Poverty and Public Policy in the Context of Crisis

Off-farm work, cooking energy choice and time poverty in Ghana: An empirical analysis

Part I 1. Introduction: Women's vulnerability to recession and austerity Maria Karamessini 2. From 'Women and Recession' to 'Women and Austerity: A framework for analysis Jill Rubery 3. Challenging the Balkanization of Gender Contracts Jacqueline O'Reilly and Tiziana Nazio Part II 4. Women and Men in the 'Great European Recession' Francesca Bettio and Alina Verashchagina 5. Gender Impacts of the 'Great Recession' in the United States Randy Albelda 6. Iceland in Crisis: Gender equality and social equity Thora Kristin Thorsdottir 7. Gender, Recession and Austerity in the UK Jill Rubery and Anthony Rafferty 8. The Labour Market Impact of the Economic Crisis in Hungary through the Lens of Gender Equality Maria Frey 9. Structural Crisis and Adjustment in Greece: Social regression and the challenge to gender equality Maria Karamessini 10. Ireland in Crisis 2008-2012: Women, austerity and inequality Ursula Barry and Pauline Conroy 11. Employment and Austerity: Changing welfare and gender regimes in Portugal Virginia Ferreira 12. Women, Gender Equality and the Economic Crisis in Spain Elvira Gonzalez Gago and Marcelo Segales Kirzner 13. Living through the Crisis in Italy: The labour market experience of men and women Alina Verashchagina and Marina Capparucci Part III 14. Policy in the Time of Crisis: Employment policy and gender equality in Europe Paola Villa and Mark Smith 15. Gender, Inequality and the Crisis: Towards more equitable development Diane Perrons and Ania Plomien 16. Economic Crisis and Austerity: Challenges to gender equality Maria Karamessini and Jill Rubery

In the last few years the concept of poverty has evolved from simply being a measure of income poverty to a multidimensional measure that takes into consideration essential aspects for the attainment of certain levels of wellbeing. This paper assesses how the incorporation of time can contribute to the measurement of poverty. To this end, we reviewed the time poverty literature and focused on the Spanish case. We use the Spanish Time-Use Survey 2009-2010 to analyse time poverty in Spain, and estimate a probit model to assess the probability of being time poor in Spain and identify key factors associated with time poverty in Spain.

We examine the contribution of different lending channels to the auto loan market in times of crisis. Specifically, we explore lending from traditional banks, credit unions, and finance companies (nonbanks) over the past two decades, with an emphasis on the Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that banks provided weak support during the pandemic, thus losing market share and continuing the trend that emerged following the Great Recession. Nonbank market share during this period grew most significantly for subprime borrowers and in counties with stronger bank dependence. Survey evidence suggests that a tightening in banks’ lending standards may have contributed to this trend. These findings contrast with the experience during the Great Recession, when banks contributed the most resilient credit to the auto loan market. Our paper highlights nonbanks’ increasing role in the auto loan market in times of crisis, particularly for the subprime segment.

Poverty remains a primary public policy issue, and a large literature has discussed the limitations of an income poverty measure. Using income as an indicator of poverty is a helpful simplification designed to capture ability to meet consumption needs. We argue that time is a basic economic resource allocated to create well-being along with income. Time is a scarce resource that individuals and households must allocate to produce goods, obtain services, and pursue rest and relaxation. Time poverty has been proposed as a complement to income poverty, yet it remains a relatively unknown measure in both policy and research spheres. The many ways time poverty is conceptualized and measured across studies has limited its adoption. To help familiarize readers with time poverty, we apply basic tenets of income poverty measurement to time. We conduct a survey of the theoretical and empirical literature discussing similarities, differences, and the pros and cons of different approaches to time poverty. In particular, inconsistent definition and categorization of necessary and discretionary time has been a barrier to the transparent application of time poverty in the literature, and we outline guidance on defining necessary and discretionary time for future studies. Finally, we outline future research directions for time poverty.

ABSTRACTThis perspective paper offers some first thoughts regarding the current Zika virus outbreak and the immediate response it generated in health and research policy. We suggest that in times of emergent health crises, irresponsibilities may arise in the way responses which involve science and technology are framed and implemented. These pertain both to how such situations emerge under a crisis frame, and to pre-existing irresponsibilities which condition how such crises unfold. Reflecting on these irresponsibilities helps to clarify both how crucial it is to promote responsibility in research and innovation in everyday situations, and how important it is to maintain vigilance in times of crisis. We argue that care for the future needs to incorporate attention to persisting inequalities, which become especially salient in moments of emergency and which condition how crises are dealt with and the role innovation is perceived to play in their solution.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyze if choices made by family businesses (FBs) regarding job stability in economic recessions are different, on average, to those made by nonfamily firms. Moreover, the study tries to elucidate if this potential difference depends on the family generation that is in charge. The analysis relies upon a sample of 55,091 Spanish firms, as Spain is one of the countries that suffered the greatest impact of the 2008 Great Recession.Design/methodology/approachTo test the hypotheses, the authors built a database of 55,091 Spanish firms, 45,351 family firms and 9,740 nonfamily firms, for the period 2007–2015. Based on the socioemotional wealth (SEW) approach, this article sheds light on the question of whether family identification, binding social ties and long-term vision lead FB to behave differently from nonfamily businesses in human resource management.FindingsIn times of crisis, FBs do maintain jobs to a higher extent than nonfamily businesses, and this effect is especially intense when the first generation is in charge. According to the SEW approach, the emotional links between ownership and management make the firm more prudent when hiring during good times and when firing in times of crisis. This makes employment in FBs more stable than in private ones. This result has two positive effects. Higher job stability is an additional contribution of family firms to social welfare and happiness. Furthermore, a larger share of family firms involves stronger automatic macrostabilizers to deal with the business cycle, supplementing fiscal macrostabilizers, such as personal income tax (PIT) or unemployment insurance.Practical implicationsFamily firms maintained employment more than nonfamily firms did during the crisis. The emotional links between ownership and management and the long-term vision make the firm more prudent when hiring during good times and when firing in times of crisis. These features could make family firms more cautious in terms of hiring and firing and thus enable them to offer their employees implicit employment protection and stability. This positive effect decreases as firm age advances, due to the minor linkage between ownership and employees, in spite of maintaining identification and long-term vision.Social implicationsFrom a policy perspective, greater job stability is an additional contribution of family firms to social welfare and happiness. Hence, a larger share of family firms would involve stronger automatic macrostabilizers to deal with the business cycle, supplementing well-known fiscal macrostabilizers such as the PIT or unemployment insurance. The idea of family firms as countercyclical agents linking the micro dimension with the macro dimension becomes more interesting in the present context with the crisis generated by COVID-19.Originality/valueIn addition to contributing to the scarce literature on FB and employment in times of crisis, this paper also considers the generational effect on employment in the economic crisis context from the SEW approach. In addition, sound econometric methodology applied using an extremely large database grounded the results. In contrast with studies in the FB field that have typically focused on large listed firms (Mazzi, 2011), the study relies upon a database of privately held companies, which are more representative of FBs in civil law countries, such as Spain. The Spanish case is particularly interesting because it was one of the OECD countries shocked by the Great Recession. Finally, the authors propose family firms as countercyclical agents linking the micro dimension to the macro dimension.

Poverty in Time: Exploring Poverty Dynamics from Life History Interviews in Bangladesh

The purpose of this paper is to study the impact from the recent financial crisis on public environmental expenditure in Estonia. The data show different tendencies depending on the level of government. While the recent financial crisis has affected Local Government spending on environmental protection negatively, Central Government environmental protection expenditure increased by more than 30 percent between 2007 and 2008. Preliminary data indicate that this tendency continued in 2009. When comparing expenditures on environmental protection during times of crisis it is possible to detect differences between the developments in 1998-1999 and those in 2007-2008. Public expenditures on environmental protection were much more sensitive to declining GDP during the previous financial crisis than during the recent crisis. In the 2000s two important changes have affected environmental funding in Estonia. Accession to the EU in 2004 has made EU funding available for environmental protection. The ecological tax reform introduced in 2005 has increased the revenues of environmental charges earmarked for environmental purposes

The advancement of the study of time poverty in the field of organizational behavior has been stymied by the lack of a validated time poverty measure. We proposed a new way of seeing freely disposable time by introducing the concept of perceived time poverty, distinguishing it from related concepts, and conducting two phases to develop a scale and test our theoretical model of the effects of perceived time poverty. Our study aimed to develop and validate a nomological network of perceived time poverty based on the definition of time poverty in organizations. Specifically, we conducted phase 1 to develop a measure for PTP and demonstrate its psychometric properties. We conducted phase 2 to test the nomological network of self-reported time poverty using three time-lagged surveys. Together, these studies provide evidence of the psychometric validity of the new scale developed for assessing employee perceived time poverty using self-reports reports. We discuss the implications of the new scale developed to study time poverty in organizations, and future research directions using the new scale are offered.

Since the early twentieth century, generation has been a recurrent concept in social analysis. In spite of successive bouts of critique and periods of relative neglect, the category has never been abandoned. In this article, drawing inspiration from a broad range of thinkers – such as José Ortega y Gasset, Karl Mannheim, Antonio Gramsci, Pierre Bourdieu, Raymond Williams and Stuart Hall – we review and fine tune our conceptual toolkit regarding generations, making more explicitly visible its affordances for social analysis in times of crisis. We focus on the problem of intergenerational overlap of contemporaneity and the contradictions that emerge from it. We argue that the notion of coevalness can help us resolve some of these contradictions – for example, the lag between contemporaneity and generational awareness – and introduce, through its horizontal connotations, a decolonising ethical stance. Favouring a processual understanding of generation, we recommend ‘conjunctural analysis’ as the most flexible analytical framework for resolving the intersectional contradictions and overlaps of generational categorisation.

This research explores various dimensions of time poverty within flexible time-space working arrangements and enriches the concept through the application of power-chronography. By using qualitative research methods, such as semi-structured interviews, the study explores the multifaceted nature of time poverty and examines how it is experienced and produced in the everyday lives of individuals with flexible working arrangements in the Czech Republic. The paper sheds light on uneven temporalities and reveals how time poverty relates to temporal acceleration and technological changes in communication. Specifically, time poverty is observed as it relates to constant availability pressures, the need to recalibrate with the dominant socioeconomic rhythm and difficulty planning due to general temporal unpredictability. The reproduction of time poverty is further done via the internalization of sociocultural norms and self-discipline as regards work, temporality and the digital environment. The constant juggling of multiple responsibilities and the pressure to be available for work obligations often spill over into personal relationships, leading to a blurring of boundaries between work and leisure. Consequently, time poverty can be redistributed in relational practices, which means that time poverty becomes a shared experience, impacting not only individuals but also their social networks – family, friends, colleagues. Flexible time-space working arrangements, thus, rather than providing greater autonomy over one's time-space, may reinforce the expectation of constant work availability, consequently time poverty. Finally, the study argues that these aspects – acceleration, constant availability, temporal unpredictability and sociocultural norm internationalization – should be understood as broader aspects of sociocultural and material-discursive practices rather than solely individual responsibilities.

I. The Crisis in Philosophical and Historical Perspective 1. Philosophy and the Crisis of Economic Science, by Kenneth W. Stikkers (Southern Illinois University Carbondale, USA) 2. On the Shadow and the Substance: Adam Smith, John Dewey, and the Great Recession, by Michael Schleeter (Pacific Lutheran University, USA) 3. John Dewey: A Philosophy for Times of Crisis, by Matteo Santarelli (Unversity of Molise, Italy) II. The Narrative and Rhetoric of 'Crisis' 4. Neopragmatist Ethnocentric Rhetoric on Economic Crisis: Richard Rorty and Social Amelioration by Redescription, by Krzysztof Piotr Skowronski (Opole University, Poland) 5. If Philosophers Are So Smart: A Metaphor of 'Global Economic Crisis', by Maja Niestr j (Opole University, Poland) III. The Economy of Happiness and Desire 6. Mead's Bio-Social Theory of the Self and the Economics of Happiness, for a Pragmatist Philosophy of Economics, by Guido Baggio (Pontifical Salisian University, Rome, Italy) 7. The Hegemony of Finance: Recognition and the Capture of Desire, by Henry Kelly (Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland) 8. Deep Capture: The Hidden Role of Rationalizations, Psychology, and Corporate Law, and What Philosophy Can Do about It, by Marcin Kilanowski (Nicolas Copernicus University, Torun, Poland) IV. The Efficiency of Markets 9. Pragmatic Theory of Information and the Efficient Market Hypothesis: From Philosophical Ideas to Traders' Behaviour Analyses, by Agnieszka Hensoldt (Opole University, Poland) 10 The Relativity of Transaction Costs, by Liu Mu (Beijing University of Chemical Technology, China) and Kenneth W. Stikkers (Southern Illinois University Carbondale, USA) V. Looking Beyond the Crisis 11. A Pragmatist Model of Transforming Urban Inequalities: Creating Livable Cities in a Time of Crisis, by David W. Woods (New York University, USA) 12. Deepening Piketty's Pragmatism: Hopeful Leadings for Democratic Political Economy, by Judith Green (Fordham University, USA)

The Covid-19 pandemic as well as the war in Ukraine represent the biggest hit to the Czech economy since the Great Recession. In the Czech Republic, several tax measures are being used to help economic entities overcome the current crisis and keep their businesses running. One of them is the tax instalment plan. This article aims to identify why the tax instalment plan could be an appropriate fiscal measure in times of economic crisis. The author presents a classical legal instrument in the tax area – the tax instalment plan – and analyses it from an innovative point of view rather than the usual perspective, that is, from the macroeconomic point of view. The article analyses the legal conditions for the use of this instrument in the Czech Republic, points out the difficulties of interpretation in practice and evaluates it in the context of the theoretical background of desirable fiscal crisis measures. The conclusions of the research confirm the hypothesis that this legal instrument is an effective and used tool for facilitating the sustainability of private and public finances in times of crisis. It combines the desirable aspects of both automatic stabilisers and discretionary measures.

This introduction presents the conceptual and analytical framework which constitutes the background for the special issue entitled ‘Varieties of Populism in Europe in Times of Crises’. More specifically, this contribution investigates how different populist parties in the European Union have been affected by the recent economic crisis and the more long-lasting political and cultural crises. Analytically, the article disentangles the role of the Great Recession vis-à-vis other factors (such as political and party system factors, but also structural social changes or cultural opportunities) in the growing strength of populist parties in various European countries. It argues that although the economic crisis has without any doubt provided a specific ‘window of opportunity’ for the emergence of new political actors, which have capitalised on citizens’ discontent, long-lasting political factors – such as the increasing distrust toward political institutions and parties – and the more recent cultural crisis connected with migration issues have offered further fertile ground for the consolidation of populist parties in several European countries. Furthermore, as confirmed by the articles presented in the special issue, the various crises have offered differential opportunities for different types of populism – both inclusionary and exclusionary.