Download An Analytical Approach to the Study of Child Poverty, in the European

Poor Children in Europe.
An Analytical Approach to the Study of Child
Poverty, in the European Union, Between
1994 and 2000
Gian Lorenzo Venturini
Supervisors
Prof. Chiara Saraceno
PhD program in Comparative Social Research
Università degli studi di Torino
Prof. Jos Berghman
PhD program in Social Sciences
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
Structure of the Presentation
I. The need for an analytical approach
II. The general features of the research design
III. Accounting for the situational mechanism
IV. Accounting for the action-formation mechanism
V. Summary of the findings
1. The cognitive question
Child poverty in Europe
between 1994 and 2000
Mt
Mt+1
Child poverty at
time t
Child poverty at
time t+1
Intensity
Incidence
presistence
2. An Epistemological and Empirical Empasse
When we deal with such issues we have to fight against two ISMs
Macro
«Paradigm of action»
Micro-riductionism
Micro
Macro
«Paradigm of structure»
Structuralism
Micro
3. Multilevel theories of child poverty
Wippler and Lindenberg (1987)
Analytical level
The level of the issue that I aim to explain
Theoretical level
an empasse…
The heuristic potential of the theoretical system I aim to apply
We need multilevel theories of child poverty
4. A Solution to the Dilemma: The Coleman’s Boat
Mt
Mt+1
The situational
mechanism
The transformational
mechanism
mt
mt+1
The action-formation
mechanism
The situational mechanism
It refers to the fact that actors live in a specific social situation that, to some extent, affects them and the
environment in which they live
The action–formation mechanism
It considers the way in which individuals’ actions take a form
The transformational mechanism
It depicts how the actions of different actors collide with one another and generate collective macro
outcomes
5. Coleman’s Boat Implementation
Cognitive aims
Description of the macro
environment in which
individuals live (the situational
mechanism)




A micro model to account for
poverty risks at a micro level

Merging the micro and the
macro findings

Implementation strategies
Analysis of theories on welfare regimes
Reconstruction of the main social policy schemes
Estimation of macro indicator national wealth,
income inequalities, social protection
expenditures and income poverty and material
deprivation
Operazionalization of the concept of poverty and
endowment
Estimation of the impact of parents/households’
endowment on the probability for a child to be
poor, via a random-effect logistic model
Discussion of the main findings
6. The General Features of the Research Design
Germany
Cross-country comparison
Denmark
Multiple case study based on holistic
cases (Yin, 2003)
Belgium
«Replication logic» as opposed to the
«sampling logic» (see Yin, 2003, p.45)
UK
France
Italy
Spain
Literature
«Data»
EUROSTAT
The first ECHP seven waves (1994-2000)
7. Other Theoretical and Methodological Issues
1. The operazionalization of the concept of poverty (see Ravallion, 1992)
i) How do we assess individual well-being?
Household’s equivalized disposable income
ii) At what level of well-being we can say that a person is not poor?
60% of the median of the equivalized income distribution
iii) How do we aggregate individual indicators of well-being into a measure of poverty?
Headcount ratio (poverty incidence)
Average poverty gap ratio (poverty intensity)
2. A model of the social actor
The D-B-O model (see Elster 1993)
8. The Description of the Situational Mechanism (MACRO)
Pathways of interaction among
Family-State-Market
Theories
Contributions to describe
the «situational mechanism»
Policy analysis
Structure of intra-household care
giving obligations and family
policies
Policy Reducing households’
expenses
Bring people into work that
pays;
Improving living standard
through direct cash transfer.
Policy increasing households’
resources
Policy strengthening prevention and
children’s well-being
Data
Data
Trends in child
poverty
Child poverty
incidence
Trends in national wealth, income
inequalities and social protection
expenditure
Child poverty
intensity
Child poverty rates
Average child poverty
gap ratio
Child poverty incidence
reduction after social
transfers
Child poverty intensity
reduction after
transfers
Child poverty
Child
duration
deprivation
First child poverty
spell duration
(Survival Analysis)
Proportion of
children
experiencing a
second poverty spell
Incidence of deprivation
First deprivation
spell duration
(Survival analysis)
Trends in household
poverty
Household
poverty
incidence
Household
poverty
intensity
Household
poverty rates
Average
household
poverty gap ratio
GDP per capita, in PPS
Income share of the 10th decile
Social protection expenditure as a proportion of GDP
Social protection expenditure, per capita, in PPS
Detailed social protection expenditure, per capita, in PPS
Social benefits expenditures by type, per capita, in PPS
Social benefits expenditures by function, per capita, in PPS
Degree of heterogeneity of the pattern of social protection expenditure
9. The Macro data: Child Poverty Incidence
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
1994
1995
De
1996
Dk
1997
Be
Fr
1998
UK
1999
It
2000
Es
Dk, It: stable
Be, De: decreasing
UK: steepest reduction
Fr, Es: increasing
Continental cluster: is split up into two parts
•
De, Be are sliding north and coming closer to Denmark;
•
Fr is sliding south and moving nearer to Spain, Italy and the UK
9. The Macro Data: Child Poverty Intensity
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
1994
1995
De
Dk, Fr, It, Es: stable
Be, De, UK: decreasing
1996
Dk
1997
Be
Fr
1998
UK
1999
It
2000
Es
9. The macro data: child poverty presistence
1
0,9
0,8
0,7
0,6
0,5
0,4
0,3
0,2
0,1
0
0
1
De
2
Dk
3
Be
4
Fr
5
UK
6
It
Dk De Be Fr UK It Es
25 percentile 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Median
1 2 2 3 3 3 3
th
Log-rank test
Dk: low
Be, De: medium
Fr, It, Es, UK: high
χ2= 33.00 (6 degrees of freedom)
P> χ2= 0.0000
7
Es
9. The macro data: child presistence in deprivation
See: current life-style deprivation (Whelan and Maître 2004)
0,7
0,6
0,5
0,4
0,3
0,2
0,1
0
1
2
3
Dk
25th percentile
Median
75th percentile
Log-rank test
Dk: low
Be, Es: medium
Fr, It: high
4
Be
Dk
1
2
-
5
Fr
Be
1
1
4
6
It
Fr
1
2
5
7
Es
It
1
2
6
χ2= 23.98 (4 degrees of freedom)
P> χ2= 0.000
Es
1
2
4
10. A Micro Model to Account for the Action-Formation Mechanism
The Concept of Endowment
SR
Black-box
O
SR
i's endowment
O
The individuals’ endowment
Set of material and immaterial resources transmitted by the macro environment in
which i lives (see the situational mechanism), accumulated or wasted by i in the past (see
i’s foregoing actions), made available as well as unavailable by other individuals’ action
(see j…n’s actions) and mediated by the individual’s desires and beliefs.
The parents’ endowment
Set of material and immaterial resources parents can resort to, to prevent the risk of
poverty for their dependent children
Parents’ endowment
micro
Ex-ante intervention
«Empowering»
Situational mechanism
Macro
Family and Market
Child poverty risks
Situational mechanism
Macro
State, welfare regime
Ex-post intervention
«Re-equalizing»
Child poverty outcomes
The higher the «correlation» between parents endowment and child poverty
outcomes, the higher the level of inequalities
Father’s position
of the labour
market
Mother’s position
of the labour
market
Number of
dependent
children
Parents’
citizenship
Parents’ age
Household’s occupational endowment
Household’s
demographic
endowment
Status on poverty
at time t
Household’s
health
endowment
Children’ age
Father’s
health
status
Mother’s
health
status
Children’ sex
Household’s educational endowment
Mother’s highest
level of education
completed
Father’s highest
level of education
completed
Household’s economic endowment
Mother’s main
source of income
Father’s main source
of income
11. The Operationalization of the Concept of Endowment
Socio-demographic endowment
Occupational endowment
Economic endowment
Educational endowment
Health endowment
Number of dependent children
Three or more
Two
One
Father’s/mother’s citizenship
Non-national
National
Father’s and mother’s age
Child’s age
Child’s sex
Father’s/mother’s occupational status
Not working
Working part-time
Working full-time
Father’s/mother’s main source of income
Social transfers or private income
Income from work
Father’s/mother’s level of education
Recognised third level education (ISCED 5-7)
Second stage of secondary level education (ISCED 3)
Less than second stage of secondary education
Father/mother health status
Individual has a chronic physical or mental health problem
Individual has no chronic physical or mental health problem
12. The Micro Model: general features
1. The statistical tool
Since the explanandum is operationalized as a dummy variable, I opted for the logistic regression
2. Modelling Cross-country Comparison
Country is treated as a stratification variable. Therefore the same model has been estimated over
7 different samples (one for each country) and odds-ratio are compared.
3. Modelling Panel Data
Random-effect logistic model
4. Unit of Analysis
Children, younger than 15 y.o., living with a parental couple
5. Controlling factors
Father’s and mother’s age
Father’s and mother’s citizenship (national/non national)
Father’s and mother’s health status
Child’s age and sex
Unobserved heterogeneity (see random-effect model)
13. The Micro Model: Controlling factors and reference categories
Reference categories in the random-effect logistic regression
Household’s demographic endowment
One dependent child
Household’s economic endowment
Father’s main source of income: income from work
Mother’s main source of income: income from work
Household’s occupational endowment
Father: full-time worker
Mother: full-time worker
Household’s educational endowment
Father’s highest level of education completed: high (recognised
III level education)
Mother’s level of education: high (recognised III level
education)
Let us define this as the baseline - the theoretically most protective endowment
14. Testing the hypothesis: endowment dependency of child poverty risks
Are child poverty risks endowment-dependent?
Let us observe the odds ratios
A. Significantly higher than 1
Child poverty risks are endowment dependent:
the weaker the endowment the higher the risks
B. No significant differences
Child poverty risks are not endowment dependent
Random-effect logistic regression, odds ratios
Dk
Be
De
Fr
UK
Es
It
Three or more dependent children
1,96*
1,12
3,59**
1,49*
10,70**
5,38**
3,55*
Two dependent children
1,25
1,95*
1,55*
1,27
1,45
1,75**
1,45*
Father’s main source of income:
social transfers or private income
12,67**
39,77**
23,51**
11,98**
8,25**
14,28**
4,97*
Mother’s main source of income:
social transfers or private income
5,58**
3,02**
3,72**
5,78**
4,48**
3,99**
3,48*
Father not working
0,56
1,27
3,20**
2,11**
12,38**
2,53**
2,62**
Father working part-time
0,32
0,22
1,41
3,58
10,40**
4,02**
4,85**
Mother not working
0,58
3,27**
1,33
2,64**
5,55**
1,26
2,53**
Mother working part-time
0,77
2,62*
2,35**
7,54**
2,08*
2,54**
0,27**
Mother’s level of education: low
1,51
1,33
2,20*
3,70**
1,70*
4,27**
7,19**
Father’s level of education:
medium
1,73
2,14**
4,75**
4,37**
0,97
2,00**
2,96**
Mother’s level of education:
medium
1,35
1,58
2,17**
2,93**
0,99
1,24
2,08*
Father’s level of education: low
1,04
2,91**
8,33**
10,25**
4,17**
6,71**
8,70**
Low
* Significant for p<0,05
** Significant for p<0,01
Medium
High
Children with at least two siblings, whose parents:
•
•
•
•
are not working
have social transfers or private income as their main source of income
have low educative credentials
suffer of a physical or mental disability
Predicted probability to be a
poor child
(Average values)
Dk
Be
De, It, Fr
21,2%
79,7%
Low
Medium
87,5% - 89,1%
High
UK, Es
99,8% - 96,6%
15. Summary of the Findings: Denmark, the Benchmark
At the macro level
•
The highest per capita GDP
•
One of the highest per capita GDP growth rate (in PPS)
•
The lowest level of income inequalities
•
The highest level of social protection expenditure (as a proportion of GDP and in PPS per capita)
•
The lowest levels of child poverty incidence, intensity and presistence
•
The lowest level of child deprivation incidence and presistence
At the micro level
•
Child poverty risks depend on parents’ endowment to a very low extent
A comparatively higher capacity of the macro welfare-triangle to
counteract endowment inequalities causes child poverty risks to be low
Re-equalizing effect
16. Summary of the Findings: Germany, Belgium and France, the Halfway Position
with a Northern/Southern Shift
At the macro level
•
Level of per capita GDP in PPS and GDP average growth rate lower than in Denmark and similar
to Italy and Spain.
•
The overall economic wealth appears to be more equally distributed among the population than in
Italy and Spain
•
Income inequalities faced a small decline in France and they kept stable in Germany
•
Higher levels of social protection expenditure than in Italy and Spain, that succeeded in alleviating
child poverty incidence and intensity to a progressively higher extent
•
Child poverty incidence has been generally stable or decreasing in Belgium and Germany, but
increasing in France
•
Child poverty presistence is higher in France than in Belgium and Germany
•
Child deprivation is higher in France than in Belgium
At the micro level
•
Child poverty risks are less dependent on parents’ endowment in Belgium than in Germany and
France
Halfway position. Yet the cluster is splitting up:
Belgium, and to some extent Germany, sliding north,
while France sliding south
17. Summary of the Findings: The UK, a country in transition
Changes at the policy level, during the 1998-2003 period (See Levy, Lietz, Sutherland, 2005)
Issue
Child benefit
Family credit
Income support/JSA
Child tax credit
Working tax credit
Housing benefit and
Council tax benefit
Additions to some
insurance benefits
Changes between 1998 and 2003
Benefit increased twice as much as the inflation rate
Complement for first child increased by 40%
Complement for lone parent families is eliminated
Eliminated
Child complement eliminated
Means-tested benefit for families with children
Amount is the sum of a fixed rate per family (family element) and a
fixed rate per child (child element)
Each element is tapered at different income thresholds and with
different withdrawal rates
Means-tested in-work benefit
Hours condition for parents is lower
The basic amount is higher for lone parents and couples with or
without children
Families with children where all parents work are entitled to a refund
for childcare costs
Updated above the inflation rate
The complement is the same for all children’s ages
Complement for lone parents is eliminated
Child additions eliminated
At the macro level
•
The second higher average annual increase of per capita GDP in PPS
•
Small increase of income inequalities
•
Low level of social protection expenditures (as a % of GDP and in PPS per capita), but the
highest average annual increase of per capita expenditure in PPS
•
UK shares the features of the southern European countries: high levels of child poverty
incidence and intensity; one of the highest degrees of child poverty presistence (both in terms
of the first observed child poverty spell duration and chances for the children to fall back into
poverty)
• Yet: child poverty incidence and intensity has been clearly declining
At the micro level
• Child poverty risks are still endowment dependent
Mismatch between changes at the policy level, poverty outcomes
and endowment effect estimated on the ECHP (1994-2000)
Such transformations are likely not to be fully reflected in the micro
data at our disposal. A time lag is likely to exist between the point in
time when a change at the macro level takes place and the moment
when it is perceived at the micro level
18. Summary of the Findings: Italy and Spain, the intergenerational transmission
of poverty
At the macro level
• The lowest per capita GDP
Italy: the lowest average annual GDP growth rate
Spain: the highest average annual GDP growth rate
• The highest level of income inequalities
• By far, the lowest level of social protection expenditure
Decreasing, in terms of GDP
Increasing, but less than in the other countries, in term of PPP per capita.
• The most polarized pattern of social transfer provision (the overwhelming majority going to
pensions and public health care)
• Low levels of employment rates, especially among females
• Higher rates of long-term unemployment
• Lower effectiveness of the social transfer in reducing moderate and extreme child poverty, both
in terms of incidence and intensity
At the micro level
• Child poverty risks strongly depend on the configuration of the parents endowment
• Poverty risks for households with very weak endowments are far higher than in the other
countries
Deprivation
experienced
during
childhood interferes with the process
of
construction
of
protective
endowments
Child poverty incidence, intensity and
presistence is much higher in Italy
and Spain
In Italy and Spain, child poverty risks
are strongly endowment-dependent
Intergenerational
transmission of poverty
19. Limits of the study
 I disregarded the transformational mechanism
 Difficulties in investigating both the macro and the micro level deeply
 Difficulties in merging the macro and micro findings into a multilevel theory
 A great deal of attention to describing; far less attention to explaining