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Our study aims to analyze and learn from the unanticipated economic shocks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. We examine the ramifications of the pandemic on household well-being in Ethiopia, uncovering the layers of socio-economic impact through a rigorous microsimulation exercise. Drawing on robust data from the 2018/19 Living Standards Measurement Study – Integrated Surveys on Agriculture, we assess the significant disruptions caused by the pandemic. Our findings reveal a 2 to 4 percentage point increase in the poverty rate within the first three months, driven largely by shifts in direct incomes and food prices. The analysis highlights differential impacts across rural and urban areas, as well as between male- and female-headed households. Moreover, the study underscores the vital role of social protection programs in mitigating the effects of such shocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous literature has established that lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people are at least as likely to be poor as heterosexual people, standing in contrast to myths of “gay affluence.” These findings have used datasets limited by either sample size or using partnership status to infer sexual orientation. Using U.S. data from the Household Pulse Survey, which allows us to identify large samples of individuals who self-identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual, we find that bisexuals have lower incomes and are more likely to experience poverty, and bisexual individuals, gay men, and lesbian women are more likely to report financial hardship. Additionally, we find that LGB people utilize government assistance at higher rates than heterosexual people, even when allowing for selection into poverty status. We propose several explanations for these differentials, drawing on the program non-participation literature, and suggest that social network effects, lessened stigma, and increased reliance on public programs may explain these differences. Finally, we examine receipt of the enhanced child tax credit and find evidence that gay men and lesbian women with children were less likely to receive it than heterosexual men and women with children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Sozialer Fortschritt is the property of Duncker & Humblot GmbH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Sozialer Fortschritt is the property of Duncker & Humblot GmbH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We evaluate the impact of a reduction in the child qualifying age for the One-Parent Family Payment in Ireland. From 2012 to 2015, the child qualifying age was reduced from 18 to 7 years. Lone parents who no longer qualified for the payment, based on the age of their child, could avail of Jobseekers Transitional Payment, which involves a labour activation component. The reforms led to an increase in the average hours worked of lone parents of between 2 and 5 h per week. Lone parents impacted by the policy were 13 percentage points more likely to be working. In addition, we find an increase in household income of between 9% and 12%, and an increase of between 23% and 29% in earnings from employment. Finally, the policy was associated with a 10–14 percentage point reduction in the poverty rate of lone parents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Sozialer Fortschritt is the property of Duncker & Humblot GmbH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Sozialer Fortschritt is the property of Duncker & Humblot GmbH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Child well-being is multidimensional and inequality in intrahousehold resource allocation is evident. Yet, there is scant evidence linking inequality-adjusted monetary, nutritional and multidimensional measures of child well-being. After identifying children as money-poor using resource shares adjusting inequality in intrahousehold resource allocation, this study extends the traditional multidimensional deprivation index by including a monetary dimension. It then looks at the overlaps between those well-being measures. Using the 2013/14 Ethiopian Living Standard Measurement Study data, we find that multidimensional child deprivation is high and varies with demography and geography. The probability of falling into multidimensional deprivation and average intensity of it increase with the number of children. Indices for urban children rise when a monetary indicator is included. Although stunted and multidimensionally-deprived children concentrate more at the lower expenditure levels, there is evidence that the monetarily non-poor households still host deprived children. Depending on the type of poverty measure considered, 10% to a quarter of monetarily non-poor children are deprived multidimensionally. After controlling for child-, head-, household- and community-level effects, including shocks and common health effects, we find no evidence suggesting children's nutrition is related to expenditures. Specifically, 60% of money-poor under-7 children and 46% living in money-poor households are not stunted while about two-thirds of stunted children are not found in the money-poorest 20 or 40% of children/households. Use of only monetary information to targeting is questioned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing body of knowledge on the complex effects of social protection on poverty in Africa. This article explores the pros and cons of a multidisciplinary approach to studying social protection policies. Our research aimed at studying the interaction between cash transfers and social health protection policies in terms of their impact on inclusive growth in Ghana and Kenya. Also, it explored the policy reform context over time to unravel programme dynamics and outcomes. The analysis combined econometric and qualitative impact assessments with national- and local-level political economic analyses. In particular, dynamic effects and improved understanding of processes are well captured by this approach, thus, pushing the understanding of implementation challenges over and beyond a 'technological fix,' as has been argued before by Niño-Zarazúa et al. (World Dev 40:163–176, 2012), However, multidisciplinary research puts considerable demands on data and data handling. Finally, some poverty reduction effects play out over a longer time, requiring longitudinal consistent data that is still scarce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurately measuring government benefit receipt in household surveys is necessary when studying disadvantaged populations and welfare programs. The Food Stamp Program is especially important given its size and recent growth. To validate survey reports, we link administrative data on participation in two states to three key household surveys. We find that between 23 and 50 percent of true food stamp recipient households do not report receipt. A substantial number of true nonrecipients are also recorded as recipients. We examine reasons for these errors, including imputation, an important source of error. Error rates vary with household characteristics, implying complicated biases in multivariate analyses, such as regressions. We directly examine biases in common survey-based estimates of program receipt by comparing them to estimates from our linked data. We find that the survey estimates understate participation among single parents, nonwhites, and low-income households and also lead to errors in multiple program receipt and time and age patterns of receipt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research purpose. The study is focused on the Covid-19 pandemic crisis in the European Union. This study investigates the current driving trends and trade-offs of the Covid-19 pandemic phenomenon and social inclusion trends in the European countries.

Comparing income levels across families with different household compositions and sizes is not easy and has been a long‐term focus in welfare and policy analysis. This paper evaluates the extent childless two‐person households in the U.S. reduce their costs by living together relative to living alone. Using a structural collective household model and household scanner data, we find women, on average, consume 48% of total household expenditures, and a woman (man) living alone would need approximately 65% (63%) of the two‐person household's income to reach the same living standard as attained as a member of a two‐person household. Our results suggest the poverty line for two‐person childless households may need to be increased, whereas other federal benefit calculations are overly generous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethiopia's Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) is Africa's second largest social protection programme; it has public works (PW) and direct support (DS) components. This study evaluates the impacts of PSNP and related 'allied' transfers on children's bargaining power proxied by child resource shares and wellbeing (monetary poverty, undernutrition and multidimensional deprivation). Inverse-probability-weighted regression adjustment, which also controls for other correlates of outcome variables, provides the average treatment effect on the treated with alternative specifications and propensity score matching methods used to check robustness. Using Ethiopia's Living Standard Measurement Study (LSMS) dataset of 2013/14, we find that children in households receiving PSNP transfers have slightly lower resource shares and are poorer than those in non-recipient families. In contrast, children in allied transfers are less poor and less deprived multidimensionally. Under-seven children in families getting PW transfers are more stunted than their counterparts in non-PW families. Lending some support to previous evidence that when women receive exogenous transfers child outcomes improve, we also find that children in male-headed households with PW have lower resource shares and are more stunted while child poverty in single-mother households is slightly lower. The undesirable results may be attributed to inequality in intrahousehold resource allocation, parental labour requirements by the PW and insufficient transfers which require revisions to consider children's needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Antecedentes: La categoría “clase media” no tiene un significado único y consistente. La complejidad de su abordaje en términos conceptuales y metodológicos, similar al de la pobreza, la ubican desde diversas disciplinas como uno de los aspectos conceptuales sin consenso en la literatura. Se realiza una revisión comprehensiva de la literatura, con énfasis en las metodologías multidimensional y unidimensional del ingreso y se identifican áreas de no consensos en umbrales y dimensiones utilizadas.Metodología: Se realiza la identificación de la clase media mexicana desde una perspectiva multidimensional, consistente con el método de medición multidimensional de la pobreza del Coneval (2009), según el cual el ingreso es condición necesaria pero no suficiente de seguridad y no vulnerabilidad. Se construyen clases latentes con base en los indicadores de derechos y bienestar de Coneval que identificaron la proporción de población en clases medias. Se obtienen cinco categorías: población en pobreza multidimensional, población vulnerable por ingreso, población vulnerable por carencias sociales, clases medias y población rica.Resultados: Entre los principales hallazgos se encuentra evidencia de que México sigue siendo un país de pobres, más que de clases medias. La cantidad de personas en condición de pobreza es 2.3 veces mayor que lo que representa la clase media; por lo tanto, el estatus y las condiciones de vida garantes de la seguridad y no vulnerabilidad económica, características de la clase media, sólo se garantizan para poco más de un cuarto del total de la población, 27.5%. El artículo presenta resultados sobre la evolución de la clase media, la cual crece entre 2000 y 2006, hasta antes de la crisis alimentaria y económico-financiera de 2006 y 2008, pero nunca llega a niveles superiores a 50%. Tras la crisis, comienza nuevamente su descenso a niveles similares a los de 1994, condición que muestra su vulnerabilidad ante situaciones de crisis o shocks.Conclusiones: El artículo concluye que la sostenibilidad de las clases medias en el tiempo depende tanto de políticas públicas efectivas y eficientes de combate a la pobreza, como de políticas dirigidas a las denominadas clases medias, lo cual en México y países de América Latina no existe. Ello implica que las más amplias capas de población, de la misma manera que en los países desarrollados, tengan acceso a un salario mínimo digno que garantice el bienestar, servicios efectivos de salud adecuados, educación de calidad, acceso al mercado de créditos y el sistema financiero, así como pensiones adecuadas y dignas.

China is undergoing a campaign which is called "The Targeted Poverty Alleviation Policy" to eradicate extreme poverty from rural China until 2020. Though poverty in rural China has been studied intensively in different objective dimensions, little attention has been paid to poverty line settings and subjective poverty, which are hinged to the policy effects. In order to fill in the research gap, this study employs a nationally representative survey of rural households in 2016, to measure subjective poverty in rural China, and analyze the determinants as well. Our results indicate that the mean subjective poverty line of the rural households is 8297 yuan per capita, which is far higher than the national poverty line (2800 yuan). Statistically, 29% of the surveyed rural households who are not objectively poor feel subjectively poor. The objective poverty line cannot fully reflect the subjective poverty perception. Thus, how to reduce the subjective poverty perception could be a major policy agenda in rural China after 2020, when extreme poverty is no longer a problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates seven dimensions of poverty in Vietnam (income, health, education, housing, assets, basic services and economic status) using the Household Living Standard Survey data of 2014. The Government of Vietnam disburses funds for poverty alleviation to regions on the basis of incidence of household income poverty. Our study shows that this method neither fully captures the complex regional diversity of poverty nor does it accurately identify regions with a higher severity of poverty. For the first time in poverty studies of Vietnam, we explore the role of multiple spatial levels on poverty in multiple dimensions. Unlike the practice in the existing literature which classifies the poor with an arbitrary poverty cut-off, we use a fuzzy method that allows the inclusion of people who are in partial poverty. Furthermore, by utilizing random intercept multilevel models to decompose the variation of poverty at the household, commune, district and province levels, poverty maps for Vietnam are developed to visualize the spatial evidence of the severity and incidence of poverty. We identify that the provinces that are relatively less (more) poor in the income dimension are more (less) destitute in several other dimensions, which clearly shows a need for special policy attention. Our method reveals that the poverty ranking of provinces in regional Vietnam departs widely from those obtained through traditional single-level analysis. This suggests that poverty in Vietnam can be explained not only by characteristics at the household level, but also by contextual factors at higher levels (commune/village, district, province). These empirical findings can help Vietnamese policy makers determine suitable strategies to effectively target the most deprived regions and to develop more appropriate poverty-alleviation programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the major changes to the face of poverty in Great Britain over the past few decades, assessing the role of policy, and compares and contrasts this with the patterns seen in the United States, using harmonised household survey data. There are various commonalities between the countries, including a shift in the composition of those in poverty towards working‐age households without children, who have not been the focus of policy attention. There are also big differences, with a steadily increasing share of poverty in Great Britain – but a stable share in the United States – found in households with an adult in paid work. This perhaps explains why the anti‐poverty focus in Great Britain is now squarely on the plight of working households, while in the United States it is focused on labour force participation among the low skilled – even though, as we show, the United States has, for decades, been accustomed to in‐work poverty comprising a significantly higher proportion of overall poverty than in Great Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Living in poverty may have long-run negative effects. The interaction between families and public policies is crucial as it affects a child's opportunities. The aim of this paper is to check whether public policies implemented during individuals' childhood have a long-run effect in the probability of being poor in adulthood, net of personal and family characteristics. We consider two specific childhood-related public spending programs capturing different mechanism through which public policies might affect poverty: in primary education and in family allowances. We find that an increase in public spending in education accounts for a sizeable reduction in the incidence of poverty in adulthood. On the contrary, expenditure on family allowances does not have any impact on adult poverty status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies linking household surveys to administrative records reveal high rates of misreporting of program receipt. We use the FoodAPS survey to examine whether the findings of these studies of general household surveys using one or two states generalize to a survey with a narrow focus and across many states. First, we study how reporting errors differ from other surveys. We find a lower rate of false negatives (failures to report true receipt) in FoodAPS, likely partly due to the shorter recall period of FoodAPS. Misreporting varies with household characteristics and between interviewers. Second, we examine geographic heterogeneity in survey error to assess whether we can extrapolate from linked data from a few states. We find systematic differences between states in unconditional error rates but no evidence of substantial differences conditional on common covariates. Thus, extrapolating error rates across states may yield more accurate receipt estimates than uncorrected survey estimates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to investigate the Asian Development Bank's (ADB) finding of increasing trend in income poverty in China since 2000, this paper studies income and multidimensional poverty in China between 2000 and 2011 using China Health and Nutrition Survey data. It is observed the ADB proposed approach, adjusted for vulnerability, demonstrates an upward trend in income poverty. Income poverty is decreasing, however, for the World Bank's poverty cut-offs ($1.25 or $1.90). To measure multidimensional poverty, along with income (with ADB's adjusted Asian poverty line and World Bank's poverty lines), other indicators such as health, education and living standards are considered in this paper. The evident disparities and diversities in rural and urban multidimensional poverty are further examined. Per capita net income, highest level of education and flush toilet are found to be major contributors to both rural and urban poverty. The rural–urban disparity in terms of mild and moderate poverty appears to have decreased in the period before 2009, however, there have been increases since then, and the gap in terms of severe poverty remained quite high in this decade. We find that food insecurity does not play a major role in the rural–urban disparity in poverty. In the recent period, health insurance has become more prominent in explaining urban destitution, while the rural population is found to be more vulnerable to income fluctuations. Our results also show long-term poverty to be highly influenced by health. Our findings raise questions about the adequacies in the provision of health insurance and the quality of education, particularly in rural China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper documents the variation in living standards of the poorest fifth of children in rich (and some middle-income) nations, with a focus on the relative importance and interaction of social transfers (net of taxes) and labour market incomes. Overall, the cross-national variation in the disposable income of disadvantaged children is comprised equally of variation in market and transfer income (with the two negatively correlated). The English-speaking countries stand out as all having relatively low market incomes, but substantial variation in transfer income. Their low market incomes reflect low employment hours in Australia and primarily low hours in the UK and Ireland, while in the US and Canada low hours and low pay contribute equally. Comparing incomes prior to and after the 2008 financial crisis, the real disposable incomes of the poorest fifth decreased substantially in Greece, Spain and Ireland, but were relatively stable in other rich nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intrahousehold resource allocations have important implications for policies targeted at household resources and thus household welfare. Recent literature has shown, for single headed households, that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits may be inadequate to reach a nutritious diet due to a "time deficit" gap in food production. This paper first develops a simple theoretically based time adjustment multiplier to address this benefit inadequacy for single and dual headed households. A method is then developed for estimating spousal time in food production with limited data. The estimated time deficit gap and time adjustment multiplier are smaller for dual headed households than single headed households. For single headed households, the time adjusted benefits are about $107 per household per week higher than the unadjusted benefits. For dual headed households, ignoring the spousal time contribution, the time adjusted benefits are about $73 per household per week higher than the unadjusted benefits. However, by including the spousal time contribution, this benefit shortfall is reduced by about $50. These findings demonstrate the importance of taking into account intrahousehold time allocation in evaluating the adequacy of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study estimates the effect of local labor demand on the likelihood that Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) beneficiaries are able to transition out of the program. Our data include SNAP administrative records from New York (2007 to 2012), linked at the person‐level to the 2010 Census, and linked at the county‐month‐level to industry‐specific labor market conditions. We find that local labor markets matter for the length of time spent on SNAP, but there is substantial heterogeneity in estimated effects across local industries. Using Bartik‐style instruments to isolate the effect of labor demand and controlling for the changing composition of entrants and program rules brought on by the Great Recession, we find that fluctuations in labor demand in industries with high shares of SNAP participants—especially food service and retail—change the likelihood of exiting the program. Notably, estimated industry effects vary across race and parental status, with black participants being most sensitive to changes in local labor market conditions and mothers benefiting less from growth in local labor demand than fathers and non‐parents. We confirm that our results are not driven by endogenous inter‐county mobility or New York City labor markets and are robust to multiple specifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The lack of consensus and consistency in measuring resilience undermines the ability of the development aid community to objectively monitor and verify the effects of programs that are intentionally designed to build resilience. In this paper we compare conceptual and analytical models of resilience used by various development organizations, critically evaluating their strengths and weaknesses from a program implementation and measurement point of view. We provide the reader with a clear synthesis of the literature and a classification system for these resilience models. Lastly, we bridge the 'measurement gap' by mapping each resilience model to their set of indicators and by building a list of indicators and metrics directly distilled from the literature and classified using SMART filters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]