IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lis/liswps/622.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Family Policies and Single Parent Poverty in 18 OECD Countries, 1978-2008

Author

Listed:
  • Laurie C. Maldonado
  • Rense Nieuwenhuis

Abstract

In this study, we examined to what extent family policies differently affect poverty among single-parent households and two-parent households. We distinguished between reconciliation policies (tested with parental leave and the proportion of unpaid leave) and financial support policies (tested with family allowances). We used data from the Luxembourg Income Study Database, covering 514,019 households in 18 OECD countries from 1978 to 2008, combined with data from the Comparative Family Policy Database. Our findings suggest that single- and two-parent households are less likely to be poor in countries that have longer parental leave, a smaller proportion of unpaid leave, and higher amounts of family allowances. Most notably, family policies reduced poverty to a greater extent among single-parent households. Paid leave more effectively facilitated the employment of single parents, thereby reducing their poverty more than among two-parent households. Family allowances decreased the risk of poverty of single-parent households relative to two-parent households in the Nordic countries, the Netherlands and Belgium, while increasing this relative risk in for instance Luxembourg, France, Germany and Ireland. Nevertheless, in absolute terms, in most countries family allowances were found to reduce a larger share of the poverty among single-parent households than among two-parent households.

Suggested Citation

  • Laurie C. Maldonado & Rense Nieuwenhuis, 2014. "Family Policies and Single Parent Poverty in 18 OECD Countries, 1978-2008," LIS Working papers 622, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
  • Handle: RePEc:lis:liswps:622
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.lisdatacenter.org/wps/liswps/622.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sainsbury, Diane, 2012. "Welfare States and Immigrant Rights: The Politics of Inclusion and Exclusion," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199654789.
    2. Olivier Thévenon & Angela Luci, 2012. "Reconciling Work, Family and Child Outcomes: What Implications for Family Support Policies?," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 31(6), pages 855-882, December.
    3. Bruce Bradbury & Markus Jantti, 1999. "Child Poverty across Industrialized Nations," Papers iopeps99/70, Innocenti Occasional Papers, Economic Policy Series.
    4. Daniela Del Boca & Silvia Pasqua & Chiara Pronzato, 2009. "Motherhood and market work decisions in institutional context: a European perspective," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 61(suppl_1), pages 147-171, April.
    5. Patricia Apps & Ray Rees, 2004. "Fertility, Taxation and Family Policy," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 106(4), pages 745-763, December.
    6. 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.
    7. Patrick Heuveline & Jeffrey M. Timberlake & Frank F. Furstenberg, 2003. "Shifting Childrearing to Single Mothers: Results from 17 Western Countries," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 29(1), pages 47-71, March.
    8. Christine Skinner & Jacqueline Davidson & Jonathan Bradshaw, 2008. "Child Support Policy: An International Perspective (Chapter 1)," LIS Working papers 478, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    9. repec:hal:journl:hal-00820971 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Olivier Thévenon, 2011. "Family Policies in OECD Countries: A Comparative Analysis," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 37(1), pages 57-87, March.
    11. Joris Ghysels & Wim Van Lancker, 2010. "The unequal benefits of family activation: an analysis of the social distribution of family policy among families with young children," Working Papers 1008, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    12. Holly Sutherland & Francesco Figari, 2013. "EUROMOD: the European Union tax-benefit microsimulation model," International Journal of Microsimulation, International Microsimulation Association, vol. 1(6), pages 4-26.
    13. Patrick Heuveline & Matthew Weinshenker, 2008. "The international child poverty gap: Does Demography matter?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 45(1), pages 173-191, February.
    14. Joakim Palme & Walter Korpi, 1998. "The Paradox of Redistribution and Strategies of Equality: Welfare State Institutions, Inequality and Poverty in the Western Countries," LIS Working papers 174, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    15. David Brady & Rebekah Burroway, 2012. "Targeting, Universalism, and Single-Mother Poverty: A Multilevel Analysis Across 18 Affluent Democracies," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 49(2), pages 719-746, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. David Rothwell & Annie McEwen, 2018. "Child Poverty and Family Structure during the Recession in English-Speaking Liberal Welfare States," LIS Working papers 665, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    2. Juho Härkönen & Marika Jalovaara & Eevi Lappalainen & Anneli Miettinen, 2023. "Double Disadvantage in a Nordic Welfare State: A Demographic Analysis of the Single-Parent Employment Gap in Finland, 1987–2018," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 39(1), pages 1-27, December.
    3. Agnieszka Gehringer & Stephan Klasen, 2017. "Labor Force Participation of Women in the EU – What Role do Family Policies Play?," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 31(1), pages 15-42, March.
    4. Tess Penne & Tine Hufkens & Tim Goedeme & Berenice M L Storms, 2018. "To what extent do welfare states compensate for the cost of children? A hypothetical household approach to policy evaluations," JRC Working Papers on Taxation & Structural Reforms 2018-08, Joint Research Centre.
    5. Creina Day, 2018. "Inverse J Effect of Economic Growth on Fertility: A Model of Gender Wages and Maternal Time Substitution," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 39(4), pages 577-587, December.
    6. Juho Härkönen, 2017. "Diverging destinies in international perspective: Education, single motherhood, and child poverty," LIS Working papers 713, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    7. Janet C. Gornick & Laurie C. Maldonado & Amanda Sheely, 2022. "Effective Policies for Single-Parent Families and Prospects for Policy Reforms in the United States: Concluding Reflections," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 702(1), pages 236-251, July.
    8. Bruch, Sarah K. & van der Naald, Joseph & Gornick, Janet C., 2022. "Poverty Reduction through Federal and State Policy Mechanisms: Variation Over Time and Across the U.S. States," SocArXiv jz5xp, Center for Open Science.
    9. Wim Van Lancker & Joris Ghysels, 2013. "Great expectations, but how to achieve them? Explaining patterns of inequality in childcare use across 31 developed countries," Working Papers 1305, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    10. Massimiliano Bratti & Konstantinos Tatsiramos, 2012. "The effect of delaying motherhood on the second childbirth in Europe," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 25(1), pages 291-321, January.
    11. Roberta Rutigliano, 2020. "Counting on Potential Grandparents? Adult Children’s Entry Into Parenthood Across European Countries," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(4), pages 1393-1414, August.
    12. Chrysa Leventi & Olga Rastrigina & Holly Sutherland, 2016. "The importance of income-tested benefits in good times and bad: lessons from EU countries," ImPRovE Working Papers 16/01, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    13. Thomas Leoni & Rainer Eppel, 2013. "Women's Work and Family Profiles over the Lifecourse and their Subsequent Health Outcomes – Evidence for Europe. WWWforEurope Working Paper No. 28," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 46889, March.
    14. Mikael Nygård & Marja Lindberg & Fredrica Nyqvist & Camilla Härtull, 2019. "The Role of Cash Benefit and In-Kind Benefit Spending for Child Poverty in Times of Austerity: An Analysis of 22 European Countries 2006–2015," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 146(3), pages 533-552, December.
    15. Thomas Biegert & David Brady & Lena Hipp, 2022. "Cross-National Variation in the Relationship between Welfare Generosity and Single Mother Employment," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 702(1), pages 37-54, July.
    16. Grinza, Elena & Devicienti, Francesco & Rossi, Mariacristina & Vannoni, Davide, 2017. "How Entry into Parenthood Shapes Gender Role Attitudes: New Evidence from Longitudinal UK Data," IZA Discussion Papers 11088, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Naoki Akaeda, 2023. "Does Social Policy Crowd Out or Crowd In Social Trust? The Perspectives of Transfer Share, Low-Income Targeting, and Universalism," LIS Working papers 870, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    18. van Vugt, Lynn & Nieuwenhuis, Rense & Levels, Mark, 2020. "Escaping the motherhood trap: Parental leave and childcare help young mothers to avoid NEET risks," ROA Research Memorandum 011, Maastricht University, Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA).
    19. Angela Cipollone & Carlo D'Ippoliti, 2009. "Women's Employment: Beyond Individual Characteristics vs. Contextual Factors Explanations," Working Papers CELEG 0901, Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza, LUISS Guido Carli.
    20. Miri Endeweld & Anat Herbst-Debby & Amit Kaplan, 2022. "Do the Privileged Always Win? Economic Consequences of Divorce by Income and Gender Groups," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 159(1), pages 77-100, January.

    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:622. 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.