Changes In Economic Status Research Articles

Income Comparisons and Non-Cognitive Skills

People gain utility from occupying a higher ranked position in the income distribution of the reference group. This paper investigates whether these gains depend on an individual’s set of non-cognitive skills. Using the 2000-2008 waves of the German Socioeconomic Panel dataset (SOEP), a subjective question on Life Satisfaction, and three different sets of non-cognitive skills indicators, we find significant and robust differences across skills groups. People who are more neurotic, extravert and have low external locus of control and low negative reciprocity are more sensitive to their individual position in the economic ladder. By contrast, the Life Satisfaction reaction to changes in economic status is significantly lower among individuals who score high (low) in negative (positive) reciprocity, and are at the bottom of the distribution of neuroticism, extraversion. The heterogeneity on the importance of income comparisons needs to be taken into account when, for example, introducing them into economic models, predicting individuals’ behaviour, or making welfare judgments.

The impact of socioeconomic inequalities and lack of health insurance on physical functioning among middle-aged and older adults in the United States

Socioeconomic inequalities and lack of private health insurance have been viewed as significant contributors to health disparities in the United States. However, few studies have examined their impact on physical functioning over time, especially in later life. The current study investigated the impact of socioeconomic inequalities and lack of private health insurance on individuals' growth trajectories in physical functioning, as measured by activities of daily living. Data from the Health and Retirement Study (1994-2006) were used for this study, 6519 black and white adults who provided in-depth information about health, socioeconomic, financial and health insurance information were analysed. Latent growth curve modelling was used to estimate the initial level of physical functioning and its rate of change over time. Results showed that higher level of income and assets and having private health insurance significantly predicted better physical functioning. In particular, decline in physical functioning was slower among those who had private health insurance. Interestingly, changes in economic status, such as decreases in income and assets, had a greater impact on women's physical functioning than on men's. Black adults did not suffer more rapid declines in physical functioning than white adults after controlling for socioeconomic status. The current longitudinal study suggested that anti-poverty and health insurance policies should be enhanced to reduce the negative impact of socioeconomic inequalities on physical functioning throughout an individual's life course.

Developing community-derived indicators of economic status in the coral triangle: A management support tool

Environmental management initiatives commonly fail because of a lack of compliance from local communities, due largely to actual or perceived economic losses. Management should therefore aim to maintain or improve the economic status of local people. Development of economic performance criteria (EPC), as testable parameters through which changes in economic status can be identified, provide a mechanism for assessment of the economic impacts of management. Community perspectives of wealth, and potential applications for the design of locally relevant community-derived EPC were explored in a biodioverse and multicultural region within the coral triangle. A methodology is demonstrated for the development of locally relevant and locally comprehensible indicators. Household interviews and participatory wealth ranking exercises were conducted from which extensive socioeconomic data was generated to identify and test a series of potential EPC. An Economic Score (ES) was calculated and provided a simple mechanism for ‘at a glance’ spatial and temporal comparisons. Household income was used to verify EPC and ES. The participatory identification of EPC represents a novel tool with potential for application in the development of environmental management initiatives that aim to maintain ecological wealth and support sustainable resource utilisation, whilst maintaining or improving local economic status, and hence compliance.

Changes in parental involvement in secondary education: An exploration study using the longitudinal study of young people in England

Empirical research on parental involvement in children's education often makes the assumption that levels of involvement remain fixed over time. This paper highlights evidence from a longitudinal study that half of parents of young people in Year 9 reported becoming more or less involved in their child's school life over a two‐year period and explores the characteristics associated with mothers and fathers that change their levels of involvement. The young person's attitude to school, the mother's relationship with the school, attendance at parents’ evenings and the mother's ethnicity, qualifications and change in economic status had the strongest associations with a reported change in maternal involvement levels. Changes in paternal involvement were strongly associated with the father's ethnicity and the young person's behaviour.

Elderly Households and Housing Wealth: Do They Use it or Lose it?

Over 80 percent of households in their 50s are homeowners and housing wealth accounts for over half of total household wealth for most of these homeowners. The evidence in the literature on whether the elderly are consuming their housing wealth has been mixed. Because home sales are infrequent and a high proportion of the elderly continue to own in old age, it appears that the elderly are not consuming housing wealth. There are, however, indications that housing wealth may be a form of self-insurance and that housing wealth is consumed, albeit at very old ages. To date, however, the evidence to support that hypothesis has been weak. This paper examines whether predictors of housing sales are consistent with the insurance story by looking at the extent to which indicators of changes in economic status and access to alternate insurance explain housing sales. The paper also examines the extent to which changes in health status predict housing sales. The results of the probit appear to indicate that, by and large, housing sales in old age for single households is mostly driven by worsening health. Widowhood has a large effect on increasing the probability of selling the house and the effect is larger if the husband is the surviving spouse. There are indications that poor married homeowners are consuming housing wealth and also indications that married households are responding to Medicaid tax incentives. This evidence seems to suggest that, at least among married households, housing decisions are financially motivated; however, the evidence does not by itself validate the insurance story.

Changes in Economic Status and Timing of Marriage of Young Canadians

Using the longitudinal panel data collected through the Canadian Surveys of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) from 1993 to1998, we examined the hypotheses that (a) higher education delays marriage; (b) labour force participation and earnings of women, like those of men, increase the likelihood of marriage; and, (c) the magnitude of the effects of education and income varies by life course stages of the youth. Analyses were done for men aged 17-19, 20-22, and 23-25 and for women aged 15-17, 18-20, and 21-23 at the start of the panel surveys. Our findings confirm our hypotheses, namely, a longer stay in school lowers the risk of marrying while greater economic well-being increases the risk. The results also show that the effects of wages and salaries are strongest among the middle cohorts of men (20-22) and women (18-20) who are at the stage of forming their own independent lives.

Medical Care during the Depression1: A Preliminary Report upon a Survey of Wage‐Earning Families in Seven Large Cities2

The problem of giving services free has faced the doctor and the hospital during the depression to an extent unknown in any other field. A factory manager was able to economize during hard times by eliminating unproductive departments, by introducing labor-saving devices, or, as a last resort, by closing his plant until the return of prosperity. No such expedients were available to the doctor or the hospital director. Business had to continue as usual in spite of the decrease of paying patients and the tremendous increase of free care. While the writers of this paper offer no solution for these economic problems, they do have pertinent data to present on the amount of physician's, hospital, and nursing care, both pay and free, received by a group of nearly 7,000 families in seven large cities surveyed early in 1933 by the United States Public Health Service in cooperation with the Milbank Memorial Fund. The reader is referred to previous papers3 for details, method, and scope of the survey. Briefly, it consisted of a house-to-house canvass of some 12,000 white families in the poorer districts of eight large cities, one group of coal-mining communities, and a group of cotton-mill villages. The records obtained by the canvasses included (a) the economic history of the family in sufficient detail for computing family income for each year from 1929 through 1932, and (b) a record of all illness during the three months immediately preceding the date of the enumerator's visit, in the spring of 1933, with the extent of disability and of medical care for each case. The sample population discussed in the present paper comprised 28,959 individuals in 6,686 families for which the data were sufficiently complete for computing the actual income for each of the four years from 1929 to 1932. The population was largely of the wage-earning class, a considerable proportion of which had experienced loss of income due to unemployment and wage reductions. In 1929, 10 per cent of the persons surveyed were in families with an annual per capita income of $149 or less; by 1932, 43 per cent were in this class. On the other side of the picture, 42 per cent of the persons were in families with an annual per capita income of $425 or more in 1929, but by 1932 this figure had decreased to 14 per cent.

Assets and Economic Mobility in a Youth Cohort, 1985–1997

This study examined the role of assets in economic mobility within a youth cohort (N = 4,467) between 1985 and 19 97. Increasing percentages of poor and affluent youth resided in families with no change in economic status while increasing percentages of middle-class youth resided in families experiencing downward economic mobility. The rate of economic stasis of youth living in affluent families was about three times that of those in poor families. Length of time of asset ownership influenced economic mobility beyond that of background, sociodemographic, psychological, and other cumulative correlates. In particular, IRAs and tax-deferred annuities were related to positive economic mobility. Robust indicators of positive economic mobility included being a college graduate, number of siblings in family of origin, number of years of full-time employment, number of years living in households where someone received either AFDC/TANF or SSI, and locus of control. Robust indicators of downward economic mobility included age of respondent, number of years married, and being Catholic. Finally, neither sex nor race/ethnicity increased the explanatory power of positive economic mobility beyond that of other correlates regardless of asset ownership. Discussion also includes public and private initiatives to expand IRAs into Individual Development Accounts and to encourage employers to offer (and workers to take advantage of) tax-deferred annuities, particularly for low-income workers.

Economic and health consequences of selling a kidney in India.

Many countries have a shortage of kidneys available for transplantation. Paying people to donate kidneys is often proposed or justified as a way to benefit recipients by increasing the supply of organs and to benefit donors by improving their economic status. However, whether individuals who sell their kidneys actually benefit from the sale is controversial. To determine the economic and health effects of selling a kidney. Cross-sectional survey conducted in February 2001 among 305 individuals who had sold a kidney in Chennai, India, an average of 6 years before the survey. Reasons for selling kidney, amount received from sale, how money was spent, change in economic status, change in health status, advice for others contemplating selling a kidney. Ninety-six percent of participants sold their kidneys to pay off debts. The average amount received was 1070 US dollars. Most of the money received was spent on debts, food, and clothing. Average family income declined by one third after nephrectomy (P<.001), and the number of participants living below the poverty line increased. Three fourths of participants were still in debt at the time of the survey. About 86% of participants reported a deterioration in their health status after nephrectomy. Seventy-nine percent would not recommend that others sell a kidney. Among paid donors in India, selling a kidney does not lead to a long-term economic benefit and may be associated with a decline in health. Physicians and policy makers should reexamine the value of using financial incentives to increase the supply of organs for transplantation.

Economic Mobility in a Youth Cohort, 1979-1997

Economic mobility in a youth cohort (n = 1956) was examined between 1979 and 1997. Increasing percentages of youth were found to reside in families with no change in economic status stratified by class. The rate of economic stasis of youth living in affluent families was more than twice that of those in middle-income families and more than four times that of those in poor families. Little variation in economic mobility was found among affluent families stratified by sex and ethnicity/race, although white males had less downward mobility than black females. Greater variation in economic mobility was found among poor families, with white males having greater upward mobility than other males and white females having greater upward mobility than black females and males. Finally, education was positively related to economic mobility for most sub-groups, as was receipt of SSI, while receipt of AFDC/TANF decreased economic mobility only among white males.

Household Debt Quintiles: Explaining Changes 1983–1989

Households' changes in consumer debt from 1983–89 were examined using the panel dataset of the Survey of Consumer Finances. Logit models of the odds of an increase and a decrease in debt quintile revealed four factors hypothesized by Bryant (1990) to be symmetrically related—household size, respondents marital status, inflationary expectations, and time preferences. Asymmetrical effects of other variables, including life cycle consumption needs, present resources, expected future resources, and preferences were found for either the odds of an increase or decrease in consumer debt, but not both. Households' access to credit markets and changes in economic status between 1983 and 1989 also significantly affected the odds of change in consumer debt status, albeit not consistently across models. Household level change in consumer debt and the factors that affect it are more complex than hypothesized.

Later-life economic inequality in longitudinal perspective.

Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Older Men were used to estimate economic inequality within three 5-year cohorts as they moved from midlife to later life. The Gini index of inequality increased steadily after age 59, supporting the hypothesis that within-cohort inequality increases in late life. However, a transition analysis found considerable mobility in relative status for individuals over a 15-year period. These results suggest the need to develop a longitudinal perspective on later-life economic status which distinguishes between individual-level and population-level outcomes and identifies the life events and characteristics of individuals that predict changes in economic status. Further research is needed on the processes which lead to later-life inequality, and on the distributional impact of public and private pension policies.

NEIGHBORHOOD CHANGES IN ECOLOGY AND VIOLENCE*

We investigate links between ecological changes and changes in violence in Baltimore neighborhoods in the 1970's The two most salient ecological changes during the decade were (1) the emergence of a large number of gentrifying neighborhoods and (2) the further absorption of several older, minority neighborhoods into an “underclass” status Relative deprivation and social disorganization each predict increasing violence in gentrifying and emerging underclass neighborhoods. But, relative deprivation theory highlights the role of changes in economic status, whereas social disorganization highlights the role of changes in stability or family status. We further suggest that connections between ecological change and changes in disorder are contingent not only on historical context, but also on overall neighborhood structure at the beginning of the period. We hypothesize: (a) neighborhoods becoming more solidly “underclass” will experience increasing violence as status and stability decline and (b) emerging gentrifying neighborhoods will experience increasing violence as status and stability increase. Controlling for spatial autocorrelation, results support these hypotheses In emerging underclass neighborhoods status changes are most clearly linked to violence changes, whereas in gentrifying neighborhoods violence shifts are most closely tied to changing stability.

A reconsideration of the economic consequences of marital dissolution

A close look at the income flows in the years following a divorce or separation reveals marked differences in the distribution of effects. The economic consequences of divorce are especially adverse for women. In most cases, children remain with the mother, who usually has considerably lower potential labor market earnings than her former husband, partly because her responsibilities for the children are likely to reduce her labor supply and may have limited her past human capital investments. Alimony and child support are the principal mechanisms for transfers from the ex-husband to the ex-wife, but payments are rarely frequent or sizeable enough to make up for an appreciable amount of the labor income lost through the departure of the ex-husband. Human capital investments on the part of the mother have a modest effect on her economic situation in the years following the divorce. Most men who divorce or separate are immediately better off because they retain most of their labor incomes, typically do not pay large amounts of alimony and child support to their ex-wives, and no longer have to provide for the level of needs associated with their former families. Much more important than growth in the ex-wife's own labor income is the role of a new husband's labor income upon her remarriage. More than half of the white women remarry within five years following a divorce or separation; the comparable fraction for black women is less than half. An interesting question is whether the currently unmarried would enjoy the same kind of economic benefits, were they to remarry, as women who have remarried. Estimates from a model of the new husband's labor income, adjusted for selection bias inherent in the process of remarriage, indicate that the currently unmarried would probably not gain equal benefits if they were to remarry. The expected labor income of potential husbands of black women averages only about $5000--a modest amount when compared with the alternatives available to these women.

PRISONERS' FAMILIES A Study of Some Social and Psychological Effects of Incarceration on the Families of Negro Prisoners

Abstract This study examines the effects of imprisonment on the families of inmates. Likert scaling procedures were used to meaaire three components of change occurring in 93 families subsequent to the incarceration of the family head. These are: change in sociol acceptance, change in economic status, and change in the degree of sexual and emotional frustration of the wife. Findings indicate that finances and sexual‐emotional frustrations underwent significant change and became problematic for a majority of families. Contrary to expectations, changes in social acceptance of the families were neither significant nor problematic except for a small minority.

Evaluation of the Mississippi AFDC Experiment

Three innovative program concepts-work experience with incentive income, special welfare services other than financial assistance, and increased financial assistance-were introduced in a demonstration program involving AFDC clients in two predominantly rural Mississippi counties over a one-year period. Before-and-after interviews of 181 adult female clients randomly assigned to program groups and a control group revealed changes in economic status, life-style, and personal outlook related to program outputs. No reliable pattern of statistically significant differences among groups was noted, although there were substantial changes on many client characteristics during the year.

Production and Circulation of Hyomotsu (dried sea cucumbers, dried abalones, dried shark fins, etc.) in Yamaguchi Prefecture (Choshu-Han) in 18th and 19th Centuries

Hyomotsu products were a very important export of the Nagasaki Trade to the Modern age Ch'ing dynasty (China). In China the demand for them was very great because they were first-class food articles and were imported from Japan, southeast Asia and the south pacific. Hyomotsu means commodities packed in straw bags; and among the main items are dried sea cucumbers, abalones, shark fins.Recently, some investigators have studied the production and circulation of Hyomotsu products of these areas. Collecting system of Hyomotsu by local feudal government was the center of historians' interest. But the organization and system of products remained to be studied. This is the present writer's second paper on this title. In the previous paper major periods of trading system were discussed; the monopolistic contract by Nagasaki merchants (1774∼1784), the direct purchase by Nagasaki Hyomotsu Products Office, the branch office of Shogunate (1785∼1806) and purchase by Hans government office (1807∼1865).In this connection, attention is focused upon how Hyomotsu were collected by fishers in a small island named Sago and monopolized under the feudal system; a developed system of fishery by the feudal ruler, the change in economic status of the people engaged in collecting sea products, etc.Subsistence crops (rice, sweet potatoes and some other coarse cereals) were cultivated in the island, but their products were not sufficient to feed the local people. In order to cover the expense for transported food and other expenditure, people pursued cottage industry and fishing. The cottage industry-cotton weaving-played the most important part in the commercial products of this island and fishing ranked second.Sardines, sea cucumbers, gray mullets, saurels and snappers were among the main sea products. In view of production, sea cucumbers ranked next to sardines which were most commonly used for fertilizer. However, sea cucumbers were beyond comparison with other sea products in view of commodities; sea cucumbers were collected by a special organization and transported as far as China.Sea cucumbers were gathered by fishers on boats. With the passage of time, this work was left to the poorer fishers only. This is the reflection of change in advance system of loan; previously fishers could operate their collection of sea cucumbers with an advanced loan but they degenerated to wage labours employed by a local subcontractor. This caused a 20% decrease in the production from 1770 to 1821.