IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/uow/depec1/wp07-06.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Statistically Significant Changes in the Poverty-Rate, 1997-98 to 2002-03

Author

Abstract

Sampling variation should be taken into account when sample data are used to estimate changes in the poverty rate over time. This paper reports poverty rates and their standard errors, calculated using data from the 1997-98 and 2002-03 Surveys of Income and Housing, and tests whether the poverty rate in Australia has changed significantly over this time period. The results depend on where the equivalised poverty line is set and whether its real value is held constant. With a constant real poverty line, a decrease in the poverty rate is observed and, except at low poverty thresholds, the reduction is statistically significant. However, with a relative poverty line set equal to half the median, or half the mean, current income, a significant increase in the poverty rate is observed, which is due to an increase in the average real income of the Australian population between the two survey dates.

Suggested Citation

  • Rodgers, J.R., 2007. "Statistically Significant Changes in the Poverty-Rate, 1997-98 to 2002-03," Economics Working Papers wp07-06, School of Economics, University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia.
    • Handle: RePEc:uow:depec1:wp07-06
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.uow.edu.au/content/groups/public/@web/@commerce/@econ/documents/web/uow022175.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Johnson, 1996. "Poverty Lines and the Measurement of Poverty," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 29(1), pages 110-126, January.
    2. Peter Saunders & Bruce Bradbury, 2006. "Monitoring Trends in Poverty and Income Distribution: Data, Methodology and Measurement," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 82(258), pages 341-364, September.
    3. Peter Siminski & Peter Saunders & Bruce Bradbury, 2003. "Reviewing the Intertemporal Consistency of ABS Household Income Data through Comparisons with External Aggregates," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 36(3), pages 333-349, September.
    4. David Johnson, 1987. "The Calculation and Use of Poverty Lines in Australia," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 20(4), pages 45-55, December.
    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. Roger Wilkins, 2007. "The Changing Socio-Demographic Composition of Poverty in Australia: 1982 to 2004," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2007n12, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    2. Joan R. Rodgers & Peter Siminski & James Bishop, 2009. "Changes in Poverty Rates during the Howard Era," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 42(3), pages 300-320, September.
    3. David T. Johnson & Peter B. Dixon, 1999. "Australian Poverty Quantified by a Family‐Based Poverty Index," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 75(2), pages 103-114, June.
    4. Boyd H. Hunter & Steven Kennedy & Nicholas Biddle, 2004. "Indigenous and Other Australian Poverty: Revisiting the Importance of Equivalence Scales," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 80(251), pages 411-422, December.
    5. Roger Wilkins, 2021. "Economic Wellbeing," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 54(4), pages 469-481, December.
    6. Silvia Mendolia & Peter Siminski, 2016. "New Estimates of Intergenerational Mobility in Australia," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 92(298), pages 361-373, September.
    7. Hielke Buddelmeyer & Sher Verick, 2008. "Understanding the Drivers of Poverty Dynamics in Australian Households," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 84(266), pages 310-321, September.
    8. Francisco Azpitarte, 2012. "Was Economic Growth in Australia Good for the Income-Poor? and for the Multidimensionally-Poor?," Working Papers 278, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    9. Joan R. Rodgers, 2012. "Living Arrangements and Income Poverty," Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School, vol. 15(3), pages 217-234.
    10. Aaron Nicholas & Ranjan Ray & Ma. Rebecca Valenzuela, 2010. "Evaluating the Distributional Implications of Price Movements: Methodology, Application and Australian Evidence," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 86(274), pages 352-366, September.
    11. Ann Harding & Robert Tanton, 2014. "Policy and people at the small-area level: using micro-simulation to create synthetic spatial data," Chapters, in: Robert Stimson (ed.), Handbook of Research Methods and Applications in Spatially Integrated Social Science, chapter 25, pages 560-586, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    12. Tomas Kennedy & Peter Siminski, 2022. "Are We Richer than Our Parents Were? Absolute Income Mobility in Australia," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 98(320), pages 22-41, March.
    13. Tue Gørgens & Chris Ryan & Guochang Zhao, 2020. "Private School Usage in Australia 1975–2010: Evidence from the Household Expenditure Surveys," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 53(2), pages 198-213, June.
    14. Rod Hick, 2009. "The SocialWelfare Pensions in Ireland: Pensioner Poverty and Gender," Working Papers 200902, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.
    15. Rosanna Scutella & Roger Wilkins & Michael Horn, 2009. "Measuring Poverty and Social Exclusion in Australia: A Proposed Multidimensional Framework for Identifying Socio-Economic Disadvantage," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2009n04, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    16. Robson, Doug & Rodgers, Joan R, 2008. "Travail to No Avail? Working Poverty in Australia," Economics Working Papers wp08-08, School of Economics, University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia.
    17. Rodgers, J.R., 2001. "Poverty Rates Among Part-Time and Casual Workers," Economics Working Papers wp01-09, School of Economics, University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia.
    18. Steven C. Bourassa, 1996. "Measuring the Affordability of Home-ownership," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 33(10), pages 1867-1877, December.
    19. Elliott Fan & Chris Ryan, 2011. "Reconciling income mobility and welfare persistence," CEPR Discussion Papers 651, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
    20. Rodgers, Joan R. & Rodgers, John L., 2006. "Chronic and Transitory Poverty in Australia 2001-2004," Economics Working Papers wp06-28, School of Economics, University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:uow:depec1:wp07-06. 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: Peter Siminski The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Peter Siminski to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deuowau.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.