IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lis/liswps/665.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Child Poverty and Family Structure during the Recession in English-Speaking Liberal Welfare States

Author

Listed:
  • David Rothwell
  • Annie McEwen

Abstract

Children in nonmarried families are at greater risk for poverty and especially so during a time of macroeconomic recession. Using carefully harmonized data, the authors analyze child poverty among nonmarried families before and during the 2008 recession in five liberal welfare states: Australia, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Although having similar demographic compositions, the authors document wide cross‐national variation in poverty risk based on marital status and gender of the household head. Through the recession, child poverty in Canada and the United Kingdom declined while it increased in Australia and Ireland and was largely unchanged in the United States. Decomposing changes within countries over time, family benefits in the form of income transfers play a major role in reducing poverty for non-married families. In all countries, children in cohabitating families were less protected from market instability.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:lis:liswps:665
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.lisdatacenter.org/wps/liswps/665.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:hal:cesptp:hal-00820971 is not listed on IDEAS
    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. Garfinkel, Irwin & Rainwater, Lee & Smeeding, Timothy, 2010. "Wealth and Welfare States: Is America a Laggard or Leader?," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199579310.
    4. Shelly Lundberg & Robert A. Pollak, 2013. "Cohabitation and the Uneven Retreat from Marriage in the U.S., 1950-2010," NBER Working Papers 19413, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Bruce Bradbury & Markus Jantti, 1999. "Child Poverty across Industrialized Nations," Papers iopeps99/70, Innocenti Occasional Papers, Economic Policy Series.
    6. Marianne Bitler & Hilary Hoynes, 2016. "The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same? The Safety Net and Poverty in the Great Recession," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(S1), pages 403-444.
    7. Robert Moffitt, 2015. "The U.S. Safety Net And Work Incentives: The Great Recession And Beyond," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(2), pages 458-466, March.
    8. repec:hal:journl:hal-00820971 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Azevedo, Joao Pedro & Sanfelice, Viviane & Nguyen, Minh C., 2012. "Shapley Decomposition by Components of a Welfare Aggregate," MPRA Paper 85584, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    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. Wen-Hao Chen & Miles Corak, 2008. "Child poverty and changes in child poverty," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 45(3), pages 537-553, August.
    12. Sheela Kennedy & Catherine Fitch, 2012. "Measuring Cohabitation and Family Structure in the United States: Assessing the Impact of New Data From the Current Population Survey," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 49(4), pages 1479-1498, November.
    13. Yekaterina Chzhen, 2014. "Child Poverty and Material Deprivation in the European Union during the Great Recession," Papers inwopa723, Innocenti Working Papers.
    14. Natasha Pilkauskas & Irwin Garfinkel & Sara McLanahan, 2014. "The Prevalence and Economic Value of Doubling Up," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(5), pages 1667-1676, October.
    15. Garfinkel, Irwin & Zilanawala, Afshin, 2015. "Fragile families in the American welfare state," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 210-221.
    16. 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.
    17. Sara McLanahan & Irwin Garfinkel & Lynne Casper, 1994. "The Gender Poverty Gap: What Can We Learn From Other Countries?," LIS Working papers 112, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    18. 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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    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. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. Elena Bárcena-Martín & Maria del Carmern & Salvador Perez-Moreno, 2015. "Assessing the impact of social transfer income packages on child poverty. A European cross-national perspective," ThE Papers 15/02, Department of Economic Theory and Economic History of the University of Granada..
    8. 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.
    9. 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.
    10. Piotr Paradowski & Joanna Wolszczak-Derlacz & Eva Sierminska, 2020. "Inequality, Poverty and Child Benefits: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," LIS Working papers 799, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    11. 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.
    12. Elena Bárcena-Martín & M. Carmen Blanco-Arana & Salvador Pérez-Moreno, 2016. "Assessing the impact of social transfer income packages on child poverty in European countries: Pro-child targeting vs pro-poor targeting," Working Papers 410, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    13. David Rothwell & Timothy Ottusch & Jennifer K. Finders, 2018. "Asset Poverty Among Children: A Cross-national Study of Poverty Risk," LWS Working papers 29, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    14. Popova, Daria, 2014. "Distributional impacts of cash allowances for children: a microsimulation analysis for Russia and Europe," EUROMOD Working Papers EM2/14, EUROMOD at the Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    15. Salvatore Morelli & Timothy Smeeding & Jeffrey Thompson, 2014. "Post-1970 Trends in Within-Country Inequality and Poverty: Rich and Middle Income Countries," CSEF Working Papers 356, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    16. Bruce Bradbury & Markus Jäntti & Lena Lindahl, 2019. "Labour Income, Social Transfers and Child Poverty," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 143(1), pages 251-276, May.
    17. 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.
    18. Garrow, Eve E. & Danziger, Sandra K. & Tillotson, Amanda R., 2015. "Shifting sands that threaten policy advocacy for vulnerable children and youth: A case study," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 211-218.
    19. Polina Zvavitch & Michael S. Rendall & Constanza Hurtado-Acuna & Rachel M. Shattuck, 2021. "Contraceptive Consistency and Poverty After Birth," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 40(6), pages 1277-1311, December.
    20. Rothwell, David W. & Ottusch, Timothy & Finders, Jennifer K., 2019. "Asset poverty among children: A cross-national study of poverty risk," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 409-419.

    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:665. 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.