IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/jid/journl/y2012v21i3-4p83-102.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Working Poor Trajectories

Author

Listed:
  • Joël Hellier

    (Université de Lille Nord-de-France)

Abstract

To analyse in-work poverty, we build a model in which human capital and productivity varies over time with experience, time-related obsolescence and poverty. The model reveals four possible trajectories: poverty to exclusion, permanent poverty, the emergence from poverty, and finally, from poverty to non-poor worker and then back to poverty. It also generates the main traits of in-work poverty in terms of skill, age, duration, and family characteristics. Both skill-biased technical change and globalization boost in-work poverty and exclusion. When unemployment compensation is introduced, being a poor worker can be a rational choice for individuals who accept lower pay today to earn more tomorrow.

Suggested Citation

  • Joël Hellier, 2012. "Working Poor Trajectories," Journal of Income Distribution, Ad libros publications inc., vol. 21(3-4), pages 83-102, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:jid:journl:y:2012:v:21:i:3-4:p:83-102
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://jid.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/jid/article/view/38674
    Download Restriction: Some fulltext downloads are only available to subscribers. See JID website for details.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Henning Lohmann, 2008. "Welfare States, Labour Market Institutions and the Working Poor: A Comparative Analysis of 20 European Countries," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 776, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    2. Marlene Kim & Thanos Mergoupis, 1995. "The Working Poor and Welfare Recipiency," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_151, Levy Economics Institute.
    3. Timothy Smeeding & Gunther Schmaus & Brigitte Buhmann & Lee Rainwater, 1988. "Equivalence Scales, Well-Being, Inequality and Poverty: Sensitivity Estimates Across Ten Countries Using the LIS Database," LIS Working papers 17, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    4. Dasgupta, Partha & Ray, Debraj, 1987. "Inequality as a Determinant of Malnutrition and Unemployment: Policy," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 97(385), pages 177-188, March.
    5. Bliss, Christopher & Stern, Nicholas, 1978. "Productivity, wages and nutrition : Part I: the theory," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(4), pages 331-362, December.
    6. David Gleicher & Lonnie K. Stevans, 2005. "A Comprehensive Profile of the Working Poor," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 19(3), pages 517-529, September.
    7. Bliss, Christopher & Stern, Nicholas, 1978. "Productivity, wages and nutrition : Part II: Some observations," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(4), pages 363-398, December.
    8. Marlene Kim, 1998. "The Working Poor: Lousy Jobs or Lazy Workers?," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(1), pages 65-78, March.
    9. Dasgupta, Partha & Ray, Debraj, 1986. "Inequality as a Determinant of Malnutrition and Unemployment: Theory," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 96(384), pages 1011-1034, December.
    10. Cormier, David & Craypo, Charles, 2000. "The Working Poor and the Working of American Labour Markets," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 24(6), pages 691-708, November.
    11. B. L. Gardner & G. C. Rausser (ed.), 2002. "Handbook of Agricultural Economics," Handbook of Agricultural Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 2, number 4.
    12. Marlene Kim & Thanos Mergoupis, 1997. "The Working Poor and Welfare Recipiency: Participation, Evidence, and Policy Directions," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(3), pages 707-728, September.
    13. Nathalie Chusseau & Michel Dumont & Joël Hellier, 2008. "Explaining Rising Inequality: Skill‐Biased Technical Change And North–South Trade," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(3), pages 409-457, July.
    14. B. L. Gardner & G. C. Rausser (ed.), 2002. "Handbook of Agricultural Economics," Handbook of Agricultural Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 2, number 3.
    15. Christine Lagarenne & Nadine Legendre, 2000. "Les travailleurs pauvres en France : facteurs individuels et familiaux," Économie et Statistique, Programme National Persée, vol. 335(1), pages 3-25.
    16. Buhmann, Brigitte, et al, 1988. "Equivalence Scales, Well-Being, Inequality, and Poverty: Sensitivity Estimates across Ten Countries Using the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) Database," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 34(2), pages 115-142, June.
    17. Maite Blázquez Cuesta & Wiemer Salverda, 2009. "Low‐wage Employment and the Role of Education and On‐the‐job Training," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 23(s1), pages 5-35, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Joel Hellier & Ekaterina Kalugina, 2015. "Globalization and the working poor," Working Papers 355, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jing You & Katsushi S. Imai & Raghav Gaiha, 2014. "Decoding the Growth-Nutrition Nexus in China: Inequality, Uncertainty and Food Insecurity," Discussion Paper Series DP2014-28, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University, revised Dec 2014.
    2. Jha, Raghbendra & Gaiha, Raghav & Sharma, Anurag, 2009. "Calorie and Micronutrient Deprivation and Poverty Nutrition Traps in Rural India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 982-991, May.
    3. Raghbendra Jha & Raghav Gaiha & Anurag Sharma, 2005. "Poverty Nutrition Trap in Rural India," Departmental Working Papers 2005-02, The Australian National University, Arndt-Corden Department of Economics.
    4. Jha, Raghbendra & Bhattacharyya, Sambit & Gaiha, Raghav, 2011. "Social safety nets and nutrient deprivation: An analysis of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Program and the Public Distribution System in India," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 189-201, April.
    5. Raghbendra Jha & Katsushi S. Imai & Raghav Gaiha, 2014. "Poverty nutrition traps," Chapters, in: Raghbendra Jha & Raghav Gaiha & Anil B. Deolalikar (ed.), Handbook on Food, chapter 10, pages 246-259, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    6. Katsushi S. Imai & Samuel Kobina Annim & Veena S. Kulkarni & Raghav Gaiha, 2012. "Nutrition, Activity Intensity and Wage Linkages: Evidence from India," Discussion Paper Series DP2012-10, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University, revised May 2014.
    7. Raghbendra Jha & Raghav Gaiha & Anurag Sharma, 2006. "Calorie Deprivation and Poverty Nutrition Trap in Rural India," ASARC Working Papers 2006-02, The Australian National University, Australia South Asia Research Centre.
    8. Imai, Katsushi S. & Gaiha, Raghav & Thapa, Ganesh, 2015. "Does non-farm sector employment reduce rural poverty and vulnerability? Evidence from Vietnam and India," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 47-61.
    9. Namrata Singha Roy, 2020. "Wage Rate: Is this Return to Education or Return to Physical Capability? Evidence from Rural India," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 63(1), pages 99-117, March.
    10. Jha, Raghbendra & Gaiha, Raghav & Pandey, Manoj K., 2013. "Body Mass Index, participation, duration of work and earnings under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme: Evidence from Rajasthan," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 14-30.
    11. Katsushi S. Imai & Raghav Gaiha & Woojin Kang & Samuel Annim & Ganesh Thapa, 2012. "Does Risk Matter? A Semi-parametric Model for Educational Choices in the Presence of Uncertainty," Economics Discussion Paper Series 1226, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    12. Bose, Gautam, 1997. "Nutritional efficiency wages: a policy framework," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 469-478, December.
    13. Joel Hellier & Ekaterina Kalugina, 2015. "Globalization and the working poor," Working Papers 355, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    14. Chaudhuri, Sarbajit & Mukherjee, Ujjaini, 2002. "Removal of protectionism, foreign investment and welfare in a model of informal sector," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 101-116, January.
    15. Partha Dasgupta & Debraj Ray, 1987. "Adapting to Undernourishment: The Clinical Evidence and Its Implications," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-1987-010, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    16. Seema Jayachandran, 2006. "Selling Labor Low: Wage Responses to Productivity Shocks in Developing Countries," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(3), pages 538-575, June.
    17. Gopalakrishnan, Pawan & Saha, Anuradha, 2021. "Tax Policy And Food Security: A Dynamic Analysis," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(3), pages 795-823, April.
    18. Kaushik Basu & Amanda J. Felkey, 2009. "A theory of efficiency wage with multiple unemployment equilibria: how a higher minimum wage law can curb unemployment," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 61(3), pages 494-516, July.
    19. Leopoldo Cabrera & Gustavo A. Marrero & Juan Gabriel Rodríguez & Pedro Salas-Rojo, 2021. "Inequality of Opportunity in Spain: New Insights from New Data," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 237(2), pages 153-185, June.
    20. Jing You & Sangui Wang & Laurence Roope, 2014. "Multi-dimensional Intertemporal Poverty in Rural China," CSAE Working Paper Series 2014-36, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    exclusion; poverty; working poor;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:jid:journl:y:2012:v:21:i:3-4:p:83-102. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Timm Boenke (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/gyorkca.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.