Income Class Research Articles

Happiness Scholarship and Redistributive Preferences

Despite a steep rise in income inequality over the past five decades, Americans’ preferences for redistribution have remained stagnant. Previous research suggests that redistributive preferences are rooted in stable institutional and cultural contexts but can change with exposure to information. We investigate the role of understandings of the link between income and psychological well-being in shaping policy preferences. Further, we consider whether effects differ if similar information is framed in terms of disadvantages for the poor versus advantages for the affluent. In a large, preregistered online experiment (N = 2,751), we examined the effects of three common themes in scholarship on happiness and well-being: Money Prevents Unhappiness, Money Provides Happiness, and Money Doesn’t Matter. Results show that learning that Money Prevents Unhappiness (versus the other two themes) increased egalitarian preferences. Effects were moderated by political ideology, income, and subjective social class but not by race. We discuss the implications of these findings in light of the current cultural discourse about happiness, which often privileges non-income causes and positive emotions.

Socioeconomic status is the main predictor of the demand for voluntary health insurance in Croatia

Aim: To explore economic, demographic and personal fac-tors influencing the demand for voluntary health insurance in the Republic of Croatia.Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted using a 19-item online questionnaire. The questionnaire was dis-tributed to participants using convenience and snowballing sampling strategies. A logistic regression model was used to estimate the association of selected determinants with the demand for voluntary health insurance.Results: A total of 203 participants completed the question-naire (age range 24-42) A statistically significant associa-tion was found between higher insurance policy sales price (odds ratio (OR)=1.016, 95% confidence interval (CI)=1.002-1.031), increased awareness of healthy diet (eating habits) (OR=1.768, 95% CI=1.100-2.841) and buying a voluntary health insurance policy. People in a higher income class (OR=0.594, 95% CI=0.364-0.970) and with a good subjec-tive perception of personal health status (OR=0.454, 95% CI=0.232-0.889) were less likely to buy a voluntary health insurance policy. Also, the demand for voluntary health in-surance decreased with age (OR=0.924, 95% CI=0.873-0.978), with older participants being less likely to buy voluntary health insurance than younger ones.Conclusion: The choice to buy a voluntary health insurance policy largely correlates with an individual’s socioeconom-ic status in today’s society. Older participants with a higher income and good eating habits are less likely to buy a vol-untary health insurance policy. At the same time, younger adults with lower incomes and poorer health are more like-ly to decide to acquire a voluntary health insurance policy.

Backward-bending labor supply and urban location

This study attempts to combine a labor supply model with a housing location model. We focus on the trade-off between hours of work, commute times, and leisure time as well as the trade-off between the consumption of a good, housing space, and leisure time. We show that both labor supply and urban location choice have an inverted U-shaped relationship regarding the wage rate. These results are empirically shown by using Japanese data on the hours of work and commute times by household income class and on the number of households by income class.

Myth or Reality? Mobility Trends among Recent Graduates of Different Fields of Study

The paper focuses on the intergenerational mobility processes in Hungarian higher education over the past decade. Its purpose is to explore these processes and to analyse the differences between the fields of study. The second-generation mobility theories, which serve to be the theoretical background of this paper, focus on the differences between income, education, occupational groups and social classes in connection with status attainment and mobility. Among the mobility theories relating to higher education, theories analyzing inequalities are studied, to discover whether they are found in Hungarian higher education („Maximally Maintained Inequality”, MMI and the theory of „Effectively Maintained Inequality”, EMI). The analysis also covers the „dynastic effects” related to mobility, whether they strengthen or weaken intergenerational processes. The database of the analysis is the Graduate Career Tracking System 2010-2021.

Environmental sustainability: A machine learning approach for cost analysis in plastic recycling classification

Recycling plastics can reduce waste generation and improve waste management, but the recycling industry needs both cost reduction and increased revenue to be economically viable. Recently, recycling plastic classification techniques with Artificial Intelligence have gained popularity, as they can avoid manual sorting, which is time-consuming and economically less profitable than automatidc processing. In this paper, we provide an economic framework for quality sorting control by classifying plastics based on the infrared spectrum of polymers and machine learning algorithms. In addition, the suggested framework offers a method for selecting the algorithm according to the polymer's income class and the highest economic advantages. Furthermore, our experiments probe that Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) and near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopies combined with machine learning algorithms are suitable for plastic classification as four datasets and seven machine learning algorithms have been tested to classify Polyethylene (PE), Polypropylene (PP), Polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polystyrene (PS), and Polyvinyl chloride (PVC).

Forty Years after Poverty Reduction in China: The Role of Women's Empowerment in Enhancing Food Security and Diet Diversity.

This study analyzed the role of women's empowerment in diversifying the diet of households through their own production. Developed from empowerment and food security theories, this study constructed measures from the household dietary diversity score (HDDS) and Women's Empowerment Index (WEI). The study focused on poverty-stricken regions in China and conducted a thematic questionnaire-based household survey on gender and food consumption in 2021. Based on micro-level evidence from 1199 rural households, this research found a low score of women's empowerment and an average WEI of 0.689; the status of diet diversity, measured by the HDDS, varied by income and social class; and the average rate was low. Agricultural production diversity and women's empowerment are positively associated with diet diversity. There is strong evidence that women's employment mitigates the side effects of decreasing production diversity on households' diet security. As a result, women's empowerment can potentially mitigate the adverse consequences of low agricultural diversification in household diet quality in less developed areas. This study provides evidence for repurposing food and agricultural policies toward healthy diets and gender-responsive agrifood systems.

How do people understand inequality in Chile? A study through attitude network analysis

This article constitutes the first application of the attitude network approach to peoples' views on inequality. We adopt a network model in which nodes represent survey variables and edges their conditional associations. This allows us to conceptualize perceptions, beliefs, and judgments about inequality as a network of connected evaluative reactions. We analyze data from the 2019 ISSP Social Inequality Module for Chile, one of the most unequal countries in the world. Relying on a network approach, we systematically analyze the wide-ranging indicators measuring subjective inequality. Results show that conceptions regarding inequality, redistribution, taxation, and wages form a moderately connected unified belief system with a small-world structure. In addition, we stratify the sample by education, income, and social class, obtaining six attitude networks. We compare the structures of these networks, investigating differences in community membership, node centrality, and network connectivity, evidencing that people in lower social positions have a more multidimensional understanding of inequality. Our work contributes to social justice research by proposing an innovative conceptualization of these attitudes and providing evidence of their structural variation across different socioeconomic groups.

A funder-based comparison of global oncology research led by NCI-designated cancer centers: Results from the 2021 global oncology survey.

e18535 Background: Equitable global cancer research partnerships are key to reducing the global burden of cancer, which disproportionately affects low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). One indicator of equitable partnerships is the inclusion of LMIC investigators in global cancer research. In 2021 the National Cancer Institute (NCI) conducted a survey of the 71 NCI-Designated Cancer Centers about their global oncology activity. The survey results highlight cancer centers' non-NIH funded global cancer research, training, and capacity-building projects and complement data about global cancer research funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This analysis presents NIH and non-NIH funded global oncology research led by cancer centers stratified by collaborator income class. Methods: NCI designed and fielded an online survey to cancer center global oncology contacts and principal investigators of research projects from July 2021 through January 2022. Data about NIH grants were sourced from internal NIH systems. Income classes are defined by the World Bank and analysis was conducted in Microsoft Excel and Python. A two proportion Z test was used to test for differences in collaborator income class between NIH grants and non-NIH funded projects. Results: Ninety-four percent (67/71) of cancer centers responded to the survey. Forty-seven cancer centers reported 257 global oncology projects with named international collaborating institutions in 2021. Comparatively, 69 cancer centers held 688 NIH cancer research grants with international collaborating institutions in 2021. These projects and grants had collaborators in 111 countries, including 72 LMICs. Projects and grants were stratified by whether they had collaborators only in high-income countries (HICs), only in LMICs, or in both HICs and LMICs, as shown in Table 1. Non-NIH funded global oncology projects were significantly more likely than NIH grants to have only LMIC collaborators (p = 0.0006) or both HIC and LMIC collaborators (p < 0.0001). Conclusions: While the inclusion of LMIC collaborators in research does not guarantee an equitable partnership nor effective research, it is one indicator of these efforts. The results of the global oncology survey demonstrate that cancer centers are committed to conducting research in LMICs and with LMIC institutions, and they are more likely to collaborate with LMIC institutions when supported by a non-NIH funder or by institutional funds. Further analysis is recommended to understand the extent to which research collaboration indicates equitable partnership, and the barriers and facilitators to collaboration posed by different funding sources. [Table: see text]

Sanitation Status of Income Groupings of the Sustainable Development Goals: Implications for the Attainment of Target 6.2

The use of safely managed sanitation services (SMSS) has been recognized as fundamental to maintaining good health and prevention of diseases, especially diarrhea. This study assessed the sanitation status of income groupings of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and its implication for the attainment of target 6.2. The descriptive cross-sectional research design was adopted, which involved harvesting of retrospective data from the Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) report for 2021 on household SMSS and open defecation (OD) of the SDG income groupings “(low-income, lower-middle income, upper-middle income & high-income)” that were disaggregated for rural and urban (RU) areas. The findings revealed that the chances of the global population attaining the sanitation targets by 2030 was very slim, as none of the income groupings was projected to reach 100% coverage of SMSS by 2030. The provision of SMSS increases progressively from the low-income to the high-income groupings and from the RU areas. OD was more prevalent in the rural area of the low-income and lower-middle income countries. Therefore, achieving the sanitation component of target 6.2 will require an annual growth rate of SMSS of about six folds of current rates, especially in the low and lower-middle income classes.

Spatial analysis of the relationship between out-of-pocket expenditure and socioeconomic status in South Korea

The rapid increase in out-of-pocket expenditures regressively raises the issue of equity in medical access opportunities according to income class and negatively affects public health. Factors related to out-of-pocket expenses have been analyzed in previous studies using an ordinary regression model (Ordinary Least Squares [OLS]). However, as OLS assumes equal error variance, it does not consider spatial variation due to spatial heterogeneity and dependence. Accordingly, this study presents a spatial analysis of outpatient out-of-pocket expenses from 2015 to 2020, targeting 237 local governments nationwide, excluding islands and island regions. R (version 4.1.1) was used for statistical analysis, and QGIS (version 3.10.9), GWR4 (version 4.0.9), and Geoda (version 1.20.0.10) were used for the spatial analysis. As a result, in OLS, it was found that the aging rate and number of general hospitals, clinics, public health centers, and beds had a positive (+) significant effect on outpatient out-of-pocket expenses. The Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) suggests regional differences exist concerning out-of-pocket payments. As a result of comparing the OLS and GWR models through the Adj. R² and Akaike's Information Criterion indices, the GWR model showed a higher fit. This study provides public health professionals and policymakers with insights that could inform effective regional strategies for appropriate out-of-pocket cost management.

The effect of rising food prices on nutrient intake among rural–urban migrants in China

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to assess the impact of rising food prices on food demand and nutrient intake among rural–urban migrants and whether such impact varies across income classes.Design/methodology/approachUsing data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS), this study adopts a quadratic almost ideal demand system (QUAIDS) for food demand elasticity and an indirect estimation method for nutrient elasticity to investigate the effects of rising food prices on food demand and nutrient intake among rural–urban migrants.FindingsThe estimated results indicate that an increase in the price of pork alone would lead to a larger reduction in most nutrients among rural–urban migrants than other single targeted food group, and a simultaneous rise in the price of all food groups would have a remarkably adverse effect on the nutritional status of rural–urban migrants in comparison to the nutritional effects of a rise in one targeted food group. In addition, the nutritional effects of food prices across income classes show that the nutritional status is particularly vulnerable to rising food prices among low-income rural–urban migrants.Originality/valueThis paper focuses on analyzing the impact of rising food prices on the nutritional status of rural–urban migrants, a topic that is very limited in the literature. This study provides a fresh look at the effect of volatile food prices on food demand and nutrient intake among rural–urban migrants. The results indicate that income growth would have a remarkable positive effect on nutrient intake for rural–urban migrants, especially for low-income rural–urban migrants. However, an increment in nutrients due to a growth in income would not be far from enough to cover the reduction in nutrients as a result of a simultaneous rise in price of all the studied food categories at the same rate.

The presence of a social context increases support for redistribution: Inequality aversion and risk aversion

Social insurance motivations consider the welfare of others who are in potentially unfavorable situations. However, their role in increasing support for redistribution is not yet fully understood. The experiment reported here examined distributional decisions in which participants determined income distribution without being informed to which income class they would belong. This was contrasted with decisions made in lottery situations. Lottery decisions had the same risk for oneself, but they lacked a social context, namely the influence on the incomes of others. Less risky (more equal) decisions were observed in distributional decisions than in lottery decisions. Further, the selection of equality in distributional decisions (but not the risk aversion observed in lottery decisions) was positively correlated with support for welfare policies, which had been measured by a pre-experiment survey. This study observed the critical role of social context, which promotes the consideration of the welfare of others in fostering support for redistribution.

Foreign direct investment openness and income classes in Europe around the Great Recession

Distributional implications of capital account regulation is eminently context-specific. This paper examines the distributional effects of the openness of foreign direct investment (FDI) flows across 27 European countries in different economic environments around the Great Recession, covering the period 2007–2013. Our multi-level approach allows us to combine country-level variables and sociodemographic characteristics of individuals. The results highlight that the openness of FDI flows heterogeneously affects the income share of individual groups, favouring in particular the highest income classes. This finding seems to be driven by the educational level. We argue that even though highly educated individuals are present along the entire distribution, the highest income classes are especially favoured by the openness of FDI flows. This biased distributional effect of the openness of FDI flows persists throughout the years examined, regardless of the economic environment; this is due, in part, to the fact that the distribution of highly educated people is not sensitive to the business cycle.

Intersectional Discrimination in HIV Healthcare Settings Among Persons with Diagnosed HIV in the United States, Medical Monitoring Project, 2018-2019.

Experiences with stigma and discrimination in healthcare settings are associated with negative health outcome for persons with HIV (PWH). PWH may experience discrimination due to the intersection of multiple marginalized social identities. Describing these experiences is important for informing interventions and strategies to reduce stigma and discrimination. We report experiences with discrimination in HIV healthcare settings attributed to multiple characteristics, e.g., sexual orientation, race/ethnicity, income, or social class, and/or injection drug use, among a nationally representative sample of persons with diagnosed HIV in the United States using data from the Medical Monitoring Project (MMP). We calculated weighted prevalences and associated 95% confidence intervals for any discrimination and discrimination attributed to multiple characteristics (intersectional discrimination). Among those experiencing discrimination, nearly 1 in 4 persons reported intersectional discrimination, with a higher burden among key populations of focus for HIV prevention and treatment. Discrimination was attributed to HIV status (62.5%), sexual orientation (60.4%), and race/ethnicity (54.3%). Persons who experienced intersectional discrimination were less likely to have a regular HIV care provider, have trust in HIV care or treatment information from healthcare providers, and be antiretroviral treatment or HIV care visit adherent. Future studies should explore methods to operationalize and assess experiences with intersectional stigma and discrimination and use the outcomes to inform qualitative research that provides more context and a deeper understanding of experiences with intersectional discrimination among PWH.

The ‘Normalization’ of Young Protestors in Greece

During the last decades, the number of demonstrations as well as of demonstrators has significantly increased in most Western European countries. Some scholars support that protesting has become so widespread leading to the ‘normalization’ of the demonstrators. Overall research examining the ‘normalization thesis’ of street youth protest by analyzing representative datasets is extremely scarce. The chapter by analyzing youth-over-sampled survey data collected as part of the EURYKA project examines key socioeconomic determinants in participating in demonstrations among Greek young adults aged 18-34 years old. Greece is an exceptionally interesting case study to examine the ‘normalization thesis’ of youth protesting as the recent recession and its severe socioeconomic impacts triggered an exceptional wave of protest mobilization where Greek youth was one of the main protest claimants. The findings indicate that the socioeconomic determinants under study, such as gender, educational attainment, income, and occupational class, do not play a significant role in predicting youth demonstrating in Greece. Such preliminary evidence provides empirical support to the ‘normalization thesis’ and accords with related studies underscoring that during the massive anti-austerity protests Greek citizens from a broad range of social strata were mobilized in protest activities.

Guarding border: bodies and dichotomy in gendered control over mobility in a borderland of Bangladesh

Prior research has concentrated on border guards and the politics of bodies, but less attention has been made to the interaction between embodied differentials and women’s varied household income classes and its consequent effect, such as a dichotomy in gendered control over women’s mobility. This study established such a perspective by following the continuation of the application of the body as an analytical scale in scholarships of feminist political geography and taking the heterogeneous women’s voices into account. The analysis shed light on the gendered forms of domination implied by the entangled protection and control paradigms in framing the practices of patrolling the border. Thus, in this article, the author unpacked how incorporating the entwined paradigms of protection and control into the framing of border guarding manifests differential gendered implications, ranging from fear of making mobility-related decisions to immobilisation patterns. It connects these practices to gendered processes of othering, highlighting the interaction between embodied differentials and the various economic positions of women and thus finds a dichotomy in gendered control over mobility in the name of border protection under the guise of border patrolling practices.

Gendered racism, family and external shame, depressive symptoms, and alcohol use severity among Asian American men.

We investigated whether gendered racism predicts depressive symptoms and alcohol use severity among Asian American men (AAM) through indirect relations via culture-specific family and external shame. We analyzed convenience data from 409 AAM. Sample age (M = 21.24), nativity, ethnicity, education, income, and self-reported social class were diverse and controlled for. We path modeled direct associations among gendered racism and depressive symptoms and alcohol use severity, and their indirect (mediated) associations through family and external shame. About 21% and 25% of the sample met the clinical cutoffs for depressive symptoms and risky alcohol use, respectively. Gendered racism predicted depressive symptoms indirectly via external shame, and predicted alcohol use severity directly and indirectly via family shame. The hypothesized model fits the data better than an alternative model with shame factors as predictors. Gendered racism is an insidious psychiatric risk factor for AAM and appears to exacerbate family and external shame, which may subsequently and divergently increase depressive symptoms and alcohol use severity. Findings highlight the role of cultural factors within gendered racism-related stress processes among AAM. Future research should consider longitudinal designs and additional mediating and outcome variables to examine the behavioral health sequelae of gendered racism among AAM. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

G20, Social Science, Environmental Science, Economics, Econometrics and Finance Research Trend

The G20 is a multilateral cooperation forum consisting of 19 major countries and the European Union (EU) which has a middle to high income class, developing countries to developed countries. G20 members consist of countries from various regions of the world. United States, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France, Russia, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, China, Japan, South Korea, India, Indonesia, Australia and the European Union. In the G20 Indonesia became one of the 5 strongest economies in Asia Pacific, including: (1) China GDP 14.72 trillion US dollars (2020) Area 9.597 million km2 Population 1.402 billion people (2020) China's largest economy from manufacturing, services, and agriculture. SCOPUS.COM analyze search results, Social Science, Environmental Science, Economics, Econometrics and Finance 22,997 documents result since 1974 to 2022, all field article. So today in good trend of research and publication in Social Science, Environmental Science, Economics, Econometrics and Finance. Compare top 15 affiliations, dominant affiliations from China and Malaysia, the best 3 affiliations are Beijing Institute of Technology 318 documents; Xi'an Jiaotong University 227 documents and Southwestern University of Finance and Economics 211 documents. Still no Indonesia research institution in top 15 of the list. Compare top 15 affiliations, the best 3 countries are China, USA and UK. In ASIA and ASEAN, Indonesia under China, Pakistan and Malaysia. So this is real challenge for Indonesia research institution to expand their research in Social Science, Environmental Science, Economics, Econometrics and Finance, trend in 2010-nowadays

Income Inequality and Intergenerational Mobility in India

The rise in income inequality coupled with an increase in GDP per capita is attributed to the degree of intergenerational income mobility (IGIM). The main purpose of this article is to examine the relationship between income inequality and IGIM in India. Using the unit-level records of National Sample Survey data, the present study attempts to examine relative and absolute income mobility by way of segregating generations into social groups and income classes. The originality of the article lies in assessing the IGIM using different approaches, which will contribute to the existing literature. We conclude that the country has low-income mobility and high inequality which is no longer associated with a particular social group in India. Moreover, the relationship between income inequality and intergenerational mobility is both negative and positive. JEL Codes: D63, J62, R13

Small area estimation of general finite-population parameters based on grouped data

This paper proposes a new model-based approach to small area estimation of general finite-population parameters based on grouped data or frequency data, often available from sample surveys. Grouped data contains information on frequencies of some pre-specified groups in each area, for example, the numbers of households in the income classes. Thus, grouped data provide more detailed insight into small areas than area-level aggregated data. A direct application of the widely used small area methods, such as the Fay–Herriot model for area-level data and nested error regression model for unit-level data, is not appropriate since they are not designed for grouped data. Our novel method adopts the multinomial likelihood function for the grouped data. In order to connect the group probabilities of the multinomial likelihood and the auxiliary variables within the framework of small area estimation, we introduce the unobserved unit-level quantities of interest. They follow a linear mixed model with random intercepts and dispersions after some transformation. Then the probabilities that a unit belongs to the groups can be derived and are used to construct the likelihood function for the grouped data given the random effects. The unknown model parameters (hyperparameters) are estimated by a newly developed Monte Carlo EM algorithm which uses an efficient importance sampling. The empirical best predicts (empirical Bayes estimates) of small area parameters are calculated by a simple Gibbs sampling algorithm. The numerical performance of the proposed method is illustrated based on the model-based and design-based simulations. In the application to the city-level grouped income data of Japan, we complete the patchy maps of the Gini coefficient as well as mean income across the country.