Wealth Position Research Articles

Factors related to intrapartum/delivery care in Southeast Asia: A cross-sectional study in the Philippines and Indonesia

BackgroundPolicy encouraging healthcare intrapartum/delivery care is critical to accelerating the decline in maternal mortality. The study analyzes intrapartum/delivery care factors in Indonesia and the Philippines. MethodsThe investigation included 15,346 Indonesian and 7992 Filipino women (ages 15 to 49 who delivered during the previous five years). Aside from the location of intrapartum/delivery care as a dependent variable, additional factors investigated included domicile, marital status, age, occupation, education, parity, wealth, and ANC—the conclusion of the study utilizing binary logistic regression. ResultsWomen in both countries predominantly do healthcare intrapartum/delivery care. Both countries' urban women are more likely to receive intrapartum/delivery care than rural women. The higher the amount of schooling, the greater the likelihood of receiving intrapartum/delivery care. The lower the parity, the higher the chance to do healthcare intrapartum/delivery care. The higher the wealth position, the greater the likelihood of receiving intrapartum/delivery care. Furthermore, women in both nations who had four or more antenatal visits were more likely to receive intrapartum/delivery care. ConclusionThe study concluded five factors related to healthcare intrapartum/delivery care in the Philippines: residence, education, parity, wealth, and ANC. Meanwhile, there are six factors related to healthcare intrapartum/delivery care in Indonesia: place, age, education, parity, wealth, and ANC.

The Consequences of Contract Marriage Law on the Position of Wives, Children, and Wealth in the Perspective of Islamic Law

<p align="justify">This article discusses the highest factors that hinder the settlement of property disputes. The legal status of contract marriages according to Islamic law, a marriage is said to be valid if it meets the requirements for a valid marriage and is carried out according to religion and belief, this is based on Article 2 of Law Number 1 of 1974 and Article 4 Islamic Law Compilation. Or in other words marriage is legal according to Islamic law if it fulfills the marriage requirements. The legal status of contract marriages in an unregistered marriage when viewed from Law Number 1 of 1974 concerning marriages does not have permanent law, because contract marriages are a form of marriage that is not registered so that it cannot be proven by an authentic certificate in the form of a marriage certificate. In this writing, the author uses a normative research method in which this method is a legal research method that is carried out by examining library materials or secondary data. Legal arrangements for contract marriages (mutah marriage) in the perspective of the Marriage Law are illegal marriages and have no legal force, as a result the contract marriage law for the position of wife and children is that the wife must carry out all obligations as a wife and child status. who was born illegitimate, because the marriage of his parents was not recorded in a legal marriage. If the marriage ends in a contractual marriage, there is no distribution of assets, even though assets were produced during the marriage. In addition, there is no inheritance right from the contract wife to the contract husband.</p>

Japan and the allocation puzzle in an aging world

Capital that flows from rich to poor countries can be important in equalizing living standards across countries. Various factors, however, contribute to the Lucas Paradox and the mixed empirical evidence on the direction of capital flows. Differences in fundamentals, or simply TFPs, international financial market imperfections, differential demographic aging across regions of the world, or fiscal institutions affect the dynamics of capital flows. This paper builds a general equilibrium model of the world economy under imperfect capital mobility, populated by overlapping generations of individuals in three regions: the High-income (HI), Middle-income (MI) regions and Japan. We show that both TFP and aging are important factors to explain capital flows from the MI region to the HI region in the future and that Japan will turn a net borrower in mid-century in a process where the MI region further accumulates its external wealth. An alternative transition path in which the MI region exhibits catch-up in the expansion of the pension system and the TFP growth throughout the century shows significant effects on the predicted external wealth position of Japan.

The Reconstruction of High-Inherited Wealth in Minangkabau through Cash Waqf Movement

The development and demands of modern life results in the decrease of role and existence of high-inherited wealth in Minangkabau. This fact requires a reconstruction of the development of high-inherited wealth in Minangkabau. One of them is through cash waqf movement which is an alternative in developing and empowering the people’s economy. This paper aims at explaining the reconstruction of high-inherited wealth in Minangkabau through the cash waqf movement. This study tried to offer solutions and alternatives in restoring the role and existence of high-inherited wealth in Minangkabau through the cash waqf movement. By using a qualitative approach, this study found that the cash waqf movement can restore the role and position of high-inherited wealth in Minangkabau in the following forms; first, returning or reclaiming the pawned assets and increase the number of assets through the cash waqf movement from all members of the tribe or clan. Second, striving for the legality of these assets by changing the certificate into waqf property. Third, managing the high-inherited assets productively and share the profits for the economic needs and welfare of the people or tribe. Assets management and development through the cash waqf movement can be used as a model for other communities, especially the Minangkabau community in managing people’s or tribal assets and improving the welfare of the people.

Boosting Taxes for Boasting About Houses? Status Concerns in the Housing Market

There is empirical evidence that households use residential houses as status goods. Their visibility qualifies them as an excellent signaling device of the relative income and wealth position, in contrast to less visible financial assets. To this end we introduce a residential housing sector and status concerns for housing into a neoclassical framework. In the model, households derive utility from the absolute amount of housing and from comparing their stock of housing to a reference stock, which is composed of the current or past level of housing of their peers. We analyze how status concerns affect household behavior and find that they increase housing demand and labor supply. Furthermore, we find that status concerns exert a negative externality and elevate housing to inefficiently high levels. We derive a (state contingent) optimal tax that establishes the first-best allocation along the transition path and at the steady state. Calibrating the model to the US we quantify the optimal tax on residential housing to 1.8%. Introducing the optimal tax entails a considerable welfare gain of 0.29% measured in consumption equivalents.

Contempt for the Poor, Esteem for the Rich: The Interplay of Comparison and Sympathy in Hume’s Treatise

ABSTRACT Hume’s concept of sympathy is often discussed in isolation from the concept of comparison, which plays an important role in his social and moral philosophy. If both concepts are discussed at all in tandem, comparison is often seen as disruptive of sympathy, which is, in addition, treated as the more natural stance toward others. This article reverses this line of interpretation in presenting the comparative stance as equally fundamental as the sympathetic stance and as potentially outweighing it. Further, it analyzes the complex interplay of both psychological stances in either upholding or uprooting relations of inequality. In contrast to many positive readings of the moral role of sympathy, I argue that sympathy often obstructs the uptake of the comparative mode by fostering imaginary identification with positions of wealth and power. What I will label “comparisons from below” are thus transformed into non-comparative sympathy. At the same time, the socioeconomically privileged, through what I call “relational proximities of power,” do compare downward even if this implies overcoming large affectively stabilized socioeconomic distances. Since sympathy is responsible for producing the general esteem for wealth and privilege, I conclude that it mirrors structures of inequality as much as it helps to establish emotionally backed judgments that help to strengthen these structures.

Understanding the role of homeownership in wealth inequality: Evidence from urban China (1995–2018)

Many scholars have evaluated the wealth creation effects of homeownership over different time periods and have agreed on the positive role of homeownership. However, there are no consistent mechanisms to measure the impact of homeownership on wealth inequality. Based on data from 1995 to 2018, this paper finds that the expansion of the homeownership rate in urban China was an equalizing force in the distribution of wealth from 1995 to 2008, driven by the increased homeownership and housing acquisition of low- and moderate-income households (LMIs) during the era of housing reform in the 1990s. The forces were exogenous and dominated by a redistributive logic. In the post-reform era after 2008, the decline in the homeownership rate led to a concentration of wealth distribution that was driven by the widening wealth gap between owners and non-owners, which represented an endogenous market force. The results indicate that there was an apparent discontinuity of the trends of homeownership and wealth inequality because new immigrants could not afford the price of housing in the cities. The wealth position of the middle and lower classes (mainly new immigrant non-owners) was crippled, not only by the inaccessibility of homeownership, but also by the reinforcing effect of the increase in housing prices. This study reveals the different mechanisms of homeownership on wealth inequality and the policy implications for the redistributive effects of the allocation of housing resources.

Az anyagiasság és a személyes jóllét kapcsolata: a nyugati fogyasztói társadalom egy árnyoldala

THE AIMS OF THE PAPER The study joins in the academic discussion that examines the relationship between materialism and personal well-being since the mid 1980s. The aim of the study is to investigate the nature of the relationship between materialism as a mindset and personal well-being. Furthermore it wishes to identify the drawbacks of western consumer society. METHODOLOGY Our analysis was conducted on a sample from a questionnaire survey with 1819 observations, that is concerning demographic characteristics nationally representative. In case of the variables included in our analysis the effect of potential biases arising from questionnaire surveys were managed. We measured the materialism variable, that played a central role in our analysis, as the relative position of wealth and money within the personal value system of respondents, while the life satisfaction and self-esteem variables were calculated as the difference from the sample average. We used OLS-regression for testing the relationship between variables. MOST IMPORTANT RESULTS The individuals who indicated wealth and money as important priorities in their value systems were generally more dissatisfied with their lives and had lower self-esteem compared to the respondents who scored lower on the materialism scale. This correlation was found to be irrespective of their actual financial status. Furthermore, irrespective of whether they felt being judged by their environment based on their possession of material goods or not. We found no significant relationship between materialism and the perceived lack of financial opportunities. RECOMMENDATIONS Prioritizing materialistic values seems irrational as it can correlate to a decreased personal well-being. Although objective and subjective, as well as social and environmental factors form part of well-being, according to our results being materialistic, and following a consumer culture that emphasizes materialistic values could lead to problems at the level of the individual.

The legacy effect of socialism on risky savings

ABSTRACT The riskiness of individuals’ saving behaviour affects their old-age wealth and has wider-ranging implications for macroeconomic development and stability. To which extent individuals take financial risks depends on their preferences, which may be moulded by the economic system they live in. I analyse households’ financial risk taking after the collapse of the German Democratic Republic. Conditional on their income and financial wealth positions, East German households were more prone to financial risk taking than West German households after reunification. The differences in risk taking were quantitatively relevant shortly after reunification and gradually vanished until 2008. Risk taking of households who were exposed to the socialist system longer was higher.

Do You Need Business Assets to Be Rich?

The one percent are extremely powerful in the United States, and business assets are an important component of the wealth of these households. The authors show that business assets are an important component of the wealth portfolios of the one percent. In 1989, approximately 40 percent of households in the one percent had sufficient business assets to be in the one percent on the basis of those assets alone. By 2019, about 50 percent of households in the one percent had sufficient business assets to be in the one percent on the basis of those assets alone. For nearly 20 percent of households, business assets are necessary to be in the one percent. The findings suggest that business assets are critical to creating and maintaining wealth inequality in the United States and underscore the important role that starting and growing businesses can play in pushing households into top wealth positions.

Understanding the Role of Homeownership in Wealth Inequality: Evidence from Urban China (1990-2018)

Many scholars have evaluated the wealth creation effects of homeownership over different periods and have agreed on the positive role of homeownership. However, there are contradictory mechanisms regarding the impact of homeownership on wealth inequality. Based on panel data from 1995 to 2018, this paper found that the expansion of the homeownership rate was an equalizing force in the distribution of wealth during the era of housing reform from 1995 to 2002, driven by the housing acquisition of low- and moderate-income households (LMI) and middle-class housing conversion. The forces were exogenous and dominated by the redistributive logic. In the post-reform era after 2010, the decline in the homeownership rate led to the concentration of wealth distribution that was driven by the widening wealth gap between owners and non-owners, which was an endogenous market driving force. The result shows that there is an apparent discontinuity in the trends of homeownership and wealth inequality when new immigrants cannot afford the price of housing in the city. The wealth position of the middle and lower class (mainly new immigrant non-owners) was crippled not only by the inaccessibility of housing ownership, but also by the reinforcing effect of the housing price upsurge. This research reveals the differential effects of homeownership on wealth inequality and the policy implications on the redistributive effects of the allocation of housing resources.

Social differentiation in climate change adaptation: One community, multiple pathways in transitioning Kenyan pastoralism

Climate change adaptation literature on pastoralists often embraces a systems approach that uses aggregate analysis, giving a false assumption of community homogeneity. It assumes that a pastoral community is a coherent unit, an assumption that does not adequately capture the increasingly differentiated adaptation pathways. Analyzing key adaptation practices among Maasai (agro-) pastoralists’ of Laikipia County, we outline how wealth, age and gender differentiate actors’ adaptation pathways. We argue that adaptation pathways are political processes highly negotiated by these elements of social differentiation and that individual actors adaptation opportunities are substantially shaped by their social positions. Additionally, we make the case for using adaptation practices as focal points for adaptation pathways research because this methodological choice allows unpacking who, why and how questions in the uptake of emerging technical adaptation practices, especially how they are influenced by individual social positions of wealth, age and gender.

Concave distortion risk minimizing reinsurance design under adverse selection

This article makes use of the well-known Principal–Agent (multidimensional screening) model commonly used in economics to analyze a monopolistic reinsurance market in the presence of adverse selection, where the risk preference of each insurer is guided by its concave distortion risk measure of the terminal wealth position; while the reinsurer, under information asymmetry, aims to maximize its expected profit by designing an optimal policy provision (menu) of “shirt-fit” stop-loss reinsurance contracts for every insurer of either type of low or high risk. In particular, the most representative case of Tail Value-at-Risk (TVaR) is further explored in detail so as to unveil the underlying insight from economics perspective.

Dickens, Hard Times, and the Erasure of Female Origins

Dickens, Hard Times, and the Erasure of Female Origins Galia Benziman (bio) Among the host of neglected, unloved, and underfed Dickensian children shines out one impostor: Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, the thriving banker and industrialist in Dickens's 1854 novel Hard Times. Bounderby keeps bragging about his humble origins, and he is so loud and emphatic about it that the narrator nicknames him "the Bully of humility" (15, 196). He flaunts his success as someone who, against all odds, climbed up straight from the gutter to a position of wealth and influence. The reiteration of this story and its hyperbolic details provide a recurrent comic interlude in this otherwise not very comic novel. If not for Bounderby and a few other minor characters, Hard Times, a dystopia of the totalitarian regime of Fact, would probably be considered Dickens's grimmest work of fiction. Perhaps due to its status as a comic interlude, Bounderby's discourse of early suffering has not received the sustained and careful critical attention it deserves. Critics usually refer to his story as a caricature of the Victorian ethos of the self-made man and a parody of the rags-to-riches plot, which is in this case taken to extremes. Too little has been said about the deeper and broader implications, and potential sources, of Bounderby's narrative, which are all the more significant because, as revealed only towards the end of the novel, his self-narrated biography is no more than a heap of lies. Hard Times is a satirical novel whose main target of attack is the utilitarian regime of Fact, starting with the famous opening speech "Now, what [End Page 179] I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else" (5). In such a novel, anything that deviates from Fact is bound to be valuable. Under Hard Times' tyranny of Fact, lying should be aligned with the imagination, fancy, fantasy, and storytelling. Deceit, like any other fiction, provides a glimpse into whatever it is that the regime of Fact is trying so hard to suppress. We may condemn Bounderby as a fraud, yet at the same time it would be worthwhile to regard his lies as a work of fiction, or complex fantasy, that carries intriguing layers of meaning. Since Plato's Republic, volumes have been written about the thin line between deception and artistic creativity. It should suffice to say that according to Dickens's moral schema in Hard Times, much value lies in the ability to invent fictions as an outlet for suppressed emotional needs. Bounderby's invented childhood trauma, which he passes off as true, allows Dickens to explore and satirize a new kind of subjectivity that mixes components of real and artificial identity. The mix of true and false ingredients that compose Bounderby's life story is related to his characterization as a hybrid, partly mechanical subject, which, eschewing its biological origins and marketing itself as self-manufactured, prefigures the modern anxiety about the posthuman. Bounderby's invented story of horrible neglect touches something deep in Dickens. Through this loquacious character who flaunts his early suffering to the degree of self-indulgence, the author parodies his own artistic and autobiographical sentimental attachment to the figure of the neglected child, and his recurrent depictions of dysfunctional or cruel mother figures. Hard Times, as so many Dickens novels, features negative representations of mothers. Yet beyond that, this work levels an attack on the principle of maternity itself, embodied in Bounderby's myth of self-creation, which concerns not only social climbing but also a male attempt to erase the mother altogether. Bounderby's false resume is related to several collective issues that lie at the core of those hard times about which Dickens writes. This character's life story captures and challenges some of the major ideas of his age, issues that concern gender, science, identity, and social mobility. In what follows I propose a close reading of several of the key images Bounderby uses, to suggest that these images rework major undercurrents of the Victorian masculine and industrialist ideal of economic success. These...

Accounting for Intergenerational Wealth Mobility in France over the 20th Century: Method and Estimations

We propose a new and simple method to study intergenerational wealth correlation between two generations, which is easy to implement in wealth (and housing) surveys and aims at overcoming the strong data limitation faced in most of the countries. We show that the ownership of housing assets can be used to proxy for three wealth groups for all cohorts. Misclassification induces a low and downward bias in the estimate of the intergenerational correlation. Using France as an example, we estimate intergenerational wealth correlation for cohorts covering the 20th century and focus on the wealth positions measured at the mid-life cycle of both children and parents. First, probabilities to belong to top wealth groups are increasing with the wealth of the parents. This intergenerational correlation has increased over time for most of the top wealth groups. Second, the higher we move up along the children’s wealth distribution, the larger the role of parental wealth: the persistence in the top 50% is 38% higher than under perfect mobility and the deviations from perfect mobility are larger in higher top wealth groups. Third, 50 to 60% of the correlation is accounted for by a mix of intergenerational wealth transfers, fathers’ occupation and children’s education. Fourth, gifts and bequests explain a larger share of the link between parental wealth and the probability to belong to the top 10% compared to larger top wealth groups. We also find evidence of persistence of the effect of parental wealth over the life-cycle.

The Intergenerational Impact of China's New Rural Pension Scheme

The Intergenerational Impact of China's New Rural Pension Scheme

The wealth paradox: Prosperity and opposition to immigration

AbstractThe idea that economic downturns and economic deprivation provoke tensions and intergroup hostility is remarkably pervasive. These accounts often work from the premise that economic crises and poverty provide “fertile soil” for populist parties and leaders with an anti‐immigrant agenda. This may explain why we intuitively expect that “hard times” produce “harsh attitudes” towards minorities. However, there is also robust empirical evidence showing that intergroup hostility (and anti‐immigration sentiments more specifically) can (i) surge in times of economic prosperity, and (ii) be widespread among relatively affluent groups. In this article, I will review evidence showing that intergroup hostility (such as anti‐immigrant sentiments) can be equally prevalent in times of relative gratification as well as in times of relative deprivation (accounting for the “Wealth Paradox”). In the second part of this contribution, I will explore these processes through the lens of classic social identity theorising focusing on the way that status anxiety, status threat, and fear of falling among members of wealthier groups are shaped by the permeability of group boundaries and the security of wealth positions. I argue that social identity theorising, typically applied to explain the behaviour of low status groups, can provide a parsimonious and integrative account for why and when high status (i.e., as a result of affluence and prosperity) may be associated with hostility towards minorities rather than with greater tolerance.

Positive Effect of Pollution Permits in a Variety Expansion Model with Social Status Preference

This study examines the effect of pollution permits on economic growth and welfare using a research and development‐based model that measures social status by a person's wealth position in society. Under realistic parameter conditions, we find that a decrease in pollution permit levels leads to an increase in the economic growth rate and improves welfare in a high steady state via the marginal rate of substitution between wealth and consumption, which is influenced by the crowding out and resource reallocation effects. This channel depends on the presence of social status preference, and we refer to this as the substitution effect.

Intergenerational Wealth Mobility and Racial Inequality.

The black-white gap in household wealth is large and well documented. Here, we visualize how this racial wealth gap persists across generations. Animating the flow of individuals between the relative wealth position of parents and their adult children, we show that the disadvantage of black families is a consequence both of wealth inequality in prior generations and race differences in the transmission of wealth positions across generations: Black children both have less wealthy parents on average and are far more likely to be downwardly mobile in household wealth. By displaying intergenerational movements between parental and offspring wealth quintiles, we underline how intergenerational fluctuation coexists with the maintenance of a severely racialized wealth structure.

The Importance Of Educational Level For Farmer’s Upward Social Mobility In Wringinpitu Village

Education influences upward movement in vertical social mobility. With scholars not returning to villages, upward social mobility in a farmer’s society slows down. The research was conducted from September 2017 until April 2018 in Wringinpitu village, Tegaldlimo sub-district, Banyuwangi district with the aim of determining upward social mobility of farmers in Wringinpitu village. Upward social mobility is determined by the differences in a farmer’s life, before and after planting oranges, land ownership, wealth, and social position in a society. The research uses a qualitative case study design with data collected through observation, documentation, and in-depth interviews. The informants were selected based on a purposive sampling method. The data was then validated by triangulation and analyzed using the interactive model. The results has shown that the factors affecting upward social mobility was not only due to higher education levels but also from opportunities, family background, and social capital. Scholarly farmers achieve the highest social position while farmers with only junior high school background having the lowest social position. The less educated farmers are less able to absorb information and make innovations. Scholarly farmers are more successful and become role models for other farmers. Farmer with higher education are able to achieve higher vertical social mobility and vice versa. The results of the research propose that educational institutions should educate and motivate scholars to return to their villages as agents of change.