Inequality and poverty in the CIS-7, 1989-2002

This paper examines the impact of a decade of transition on the living standards of people living in seven of the poorest Republics of the former Soviet Union – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan (known as the CIS-7). Data are drawn from a wide variety of sources, providing a comprehensive overview of household and individual welfare within the region. The picture painted is a bleak one, with rising income inequality, high levels of material poverty, and deterioration in health status and in access to health and education services. However, there are now the green shoots of economic recovery. Since 2000 all countries have experienced positive economic growth. The challenge for policy makers is to ensure that the benefits of this growth are shared equally amongst the population and that human capabilities are protected and strengthened

Poverty and access to maternal health care in Tajikistan

Using recently available survey data for Tajikistan, this paper investigates changes in the pattern of maternal health care over the last decade, and the extent to which inequalities in access to that care have emerged. In particular, the link between poverty, women's education status and the utilisation of maternal health services is investigated. The results demonstrate a significant decline in the use of maternal health services in Tajikistan since independence, as well as changes in the location of delivery and type of person providing assistance, with a clear shift away from giving birth in a health facility toward giving birth at home. Over two-fifths of all women who gave birth in the year prior to the survey in 1999 had a home delivery. There are clear differences in access by socio-economic status with women from the poorest quintile being three times more likely to experience a home delivery with no trained assistance than women from the richest quintile

Creating a poverty map for Azerbaijan

'Poverty maps' - graphic representations of spatially disaggregated estimates of welfare - are increasingly used to geographically target scare resources. But their development in many low resource settings is hampered due to data constraints. Data on income or consumption are often unavailable or direct survey estimates for small areas yield unacceptably large standard errors. Census data offer the required level of coverage but do not generally contain appropriate information. Alternative methods aim either at combining survey data with unit record data from the Census to produce estimates of income or expenditure for small areas or at developing alternative welfare rankings, such as asset indices, using existing census data. This paper develops a set of poverty maps for Azerbaijan. Two alternative approaches are adopted. First, a map is constructed using an asset index based on data from the 1999 Census to produce reliable estimates of welfare at the raion level. Second, an alternative map is derived using imputed household consumption, combining information from the 2002 Household Budget Survey (HBS) with 1999 Census data. This provides a unique opportunity to compare the welfare rankings obtained at the regional level under the two approaches

Gender and poverty: how we can be misled by the unitary model of household resources – the case of Tajikistan

Using the 2003 Tajikistan Living Standard Survey this paper looks at the relationship between gender and poverty and show how, by modifying the equal sharing assumption of the household resources, we can easily be misled by the poverty and gender relationship. This paper also shows how those gender analyses which use the female headed household and male headed household dichotomy in Tajikistan obscure the gender analysis of poverty due to the heterogeneity of female headed household types

Staying in school: assessing the role of access, availability and cost

This paper investigates the role of contextual factors outside the household in determining whether or not a child attends basic education in Tajikistan. By combining data from the Tajikistan Living Standard Survey with data from a parallel community survey, aggregated census data at the jamoat (village) level, and spatial data, a series of variables are constructed which characterize the environment where the child lives. These variables serve as proxies for the accessibility and availability of school services, quality of education, opportunity cost of education in terms of the opportunities for income generating activities forgone, and level of economic development in the communities. Applying multilevel modelling techniques, the results show that contextual factors have a strong effect on school attendance. Accessibility of service and higher quality of school have a positive effect, however a high opportunity cost to education in a community exerts a negative effect on school attendance

The life cycle distributional consequence of pay-as-you-go and funded pension systems

Using a dynamic cohort microsimulation model (LIFEMOD), the authors examine the life-cycle distributional consequences of a variety of pay-as-you-go (PAYG) and funded pension systems. This technique allows them to investigate both the socioeconomic characteristics and the number of people affected by a change in contribution or eligibility rules in any pension system. LIFEMOD uses 1985 parameters for the United Kingdom so specific results are not valid for other countries. But winners and losers are likely to be similar across countries. They find the following: Women benefit much more than men in a flat-rate PAYG system. In simulations, 84 percent of surviving women but only 33 percent of surviving men are net beneficiaries, because women have higher life expectancy and lower lifetime earnings. Imposing minimum contributions substantially reduces the number of women who qualify for a pension. Imposing a joint contribution rule on the earnings of married couples significantly increases the number of women qualifying without significantly reducing the proportion of qualifying men. In funded pension systems, on average men accumulate much more pension capital than women do because of men's higher earnings and more continuous paid work. Different rates of real interest and earnings growth affect individuals'fund accumulation differently. Women benefit more from high rates of return and low earnings growth because they tend to receive a higher proportion of their lifetime earnings when young. But some men and many women fail to achieve minimum pension levels. If the pension shortfall is compensated for by lump-sum capital top-ups, women receive 93 percent of top-ups (70 percent if joint contributions are used). In hybrid pension systems that combine both PAYG and funded elements, the higher the proportion of PAYG payments, the greater the replacement rate for people in the bottom 40 percent of the lifetime earnings distribution (the majority of whom are women). But replacement rates for people in the middle of income distribution are insensitive to any variant of the PAYG-funded combination. In short, flat-rate pay-as-you-go pension plans and funded pensions produce very different distributional outcomes, the single most important determinant of which is the different lifetime employment and earnings records of men and women.Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Pensions&Retirement Systems,Population&Development,Information Technology,Demographics

Women’s family histories and incomes in later life in the UK, US and West Germany

Using data from several large scale longitudinal surveys, this paper investigates the relationship between older women's families histories and their personal incomes in later life in the UK, US and West Germany, By comparing three countries with very different welfare regimes, we seek to gain a better understanding of the interaction between the life course, pension system and women's incomes in later life. We conclude with a brief discussion of the 'women-friendliness' of different pension regimes in the light of our analysis.comparative, older women, pensions, work history, life course

Women's family histories and incomes in later life in the UK, US and West Germany.

Using data from several large scale longitudinal surveys, this paper investigates the relationship between older women’s families histories and their personal incomes in later life in the UK, US and West Germany, By comparing three countries with very different welfare regimes, we seek to gain a better understanding of the interaction between the life course, pension system and women’s incomes in later life. We conclude with a brief discussion of the ‘women-friendliness’ of different pension regimes in the light of our analysis.

The relationship between women’s work histories and incomes in later life in the UK, US and West Germany

Using data from several large scale longitudinal surveys, this paper investigates the relationship between older women's personal incomes and their work histories in the UK, US and West Germany. By comparing three countries with very different welfare regimes, we seek to gain a better understanding of the interaction between the life course, pension system and women's incomes in later life. The association between older women's incomes and work histories is strongest in West Germany and weakest in the UK, where there is evidence of a pensions' poverty trap and where only predominantly full-time employment is associated with significantly higher incomes in later life, after controlling for other socio-economic characteristics. Work history matters less for widows (in all three countries) and more for younger birth cohorts and more educated women (UK only). We conclude with a brief discussion of the 'women-friendliness' of different pension regimes in the light of our analysis.comparative, older women, pensions, work history, life course