IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lis/liswps/462.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Nearly Universal, but Somewhat Distinct: The Feminization of Poverty in Affluent Western Democracies, 1969-2000

Author

Listed:
  • Denise Kall
  • David Brady

Abstract

Our study extends research on the feminization of poverty by analyzing the variation in women¿s, men¿s and feminized poverty across affluent democracies from 1969 to 2000. Specifically, we address three issues. First, we provide more recent estimates of adult women¿s and men¿s poverty and the ratio of women¿s to men¿s poverty with two different poverty measures. We suggest that by incorporating the elderly, the feminization of poverty may be greater than previously estimated. The feminization of poverty is nearly universal across affluent Western democracies 1969-2000. Second, we show that women¿s, men¿s and overall poverty are highly correlated, but the feminization of poverty diverges as a distinct social problem. Third, we find that women¿s, men¿s and overall poverty share several correlates, particularly the welfare state, though some differences exist. At the same time, several of our findings differ with past research. The feminization of poverty is only influenced by social security transfers, single motherhood, and the sex ratios of the elderly and labor force participation. While power resources theory probably best explains women¿s, men¿s and overall poverty, structural theory may best explain the feminization of poverty. We conclude by discussing how analyses of the feminization of poverty contribute to debates on poverty and gender inequality.

Suggested Citation

  • Denise Kall & David Brady, 2007. "Nearly Universal, but Somewhat Distinct: The Feminization of Poverty in Affluent Western Democracies, 1969-2000," LIS Working papers 462, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
  • Handle: RePEc:lis:liswps:462
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.lisdatacenter.org/wps/liswps/462.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alok Bhargava & J. D. Sargan, 2006. "Estimating Dynamic Random Effects Models From Panel Data Covering Short Time Periods," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Econometrics, Statistics And Computational Approaches In Food And Health Sciences, chapter 1, pages 3-27, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    2. Foster, James E, 1998. "Absolute versus Relative Poverty," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(2), pages 335-341, May.
    3. Esping-Andersen, Gosta, 1999. "Social Foundations of Postindustrial Economies," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198742005, Decembrie.
    4. Sawhill, Isabel V, 1988. "Poverty in the U.S.: Why Is It So Persistent?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 26(3), pages 1073-1119, September.
    5. 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.
    6. Francine D. Blau & Lawrence M. Kahn, 2003. "Understanding International Differences in the Gender Pay Gap," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(1), pages 106-144, January.
    7. Joakim Palme & Walter Korpi, 1998. "The Paradox of Redistribution and Strategies of Equality: Welfare State Institutions, Inequality and Poverty in the Western Countries," LIS Working papers 174, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    8. Nickell, Stephen J, 1981. "Biases in Dynamic Models with Fixed Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(6), pages 1417-1426, November.
    9. Sara McLanahan & Irwin Garfinkel & Lynne Casper, 1994. "The Gender Poverty Gap: What Can We Learn From Other Countries?," LIS Working papers 112, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    10. Rebecca M. Blank, 2000. "Distinguished Lecture on Economics in Government: Fighting Poverty: Lessons from Recent U.S. History," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(2), pages 3-19, Spring.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Kevin Leicht & David Brady, 2007. "Party to Inequality: Right Party Power and Income Inequality in Affluent Western Democracies," LIS Working papers 460, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    4. David Brady, 2002. "Rethinking the Sociological Measurement of Poverty," LIS Working papers 264, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    5. Stephanie Moller & Michelle Budig & Joya Misra, 2006. "Reconciliation Policies and the Effects of Motherhood on Employment, Earnings, and Poverty," LIS Working papers 429, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    6. David Brady & Jennifer Moren Cross & Andrew Fullerton, 2008. "Putting Poverty in Political Context: A Multi-Level Analysis of Working-Aged Poverty Across 18 Affluent Democracies," LIS Working papers 487, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    7. David Brady, 2003. "The Poverty of Liberal Economics," LIS Working papers 343, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    8. Elena Bárcena-Martín & Ana I. Moro Egido, 2013. "Country differences in the gender effect on poverty in Europe," ThE Papers 13/02, Department of Economic Theory and Economic History of the University of Granada..
    9. Hadas Mandel, 2007. "Ideology, Family Policy and Gender Economic Inequality: Different Models, Different Tradeoffs," LIS Working papers 465, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    10. David Brady & Jennifer Moren Cross & Andrew Fullerton, 2010. "More than Just Nickels and Dimes: A Cross-National Analysis of Working Poverty in Affluent Democracies," LIS Working papers 545, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    11. Ben Spies-Butcher & Ben Phillips & Troy Henderson, 2020. "Between universalism and targeting: Exploring policy pathways for an Australian Basic Income," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 31(4), pages 502-523, December.
    12. David Brady, 2003. "The Politics of Poverty: Left Political Institutions, the Welfare State and Poverty," LIS Working papers 352, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    13. Daoud, Adel & Johansson, Fredrik, 2019. "Estimating Treatment Heterogeneity of International Monetary Fund Programs on Child Poverty with Generalized Random Forest," SocArXiv awfjt, Center for Open Science.
    14. Kemmerling, Achim, 2001. "Die Messung des Sozialstaates: Beschäftigungspolitische Unterschiede zwischen Brutto- und Nettosozialleistungsquote," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Labor Market Policy and Employment FS I 01-201, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    15. Özlem Onaran & Valerie Boesch, 2014. "The Effect of Globalization on the Distribution of Taxes and Social Expenditures in Europe: Do Welfare State Regimes Matter?," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 46(2), pages 373-397, February.
    16. Lee, Lung-fei & Yu, Jihai, 2010. "Some recent developments in spatial panel data models," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(5), pages 255-271, September.
    17. Cheng Hsiao, 2007. "Panel data analysis—advantages and challenges," TEST: An Official Journal of the Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research, Springer;Sociedad de Estadística e Investigación Operativa, vol. 16(1), pages 1-22, May.
    18. Jiquan Peng & Juan Chen & Liguo Zhang, 2022. "Gender-Differentiated Poverty among Migrant Workers: Aggregation and Decomposition Analysis of the Chinese Case for the Years 2012–2018," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-23, May.
    19. Alberto Alesina & Nouriel Roubini, 1992. "Political Cycles in OECD Economies," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 59(4), pages 663-688.
    20. Naoki Akaeda, 2023. "Does Social Policy Crowd Out or Crowd In Social Trust? The Perspectives of Transfer Share, Low-Income Targeting, and Universalism," LIS Working papers 870, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.

    More about this item

    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:lis:liswps:462. 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: Piotr Paradowski (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lisprlu.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.