IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwpla/0403004.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Children Among the Poor

Author

Listed:
  • James P. Smith

    (RAND Corporation)

Abstract

This article investigates a number of issues that clarify the premises underlying the assignment of children into poverty. Conventional definitions indicate much larger poverty rates among children than among adults. Three possible theoretical reasons for this greater representation of children among the poor are explored. It is shown that the most direct mechanism--poorer parents having more children--is of little importance. Instead, the greater incidence of poverty among children is the result of (1) a labor supply effect of children's reducing family income as mothers work less and (2) the assumption of greater household 'needs' when children are present. The research presented here also demonstrates that long-term permanent poverty rates among children are much lower than the conventional yearly measures.

Suggested Citation

  • James P. Smith, 2004. "Children Among the Poor," Labor and Demography 0403004, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpla:0403004
    Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 14. Demography, Volume 26, Number 2, May 1989, pp. 235-248
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/lab/papers/0403/0403004.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gary S. Becker, 1981. "A Treatise on the Family," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number beck81-1, June.
    2. Kilpatrick, Robert W, 1973. "The Income Elasticity of the Poverty Line," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 55(3), pages 327-332, August.
    3. David Shapiro & Frank Mott, 1979. "Labor supply behavior of prospective and new mothers," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 16(2), pages 199-208, May.
    4. James Smith & Michael Ward, 1980. "Asset Accumulation And Family Size," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 17(3), pages 243-260, August.
    5. Becketti, Sean & Gould, William & Lillard, Lee & Welch, Finis, 1988. "The Panel Study of Income Dynamics after Fourteen Years: An Evaluatio n," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 6(4), pages 472-492, October.
    6. Pollak, Robert A & Wales, Terence J, 1979. "Welfare Comparisons and Equivalence Scales," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(2), pages 216-221, May.
    7. James P. Smith, 2004. "Poverty and the Family," Labor and Demography 0403014, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    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. Massimiliano Bratti, 2003. "Labour force participation and marital fertility of Italian women: The role of education," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 16(3), pages 525-554, August.
    2. Sunil Kumar & Renuka Mahadevan, 2008. "Construction of An Adult Equivalence Index to Measure Intra-household Inequality and Poverty: Case Study," Discussion Papers Series 363, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    3. Patricia Apps & Ray Rees, 2022. "Inequality measurement and tax/transfer policy," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 29(4), pages 953-984, August.
    4. van Praag, B. M. S., 1984. "Household Cost Functions And Equivalence Scales An Alternative Approach," Econometric Institute Archives 272287, Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    5. Patricia Apps, 2003. "Gender, Time Use and Models of the Household," CEPR Discussion Papers 464, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
    6. Lingguo Cheng & Hong Liu & Ye Zhang & Zhong Zhao, 2018. "The heterogeneous impact of pension income on elderly living arrangements: evidence from China’s new rural pension scheme," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 31(1), pages 155-192, January.
    7. Julie Zissimopoulos & Benjamin Karney & Amy Rauer, 2008. "Marital Histories and Economic Well-Being," Working Papers wp180, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    8. Leila Maron & Danièle Meulders, 2008. "Having a child: a penalty or bonus for mother's and father's employment in Europe," DULBEA Working Papers 08-05.RS, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    9. Bruce Bradbury, 2014. "Pensions for Singles and Couples," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(3), pages 480-498, September.
    10. Bruce Bradbury, 2003. "The welfare interpretation of consumer equivalence scales," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 30(7), pages 770-787, July.
    11. Bruce Bradbury, 1996. "Household Income Sharing, Joint Consumption and the Expenditure Patterns of Australian Retired Couples and Single People," Discussion Papers 0066, University of New South Wales, Social Policy Research Centre.
    12. Mauro Maltagliati & Gustavo Santis, 2001. "De gustibus non est disputandum? A new approach to the estimation of equivalence scales," Statistical Methods & Applications, Springer;Società Italiana di Statistica, vol. 10(1), pages 211-236, January.
    13. Leila Maron & Danièle Meulders, 2008. "Effets de la parentalité sur l'emploi en Europe," Brussels Economic Review, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles, vol. 51(2/3), pages 185-220.
    14. Guillaume Allègre & Thomas Melonio & Xavier Timbeau, 2012. "Dépenses publiques d'éducation et inégalités. Une perspective de cycle de vie," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 63(6), pages 1055-1079.
    15. Harold Alderman & John Hoddinott & Bill Kinsey, 2006. "Long term consequences of early childhood malnutrition," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 58(3), pages 450-474, July.
    16. Alessandro Cigno, 2007. "A Theoretical Analysis of the Effects of Legislation on Marriage, Fertility, Domestic Division of Labour, and the Education of Children," CESifo Working Paper Series 2143, CESifo.
    17. Maristella Botticini & Aloysius Siow, 2003. "Why Dowries?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(4), pages 1385-1398, September.
    18. Lamia Kandil & Hélène Perivier, 2017. "La division sexuée du travail dans les couples selon le statut marital en France - une étude à partir des enquêtes emploi du temps de 1985-1986, 1998-1999, et 2009-2010," Documents de Travail de l'OFCE 2017-03, Observatoire Francais des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE).
    19. Thomas F. Crossley & Hamish W. Low, 2011. "Is The Elasticity Of Intertemporal Substitution Constant?," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 87-105, February.
    20. Robert Kaestner, 1995. "The Effects of Cocaine and Marijuana Use on Marriage and Marital Stability," NBER Working Papers 5038, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J - Labor and Demographic Economics

    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:wpa:wuwpla:0403004. 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: EconWPA (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de .

    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.