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Reconsidering the Divergence between Elderly, Child and Overall Poverty

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  • David Brady

Abstract

This study challenges the conventional wisdom that elderly, child and overall poverty are divergent. Comparing the official U.S. measure with the Luxembourg Income Study's (LIS) measure, I show that the official measure underestimates elderly poverty by a significant amount and child poverty by a lesser amount. The elderly were considerably more likely to be poor than children in the 1970s, children were more likely to be poor 1984-1997, but the elderly were more likely to be poor in 2000. Both the elderly and children are much more likely to be poor than the overall population. Analyses of 18 rich Western democracies show that overall and child poverty are very strongly positively correlated, while elderly poverty is moderately correlated with those two. Multivariate analyses show some commonalities and some differences in the sources of these three. Two measures of the welfare state significantly reduce overall, elderly and child poverty. While female labor force participation reduces all three, manufacturing employment, economic performance and demographic variables only influence one or two of the dependent variables.

Suggested Citation

  • David Brady, 2004. "Reconsidering the Divergence between Elderly, Child and Overall Poverty," LIS Working papers 371, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    • Handle: RePEc:lis:liswps:371
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Samuel Preston, 1984. "Children and the elderly: Divergent paths for America’s dependents," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 21(4), pages 435-457, November.
    2. Foster, James E, 1998. "Absolute versus Relative Poverty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(2), pages 335-341, May.
    3. Jay Teachman & Greg J. Duncan & W. Jean Yeung & Dan Levy, 2001. "Covariance Structure Models for Fixed and Random Effects," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 30(2), pages 271-288, November.
    4. John Iceland & Kathleen Short & Thesia I. Garner & David Johnson, 2001. "Are Children Worse off?: Evaluating Well-Being Using a New (And Improved) Measure of Poverty," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 36(2), pages 398-412.
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    Cited by:

    1. Gornick, Janet C. & Jäntti, Markus, 2012. "Child poverty in cross-national perspective: Lessons from the Luxembourg Income Study," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 558-568.
    2. Maria Iacovou & Alexandra J. Skew, 2011. "Household composition across the new Europe: Where do the new Member States fit in?," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 25(14), pages 465-490.
    3. Markus Jäntti & Janet Gornick, 2009. "Child Poverty in Upper-Income Countries: Lessons from the Luxembourg Income Study," LIS Working papers 509, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    4. David Brady, 2004. "The Welfare State and Relative Poverty in Rich Western Democracies, 1967-1997," LIS Working papers 390, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    5. Amie Bostic & Amie Bostic & Amie Bostic & Amie Bostic, 2023. "Family, Work, Economy, or Social Policy: Examining Poverty among Children of Single Mothers in Affluent Democracies between 1985-2016," LIS Working papers 860, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    6. Callan, Tim & Coleman, Kieran & Nolan, Brian & Walsh, John R., 2006. "Child Poverty and Child Income Supports: Ireland in Comparative Perspective," Papers BP2007/2, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    7. repec:esr:chaptr:jacb200671 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Callan, Tim & Nolan, Brian & Walsh, John R. & Whelan, Christopher T. & Maitre, Bertrand, 2008. "Tackling Low Income and Deprivation: Developing Effective Policies," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number RS1.
    9. Amie Bostic, 2023. "Family, Work, Economy, or Social Policy: Examining Poverty Among Children of Single Mothers in Affluent Democracies Between 1985 and 2016," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 42(4), pages 1-57, August.
    10. Marchand, J. & Smeeding, T., 2016. "Poverty and Aging," Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, in: Piggott, John & Woodland, Alan (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 905-950, Elsevier.
    11. Markus Jäntti & Janet Gornick, 2011. "Child Poverty in Comparative Perspective: Assessing the Role of Family Structure and Parental Education and Employment," LIS Working papers 570, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    12. Fernandez, Juan J., 2010. "Economic crises, high public pension spending and blame-avoidance strategies: Pension policy retrenchments in 14 social-insurance countries, 1981 - 2005," MPIfG Discussion Paper 10/9, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    13. Joy Pixley & Tsui-o Tai, 2008. "Poverty of Children and Older Adults: Taiwan's Case in an International Perspective," LIS Working papers 493, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    14. Inhoe Ku & Chang-O Kim & J Scott Brown, 2020. "Decomposition Analyses of the Trend in Poverty Among Older Adults: The Case of South Korea," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 75(3), pages 684-693.
    15. David Brady, 2005. "Structural Theory and Relative Poverty in Rich Western Democracies, 1969-2000," LIS Working papers 407, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.

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