A simple subgroup decomposable measure of upward and downward income mobility

We propose a subgroup decomposable class of income mobility measures with good axiomatic properties by adapting the concept of “individual income gap between two moments in time” to a framework that is traditionally used in the measurement of poverty and deprivation. This framework is explicit in incorporating the necessary judgements about how to aggregate individual income gaps by making use of the indices with best normative properties within the poverty literature. This strategy allows us to provide intuitive and simple measures of downward (and upward) mobility that consider incidence, intensity and inequality of income gaps and are easy to comprehend and communicate to policy makers. Moreover, these measures are consistent with a simple and intuitive graphical device. As an empirical illustration of the use of this class of measures, we present an analysis of downward income mobility for different age groups in three EU countries using the European Union Survey of Income and Living Conditions (EUSILC) longitudinal data from 2004 up to 2015.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Measuring the Effect of Spell Recurrence on Poverty Dynamics

The analysis of poverty dynamics yields important insights about the expected effectiveness of alternative social policies on poverty reduction. This paper analyses the effect of spell recurrence on poverty dynamics taking into account multiple poverty and non-poverty spells. Using longitudinal data for Spain we obtain that the poverty exit and re-entry rates vary not only with personal or household characteristics but also with spell accumulation and with the duration of past spells. Results indicate that the effect of duration dependence is significant and turns out to be different by spell order. Our findings support progress towards incorporating full individual poverty trajectories more explicitly in estimating the likelihood of future poverty.poverty dynamics, multiple spells, recurrence

What helps households with children in leaving poverty? Evidence from Spain

In this paper we analyse the distinct effectiveness of demographic, labour market and welfare state transfers events in promoting exits from deprivation for childbearing households in Spain, a Southern European Country with high and persistent child poverty and a familial welfare regime. We undertake a thorough analysis of outflow rates and of the effect of events on them by household types using a detailed descriptive approach and a multivariate analysis to control for household heterogeneity. We find that, contrary to the descriptive results, a multivariate approach to the estimation of the outflow rate shows that the presence of children robustly reduces household’s chances to step out of poverty. In turn, both methodologies show that the effectiveness of labour market events is somewhat lower for childbearing households while their prevalence is particularly high. Also, both the prevalence and the effectiveness of events related to the beginning of state transfers are high for households without children.children, poverty dynamics, outflow rate, Spain, trigger events.

Measuring poverty accounting for time

In this paper we make a methodological proposal to measure poverty accounting for time by proposing a new index that aims at reconciling the way poverty is measured in a static and a dynamic framework. Our index is able to consider the duration of the poverty spell and the social preference for equality in well-being given that, in contrast with others that have been previously proposed, it is sensitive to the level of inequality between individual complete poverty experiences over time. Moreover, other indices in the literature can be interpreted as special cases of our more general measure.intertemporal poverty, duration, equality, poverty measurement

The measurement of gender wage discrimination: The distributional approach revisited

This paper presents the advantages of taking into account the distribution of the individual wage gap when analyzing female wage discrimination. The limitations of previous approaches such as the classic Oaxaca-Blinder and the recent distributive proposals using quantile regressions or counterfactual functions are thoroughly discussed. The new methodology presented here relies on Jenkins' (1994) work and proposes the use of poverty and deprivation literature techniques that are directly applicable to the measurement of discrimination. In an empirical application, we quantify the relevance of the glass ceiling and sticky floor phenomena in the Spanish labor market.children distributive analysis, economics of gender, wage discrimination, glass ceiling, sticky floor.

Poverty and the business cycle: The role of the intra-household distribution of unemployment

Conventional wisdom predicts that changes in the aggregate unemployment rate may significantly affect a country’s income distribution and, as a consequence, have a relevant impact on the evolution of the poverty rate. However, the relationship between labour macroeconomic indicators and poverty seems to have become weaker in recent times. Using panel data on unemployment and poverty for Spanish regions we estimate a System GMM model in order to model this relationship taking into account that the intrahousehold distribution of unemployment can be more relevant than aggregate unemployment in order to explain poverty changes. We also test the hypothesis of asymmetric effects of the business cycle on the share of poor individuals in the population. Our results show that unemployment has a positive impact on severe poverty, while inflation has a negative effect. Among the three unemployment measures considered in order to predict poverty, the percentage of households where all active members are unemployed registers the highest explanatory power. We also find that a change in unemployment has a larger effect on poverty during a period of economic recession than during a period of expansion.poverty forecasting, unemployment, system GMM model

Poverty and Women’s Labor Market Activity: the Role of Gender Wage Discrimination in the EU

The functioning of the labor market often has been stressed as a clear determinant in explaining poverty trends in developed countries. In this paper, we analyze the role of gender wage discrimination on household poverty rates in several EU countries, linking two related phenomena that rarely are analyzed together. In order to quantify the impact of discrimination on poverty, we propose the construction of a counterfactual distribution of wages where discrimination against women has been removed. Using this new wage distribution, we compute total household income and compare poverty rates in the absence of discrimination to those actually observed. Our results show that, in general, it is true that discrimination against women plays a determinant role in the current levels of poverty, even if we discover that results for each country present a different pattern and intensity. Further, we find that the effect of discrimination on poverty risk dramatically increases for individuals in households who largely depend on working female earnings, especially in the case of single mothers.poverty, inequality, income distribution, gender, wage discrimination, labor participation.

Youth living arrangements and household employment deprivation: Evidence from Spain

Objective: We study the role of employment deprivation and severe poverty at the household level on youth living arrangements in Spain in three different business cycle periods. Background: Previous evidence has shown that recessions in Southern European countries make young individuals turn to their families for financial protection. Most analyses assume that these cohabiting decisions are only related to the young individual's employment status while other household members' employment deprivation is irrelevant. Method: We use information from the Quarterly Labour Force Survey between 2005 and 2017 and a very flexible indicator to measure the dimension of employment deprivation at the household level and estimate its role on the probability of being emancipated with a linear probability model. To avoid reverse causation, we also estimate two seemingly unrelated regressions of the probability of cohabiting with parents and the dimension of household employment deprivation. Results: Our results confirm that the Great Recession increased the probability of parental co-habitation, even if with some delay in relation to the business cycle. We reject the assumption about the irrelevance of other household member’s employment deprivation on youth cohabitation decisions because its dimension determines them. Conclusion: Policies aiming to improve emancipation should not only increase youth labour market opportunities but provide either more employment hours or more income transfers to those living in households where young individuals live

Measuring the Effect of Spell Recurrence on Poverty Dynamics

The analysis of poverty dynamics yields important insights about the expected effectiveness of alternative social policies on poverty reduction. This paper analyses the effect of spell recurrence on poverty dynamics taking into account multiple poverty and non-poverty spells. Using longitudinal data for Spain we obtain that the poverty exit and re-entry rates vary not only with personal or household characteristics but also with spell accumulation and with the duration of past spells. Results indicate that the effect of duration dependence is significant and turns out to be different by spell order. Our findings support progress towards incorporating full individual poverty trajectories more explicitly in estimating the likelihood of future poverty

Measuring the effect of spell recurrence on poverty dynamics

The analysis of poverty dynamics yields important insights about the expected effectiveness of alternative social policies on poverty reduction. This paper analyses the effect of spell recurrence on poverty dynamics taking into account multiple poverty and non-poverty spells by spell order. Using data for Spain during a seven year period, we obtain that the poverty exit and re-entry rates vary not only with personal or household characteristics but also with spell accumulation and with the duration of past spells. Results indicate that the effect of duration dependence is significant and turns out to be different by spell order