Search

The ecological public welfare positions policy, which involves low-income people in ecological conservation work, is an essential practical innovation for China to achieve mutual benefits in ecological protection and poverty alleviation. This study explored the effect of participation in ecological public welfare positions (PEPWP) on farmers' household income composition and clarified the internal mechanism by propensity score matching (PSM) and conditional process analysis, based on the field data from 508 formerly registered impoverished households in Jiangxi Province and Hubei Province, China. Results showed that (1) PEPWP was characterized by "self-selection", which significantly increased farmers' wage level, planting income in Jiangxi Province, and husbandry income in Hubei Province after the elimination of selectivity bias. However, the effect on other sub-incomes was insignificant. (2) There was a moderated mediating model between PEPWP and agricultural income, which demonstrated that farmer's development motivation (FDM) played a partially mediating effect between PEPWP and FDM, and the frequency of skill training (FST) moderated the first part path of this model. (3) EPWP policy steadily increased farmers' income at the vulnerable livelihood level and greatly improved the regional environment. At the same time, it also played an active role in stimulating FDM and rural governance. Conclusions indicated that it was significant to diversify the channels for promoting growth in rural incomes, and pay attention to skill training and the multi-functional role of ecological custodians, in order to activate FDM and assist farmers in eradicating poverty sustainably. [Display omitted] • Reveal the effect of ecological public welfare positions (EPWP) on farmers' income. • EPWP can increase household income accompanying with sub-income diversification. • The impact of EPWP on income is mediated by farmer's development motivation. • Frequency of skill training moderates the internal mechanism of EPWP on income. • The environmental-economic-social benefits of EPWP are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mucho se ha estudiado y debatido en torno al tema de la pobreza, sin embargo no existe una teoría económica de consenso, de aquí el interés que se tiene en seguir explorando las ventajas y desventajas de los distintos enfoque. El presente estudio realiza un análisis de la pobreza en México utilizando un enfoque multidimensional. Se trata de un enfoque alternativo a los índices de pobreza unidimensional, dicho enfoque contempla un conjunto de variables con determinada ponderación. El artículo hace una revisión de distintos enfoques de medición de la pobreza, establece argumentos teóricos y posteriormente realiza un análisis de la pobreza en México utilizando el criterio multidimensional. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this review, we focus on current research on the major welfare program in the United States, food security programs, Social Security, Social Security Disability, Unemployment Insurance, child support, and tax provisions such as the Earned Income Tax Credit that provide substantial financial support for low-income households and other potentially vulnerable populations such as the elderly and the unemployed. Since many of these are programs specifically targeted at poor and low-income individuals, we also describe how poverty is defined in the United States, update readers on the ongoing debate over poverty measurement, and provide some comparison to how it is measured outside the United States. Looking across the various social policies addressed in this review and the associated recent research, one clear theme emerges: the United States is very concerned about work disincentives potentially embedded within these programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This three-year longitudinal study investigated whether low-wage employment was associated with improved psychological and parenting outcomes in a sample of 178 single mothers who were employed and unemployed current and former welfare recipients both before and subsequent to the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. Participation in employment predicted fewer depressive symptoms and less negative parenting style over time. Employment at time 1 was associated with a reduced likelihood of receiving welfare in the interim between times 1 and 2, less financial strain at time 2, and (through these) a decrease in mothers' depressive symptoms at time 2. Fewer depressive symptoms at time 2, in turn, predicted less negative parenting style, net of the mothers' earlier demographic, mental health, and parenting characteristics. Mothers with higher education attainment were more likely to be employed (and to earn more) at both time points. Implications of these findings for welfare policies are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the ways in which the Bhagidari program in 2000 of the government of Delhi, India has influenced forms of demand making for the poor. The three factors that have shaped the impact of Bhagidari on the urban poor include a change in the relationship between resident welfare associations (RWA) and local political representatives. The article also places the program in the context of attempts to decentralize urban governance in India and presents tentative conclusions about the program.

The article presents a case study of public relief practice and policy in Lafayette, Indiana from 1896 to 1897. It informs that historians view, the national depression in the 1890s as changing the perception of the cause of poverty from one of individual fault to one that recognized social factors and, therefore, as altering poor relief practices and policies. It informs that long-held, cherished beliefs about America as a land of limitless opportunity with jobs for anyone willing to work influenced the general attitude toward poor relief in the 1890s. The view that being poor was one's own fault, caused by character defects like laziness, improvidence, and intemperance, followed from this faith in the potency of the individual. The article examines local relief practices in a small Indiana city in 1896-97, the last year of the depression, within the larger context of the policy-setting Indiana Board of State Charities. It focuses on both public and private relief efforts and resident and transient recipients.

The relationship between welfare benefit levels and the residential choices of the poor raises two issues for federalism in the United States. Do state benefit levels affect the residential choices of the poor? Do residential choices of the poor affect the level at which a state sets its benefit levels? Empirical studies have seldom studied the interconnection between these two issues. This research estimates simultaneously the mutual effects of welfare benefits and poverty rates while controlling for other economic and political variables. When benefit levels become high, the size of the poverty population increases. Conversely, when poverty rates become high, benefit levels are cut. The findings are consistent with the claim that state-determined benefit levels distort policy and residential choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the issue of welfare-to-work initiatives. Welfare recipients are informed that a program is being implemented to help people get off welfare and that it is going to provide opportunities for them to get the training and education that they need to become self-sufficient. The program usually manages to hobble along with these new parameters because the people on the firing line tend to continue to treat the clients as if they wish to participate even though these clients fall into categories now legislatively defined as mandatory. Inevitably, the next generation of welfare-to-work initiatives has more coercive language and provisions for sanctions, as if the previous attempt failed because recipient refused to participate. Social workers need to more forcefully influence the sociopolitical planning process. It would be nice if they could help planners act on the already available knowledge that it is not necessary to force and cajole welfare recipients into participating in programs aimed at self-sufficiency.