At the current level of intergenerational mobility, it takes on average four to five generations for the offspring of a low-income family to reach the average income

2006 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 391-410 ◽  
Author(s):  
LUCINDA PLATT

This article uses administrative data to explore benefit dynamics for children in Britain's second largest city, Birmingham, over the period January 1998 to June 1999. As the benefits in question (housing benefit and council tax benefit) are means tested, the dynamics are also informative about moves in and out of low income. The article is original in its use of quarterly data to provide a comprehensive picture of benefit dynamics, in treating the child rather than the benefit claimant as the unit of analysis, and also in including ethnic group differences in its analysis of benefit exit and re-entry. It provides a picture of substantial ‘welfare dynamics’: that is, movements in and out of benefit support. Living in a low-income family in receipt of benefit can be seen to be a part, and sometimes a recurring part, of the experience of a large proportion of children. It argues that policy needs to investigate and take account of the impact of insecure income as well as poverty when considering the welfare of children.


2017 ◽  
Vol 114 (35) ◽  
pp. 9320-9325 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis Donnelly ◽  
Irwin Garfinkel ◽  
Jeanne Brooks-Gunn ◽  
Brandon G. Wagner ◽  
Sarah James ◽  
...  

Recent research by Chetty and colleagues finds that children’s chances of upward mobility are affected by the communities in which they grow up [Chetty R, Hendren N (2016) Working paper 23002]. However, the developmental pathways through which communities of origin translate into future economic gain are not well understood. In this paper we examine the association between Chetty and Hendren’s county-level measure of intergenerational mobility and children’s cognitive and behavioral development. Focusing on children from low-income families, we find that growing up in a county with high upward mobility is associated with fewer externalizing behavioral problems by age 3 years and with substantial gains in cognitive test scores between ages 3 and 9 years. Growing up in a county with 1 SD better intergenerational mobility accounts for ∼20% of the gap in developmental outcomes between children from low- and high-income families. Collectively, our findings suggest that the developmental processes through which residential contexts promote upward mobility begin early in childhood and involve the enrichment of both cognitive and social-emotional development.


Author(s):  
Yue Chim Richard Wong

Failure to appreciate theimportant fact that poverty propagated itself in the absence of a parent or a social program that had time to help young childrenhas allowed child poverty to fester, compromising children’s ability to go to school, their willingness to learn, their attitudes, and their motivation. This is a major cause of worsening intergenerational mobility and poverty. The research findings of Chetty et al. confirm the importance of investing in schooling, of having stable families, and of building communities to provide positive encouragement and support for the disadvantaged. The isolated, remote public housing estates we have in Hong Kong are unlikely to foster such communities.The findings from the US and Hong Kong strongly suggest that public sector housing policy to subsidize low-income families should be changed from providing subsidized rental housing units to homeownership units. This would have three different effects for increasing intergenerational mobility among low-income households.


Author(s):  
Sukyong Seo ◽  
Young Dae Kwon ◽  
Ki-Bong Yoo ◽  
Yejin Lee ◽  
Jin-Won Noh

Multimorbidity, the coexistence of two or more long-term medical conditions in one person, has been known to disproportionally affect the low-income population. Little is known about whether long-term income is more crucial for multimorbidity than income measured in one time point; whether persistent poverty is more harmful than transient one; how changes in wealth affect multimorbidity. This is a longitudinal study on a population representative dataset, the Korean Health Panel (KHP) survey (2010–2015). A multivariate analysis was conducted using logistic regressions. A variety of income and wealth variables was investigated. Low-income Koreans (lowest 20%) were more likely to have multiple disorders; average income was more significantly associated with multimorbidity than the yearly income measured for the same year; persistent episodes of poverty had a greater hazard than transient ones; and income changes appeared to be statistically insignificant. We found that long-term income and persistent poverty are important factors of multimorbidity. These findings support the importance of policies reducing the risk of persistent poverty. Policies to promote public investment in education and create jobs may be appropriate to address multimorbidity.


Author(s):  
Joseph P. Schwieterman ◽  
C. Scott Smith

Peer-to-peer carsharing, in which “hosts” (i.e., vehicle owners) make their vehicles available for a fee, has grown markedly in recent years. Little is known about how activity in this sector is distributed across communities with different socioeconomic or demographic profiles, or about the income it provides to hosts. To offer insights into these issues, this study evaluates anonymized data of trips made on Turo, one of the country's largest peer-to-peer carsharing platforms, in Illinois. It shows that usage is heaviest in higher-density neighborhoods with above-average unemployment and rental housing rates, with a particularly large concentration on Chicago's near north, south, and west sides, as well as zip codes with sizable minority populations. Most transactions are financially remunerative to hosts who would own their vehicle regardless of their decision to share. When maintenance and other expenses are taken into account (while nonmonetary costs such as the host's time are excluded), 94.9% of trips cover their marginal cost to the host. The returns from sharing sports utility vehicles (SUVs) tend to be higher than those for sedans and minivans. A low-income family making $40,000 annually will increase household income by 6% by sharing a vehicle 90 days annually.


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