GINI DP 19: The EU 2020 poverty target

As part of its 2020 Strategy adopted in 2010, the EU has set a number of headline targets including one for poverty reduction over the next decade. This is a major development in the role accorded to social inclusion in the EU, and thus very important at the level of principle. However, the specific way the target itself has been framed, and the implications for approaches to implementing it, also merit careful consideration. The population identified in framing the target is persons in the member states either below a country-specific relative income poverty threshold, above a material deprivation threshold, or in a “jobless” household. This paper presents an in-depth analysis and critique of the way that target is formulated on both conceptual and empirical grounds and documents the consequence for our understanding of both cross-national and socio-economic patterning of poverty. The paper concludes with a discussion of alternative approaches to combining low income and material deprivation to identify those most in need from a poverty reduction perspective.

The EU 2020 Poverty Target

As part of its 2020 Strategy adopted in 2010, the EU has set a number of headline targets including one for poverty reduction over the next decade. This is a major development in the role accorded to social inclusion in the EU, and thus very important at the level of principle. However, the specific way the target itself has been framed, and the implications for approaches to implementing it, also merit careful consideration. The population identified in framing the target is persons in the member states either below a country-specific relative income poverty threshold, above a material deprivation threshold, or in a “jobless” household. This paper presents an in-depth analysis and critique of the way that target is formulated on both conceptual and empirical grounds and documents the consequence for our understanding of both cross-national and socio-economic patterning of poverty. The paper concludes with a discussion of alternative approaches to combining low income and material deprivation to identify those most in need from a poverty reduction perspective.

Household Composition, Living Standards, and “Needs”. ESRI Working Paper No. 106, 1999

This study uses the 1987 ESRI Survey of Income Distribution, Poverty and Use of State Services and the 1994 Living in Ireland Survey to examine two issues of immediate relevance to Irish tax and social welfare policy. The first is how the living standards of different household types have been evolving in recent years. The second is the relationship between the “needs” of one household type versus another - for example a single adult versus a couple, or a couple with no children versus a couple with four children. Both issues are critical for the Inter-Departmental Working Group set up in 1998 to examine the treatment of married, cohabiting and one-parent households under the tax and social welfare codes. This study was undertaken in the first instance as a contribution to the work of that group, and is being published in order to inform the wider debate of these issues. In this introductory chapter we outline the issues to be addressed, and then look at how household composition has been changing over the period to provide the background for the remainder of the study

Understanding Protostellar Jet Feedback on Disc and Cloud Scales

Protostellar jets are a vital part of the star formation process. They are responsible for the removal of excess angular momentum critical to the growth of protostars, while feeding that angular momentum back into molecular clouds to regulate the formation of stellar cores and gravitational collapse. To better understand the origin and impact of protostellar jets, this thesis investigates the launching of protostellar disc winds and the driving of non-isothermal turbulence in the interstellar medium. In the first part of this thesis, we explore how the structure of protostellar discs relates to the properties of the wind-launching region, which directly effects the large-scale properties of the jet. In order to study the launching of disc winds, we first design a 1+1.5D magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) model of the launching region in the [r,z] plane. We take into account the three diffusion mechanisms of non-ideal MHD (Ohm, Hall, and ambipolar) by calculating their contributions at the disc midplane and using a simplified, vertically-scaled approach for higher z. We observe that most of the mass launched by the wind is concentrated within a radially localized region a fraction of an astronomical unit (au) in width, in agreement with current observations. We find that the footprint radius and the wind efficiency, measured by the ratio of the wind mass-loss rate to the rate of material accreted onto the star, are a strong function of the model parameters, namely the mass accretion rate, magnetic field strength, and surface density profile of the disc. Understanding the structure of the wind-launching region has important We subsequently improve the 1+1.5D models by removing the vertical scaling approximation to the non-ideal MHD terms and calculate the magnetic diffusivities self-consistently at all heights above the disc midplane. This results in increased field-matter coupling surrounding the midplane, increasing the poloidal magnetic field bending and compressing the disc via enhanced magnetic pressure gradients. It also shifts the wind-launching region to smaller radii, decreases the overall wind mass-loss rate by an order of magnitude, and generates a radially symmetric wind mass-loss profile. In the second part of this thesis, we investigate the properties of driven, turbulent, adiabatic gas. The density variance--Mach number relation of the turbulent interstellar medium is a key ingredient for analytical models of star formation. We examine the robustness of the standard, isothermal form of this relation in the non-isothermal regime, specifically testing ideal gases with diatomic molecular and monatomic adiabatic indices. Stirring the gas with purely solenoidal forcing at low wavenumbers, we find that as the gas heats in adiabatic compressions, it evolves along a curve in the density variance-Mach number plane, but deviates significantly from the standard isothermal relation. We provide new empirical and theoretical relations that take the adiabatic index into account and provide good fits for a range of Mach numbers

Analysing Intergenerational Influences on Income Poverty and Economic Vulnerability with EU-SILC

The EU-SILC 2005 wave includes a special module on inter-generational transmission of poverty. In addition to the standard data relating to income and material deprivation, the information relating to parental background and childhood circumstances was collected for all household members or selected respondents aged over 24 and less than 66 at the end of the income reference period. In principle, the module provides an unprecedented opportunity to examine on a comparative European basis the relationship between current poverty and social exclusion outcomes and parental characteristics and childhood economic circumstances. In this paper we seek to exploit such potential. In pursuing this objective, it is necessary to address some of the limitations of the data. We do by restricting our attention to a set of countries where data issues seem less extreme. In addition we employ ‘dominance procedures in relation to parents’ education and social class to reduce the scale of the missing values problem. Finally, we compare findings from one dimensional and multidimensional approaches in order to provide an assessment of the extent to which our analysis provides a coherent account of the intergenerational transmission of disadvantage.Poverty, Intergenerational, EU-SILC

Reassessing Income and Deprivation Approaches to the Measurement of Poverty in the Republic of Ireland

This paper reassesses the validity of a poverty measure combining relative income and non-monetary deprivation indicators, first developed and applied to Irish data for 1987, in the light of experience since then and current debates. A crucial issue is whether the measure has failed to capture fundamental changes in livings patterns and expectations. A range of analyses confirm that it continues to identify a set of households experiencing distinctive levels of generalised deprivation, economic strain, psychological distress and exposure to persistent income poverty.

Trends in Economic Vulnerability in the Republic of Ireland

In this paper we evaluate trends in levels of economic vulnerability in Ireland during the period 1994-2001. We also document changes in the consequences of such vulnerability for social exclusion and in the social demographic factors with which it is associated. Over time there was a sharp decline in economic vulnerability. Furthermore, the degree of differentiation between the vulnerable and non-vulnerable classes in relation to both economic exclusion and social exclusion, more broadly conceived, remained relatively constant. Ireland is characterised by levels of socioeconomic inequality that place it at the more unequal end of the European spectrum. However, the dramatic reductions in levels of vulnerability across the socio-economic spectrum demonstrate that the fruits of the economic boom have been distributed relatively widely.

Tenure-Track or Tenure Trap?

When looking at articles written about academic library issues, a reader quickly notices that discussions of faculty status and tenure for librarians have occupied a prominent place. Should librarians be considered faculty when they work for colleges or universities? If so, should they be offered tenure? And if they are offered the chance to achieve tenure, how should they be evaluated? Or are faculty status and tenure things that are irrelevant to the pursuit of librarianship and unnecessary diversions from what we should be most concerned about? These questions have been answered differently at different institutions. When considering a position at an academic library, you should understand how librarians are employed and evaluated at that library and whether the situation is one that matches your interest