, in: Piggott, John & Woodland, Alan (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 905-950, Elsevier.
      • Marchand, Joseph & Smeeding, Timothy, 2016. "Poverty and Aging," Working Papers 2016-11, University of Alberta, Department of Economics, revised 20 Nov 2016.
    7. Fernandez, Juan J., 2010. "Economic crises, high public pension spending and blame-avoidance strategies: Pension policy retrenchments in 14 social-insurance countries, 1981 - 2005," MPIfG Discussion Paper 10/9, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    8. Joy Pixley & Tsui-o Tai, 2008. "Poverty of Children and Older Adults: Taiwan's Case in an International Perspective," LIS Working papers 493, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    9. Callan, Tim & Nolan, Brian & Walsh, John R. & Whelan, Christopher T. & Maitre, Bertrand, 2008. "Tackling Low Income and Deprivation: Developing Effective Policies," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number RS1.
    10. Gornick, Janet C. & Jäntti, Markus, 2012. "Child poverty in cross-national perspective: Lessons from the Luxembourg Income Study," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 558-568.
    11. Markus J ntti & Janet Gornick, 2009. "Child Poverty in Upper-Income Countries: Lessons from the Luxembourg Income Study," LIS Working papers 509, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    12. David Brady, 2005. "Structural Theory and Relative Poverty in Rich Western Democracies, 1969-2000," LIS Working papers 407, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    13. repec:esr:chaptr:jacb200671 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. David Brady, 2004. "The Welfare State and Relative Poverty in Rich Western Democracies, 1967-1997," LIS Working papers 390, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Marchand, J. & Smeeding, T., 2016. "Poverty and Aging," Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, in: Piggott, John & Woodland, Alan (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 905-950, Elsevier.
      • Marchand, Joseph & Smeeding, Timothy, 2016. "Poverty and Aging," Working Papers 2016-11, University of Alberta, Department of Economics, revised 20 Nov 2016.
    2. Denise Kall & David Brady, 2007. "Nearly Universal, but Somewhat Distinct: The Feminization of Poverty in Affluent Western Democracies, 1969-2000," LIS Working papers 462, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    3. David Brady, 2004. "The Welfare State and Relative Poverty in Rich Western Democracies, 1967-1997," LIS Working papers 390, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    4. Victoria Danaan, 2018. "Analysing Poverty in Nigeria through Theoretical Lenses," Journal of Sustainable Development, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 11(1), pages 1-20, January.
    5. Jane Menken, 1985. "Age and fertility: How late can you wait?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 22(4), pages 469-483, November.
    6. repec:zbw:rwirep:0557 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Zhao, Chunkai & Chen, Boou & Song, Zhiyong, 2024. "School nutritious feeding and cognitive abilities of students in poverty: Evidence from the nutrition improvement program in China," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    8. Christophe Muller & Asha Kannan & Roland Alcindor, 2016. "Multidimensional Poverty in Seychelles," Working Papers halshs-01264444, HAL.
    9. Christophe Muller, 2006. "Defining Poverty Lines As a Fraction of Central Tendency," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 72(3), pages 720-729, January.
    10. Daša Adašková, 2014. "Recenzia - Ivančík, Radoslav A Jurčák, Vojtech: Mierové Operácie Vybraných Organizácií Medzinárodného Krízového Manažmentu," Almanach (Actual Issues in World Economics and Politics), Ekonomická univerzita, Fakulta medzinárodných vzťahov, vol. 9(1), pages 123-126.
    11. Chen, Shaohua & Ravallion, Martin, 2021. "Reconciling the conflicting narratives on poverty in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    12. Jeremy R. Porter, 2012. "Cultural vs. Economic: Re-Visiting the Determinants of Fertility at a Sub-National Level in the U.S, 1990 - 2000," International Journal of Business and Social Research, MIR Center for Socio-Economic Research, vol. 2(6), pages 91-108, November.
    13. Luigi Bonatti & Lorenza Alexandra Lorenzetti, 2022. "Long-Term Economic Implications of Demeny Voting: A Theoretical Analysis," CESifo Working Paper Series 10039, CESifo.
    14. Benoit Decerf, 2021. "Combining absolute and relative poverty: income poverty measurement with two poverty lines," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 56(2), pages 325-362, February.
    15. Bonatti, Luigi & Lorenzetti, Lorenza Alexandra, 2023. "Long-term economic implications of Demeny voting: A theoretical analysis," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 47(4).
    16. Corak, Miles, 2005. "Principles and Practicalities for Measuring Child Poverty in the Rich Countries," IZA Discussion Papers 1579, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Haicong Li & Lu Wang & Jianzhou Gong & A-Xing Zhu & Yueming Hu, 2021. "Land-Use Modes of the Dike–Pond System in the Pearl River Delta of China and Implications for Rural Revitalization," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(5), pages 1-20, April.
    18. David Brady, 2003. "The Politics of Poverty: Left Political Institutions, the Welfare State and Poverty," LIS Working papers 352, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    19. Tiehen, Laura & Jolliffe, Dean & Gundersen, Craig, 2012. "Alleviating Poverty in the United States: The Critical Role of SNAP Benefits," Economic Research Report 262233, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    20. Benoît Tarroux, 2012. "Are equalization payments making Canadians better off? A two-dimensional dominance answer," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 10(1), pages 19-44, March.
    21. Brun, Martín & Colacce, Maira, 2019. "Medición de la pobreza monetaria en el Uruguay: conceptos, metodologías, evolución y alternativas," Estudios y Perspectivas – Oficina de la CEPAL en Montevideo 44415, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:lis:liswps:371. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Piotr Paradowski (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lisprlu.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.