Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ExpPov (The Experience of Poverty in the Post-Industrial Economy)
Reporting period: 2022-09-01 to 2025-02-28
The key aim of the ExpPov project is make advancements in our understanding of the measurement, sources, and consequences of poverty and social inequality in high-income countries. The project will, for example, collect new data on the dynamics and dimensions of poverty across the European Union and United States and will work to understand how social policy interventions causally affect patterns of poverty and inequality. Additionally, the project will study the intergenerational persistent of poverty across countries, and what specific interventions can sever the link between childhood poverty and adult poverty. The project will focus broadly on how poverty and social inequality interact with labour market outcomes, family formation, and the welfare state using a mix of primary and secondary data sources.
The project’s research and technological achievements can be summarised as follows:
1) Data and empirical achievements: Our project made major data advancements in the cross-national study of intergenerational mobility and poverty. In our first major paper, now forthcoming at Nature Human Behaviour¸ we compiled a novel set of harmonized, cross-nationally-comparable panel data to study the association of childhood poverty and adult poverty in five countries, including Germany and Denmark. For the first time, researchers could compare intergenerational poverty across countries using a common post-tax/transfer household income variable. We are now making the code to replicate these datasets publicly available so that future researchers can also conduct estimates of intergenerational poverty across these countries.
As a separate empirical achievement, two members of our team have published a study that compares child poverty rates (measured in several ways) across more than 50 countries and more than 50 years using harmonized micro-data. The paper, published in Demography, reveals how specific policy actions led the US to having the lowest child poverty rate in its history.
2) Intellectual contributions: Here, I highlight achievements from our team so far in five major areas.
a. Public policy: Our team has conducted several papers that seek to understand how policy decisions affect poverty, employment, mental health, and more. In Journal of Public Economics, we have documented how policy changes to the Child Tax Credit have affected parental employment, while in Health Economics, we have produced new evidence on how the same policy change affected parents’ mental health.
b. Family demography: In papers under review at Socius and American Journal of Sociology, we have advanced study of family demography namely through new analyses on how single parenthood is associated with poverty status. Specifically, we use panel data to contextualize how pre-parenthood disadvantages, rather than parenthood itself, largely shape the single-parenthood poverty rate, in contrast to key claims from much of the existing literature.
c. Poverty measurement: In papers under review at Journal of Economic Inequality and Social Indicators Research, we advance knowledge on poverty measurement in the EU. Specifically, we document the role of housing costs in measures of poverty, and we argue that variation in local housing costs ought to be incorporated into the EU’s at-risk-poverty measures.
d. Intergenerational mobility: As noted above, our Nature Human Behaviour paper is the first major study of the intergenerational persistence of poverty across high-income countries. The decomposition framework it provides should act as a foundation for future research on the topic.
e. Carbon emissions and inequality: Finally, we are about to submit work focused on how levels and trends in income inequality are associated with carbon emissions across the European Union. This is worked based on a new dataset we will soon release that imputes estimates of carbon emissions into the EU Household Budget Surveys.
1) Data and empirical achievements: Our project made major data advancements in the cross-national study of intergenerational mobility and poverty. In our first major paper, now forthcoming at Nature Human Behaviour¸ we compiled a novel set of harmonized, cross-nationally-comparable panel data to study the association of childhood poverty and adult poverty in five countries, including Germany and Denmark. For the first time, researchers could compare intergenerational poverty across countries using a common post-tax/transfer household income variable. We are now making the code to replicate these datasets publicly available so that future researchers can also conduct estimates of intergenerational poverty across these countries.
As a separate empirical achievement, two members of our team have published a study that compares child poverty rates (measured in several ways) across more than 50 countries and more than 50 years using harmonized micro-data. The paper, published in Demography, reveals how specific policy actions led the US to having the lowest child poverty rate in its history.
2) Intellectual contributions: Here, I highlight achievements from our team so far in five major areas.
a. Public policy: Our team has conducted several papers that seek to understand how policy decisions affect poverty, employment, mental health, and more. In Journal of Public Economics, we have documented how policy changes to the Child Tax Credit have affected parental employment, while in Health Economics, we have produced new evidence on how the same policy change affected parents’ mental health.
b. Family demography: In papers under review at Socius and American Journal of Sociology, we have advanced study of family demography namely through new analyses on how single parenthood is associated with poverty status. Specifically, we use panel data to contextualize how pre-parenthood disadvantages, rather than parenthood itself, largely shape the single-parenthood poverty rate, in contrast to key claims from much of the existing literature.
c. Poverty measurement: In papers under review at Journal of Economic Inequality and Social Indicators Research, we advance knowledge on poverty measurement in the EU. Specifically, we document the role of housing costs in measures of poverty, and we argue that variation in local housing costs ought to be incorporated into the EU’s at-risk-poverty measures.
d. Intergenerational mobility: As noted above, our Nature Human Behaviour paper is the first major study of the intergenerational persistence of poverty across high-income countries. The decomposition framework it provides should act as a foundation for future research on the topic.
e. Carbon emissions and inequality: Finally, we are about to submit work focused on how levels and trends in income inequality are associated with carbon emissions across the European Union. This is worked based on a new dataset we will soon release that imputes estimates of carbon emissions into the EU Household Budget Surveys.
Would you consider any of these significant achievements as breakthroughs or as advancing a research field significantly beyond the state-of-the-art? Were any of these unplanned/ unexpected? Give a brief explanation.
Yes, we view our advancement of the study of intergenerational persistence of poverty as an important breakthrough in the intergenerational mobility literature. As noted, we are the first to use harmonized, cross-national panel data to produce comparable estimates of intergenerational poverty across place. In that Nature Human Behaviour study, we also forcefully advance the conceptual case for the study of intergenerational poverty beyond studies of intergenerational mobility more broadly.
Yes, we view our advancement of the study of intergenerational persistence of poverty as an important breakthrough in the intergenerational mobility literature. As noted, we are the first to use harmonized, cross-national panel data to produce comparable estimates of intergenerational poverty across place. In that Nature Human Behaviour study, we also forcefully advance the conceptual case for the study of intergenerational poverty beyond studies of intergenerational mobility more broadly.