Thomas A. Hirschl

Rags or Riches? Estimating the Probabilities of Poverty and Affluence across the Adult American Life Span

Objective. Poverty and affluence represent events central to the American identity of failure and success. Yet in spite of their significance, we know little about the actual likelihood of experiencing these events across the adult life course. In this article we empirically estimate the extent to which Americans will experience poverty and/or affluence during their adulthood. Methods. A series of life tables are constructed based upon data from 25 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Our measure of poverty is identical to that used by the U.S. Census Bureau in estimating the overall U.S. poverty rates. Affluence is defined as 10 times the poverty level. Results. Results indicate that between the ages of 25 and 75, 51.1 percent of Americans will experience at least one year below the poverty line, 51.0 percent will encounter a year of affluence, while only 20.1 percent of Americans will avoid either of these economic extremes. The effects of race and education in altering the likelihood of encountering poverty versus affluence are substantial. Conclusions. The opportunities for acute economic failure and success appear to be very real components of the American experience. Based upon this, we discuss an alternative typology to conceptualizing stratification in America.

The Economic Risk of Childhood in America: Estimating the Probability of Poverty across the Formative Years.

This article estimates the proportion of children in the United States who will experience poverty at some point during their childhood. These proportions are derived through a set of life tables built from 25 waves of longitudinal data. They represent a fundamentally different approach to studying poverty than either a cross-sectional or poverty spell methodology. Our data indicate that between the ages of I year and 17 years, 34% of American children will spend at least I year below the poverty line, 40% will experience poverty at the 125% level, and 18% will face extreme poverty (below 50% of the poverty line). A series of bivariate and multivariate life tables reveal that race, family structure, and parental education all have a sizeable impact on the likelihood of experiencing poverty. During the 17 years of childhood, 69% of Black children, 81% of children in nonmarried households, and 63% of children whose head of household had fewer than 12 years of education will be touched by poverty. Key Words. childhood, education, family structure, poverty, race. Over the past 25 years, one of the most apparent and disturbing aspects of American society has been its exceedingly high rate of poverty among children. From 1974 to the present, children have represented the age group most likely to be poor in the U.S. The 1997 poverty rate for persons younger than 18 years was 20%, compared with 11% for those aged 18-64, and 11% for those 65 and older (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1998a). Not only are children at a greater risk of poverty, but they make up a significant bulk of the total number of poor people in the U.S. Of the 35.6 million individuals who fell below the poverty line in 1997, 14.1 million (or roughly 40%) were children. In addition, the U.S. leads the Western industrialized nations in having the highest incidence of child poverty (Rainwater & Smeeding, 1995). Using data from the Luxembourg Income Study, the U.S. rate in 1994 stood at 25%. The nearest countries were 6 and 9 percentage points lower (the United Kingdom and Australia), and the overall average was 10% (Smeeding, 1997). What is perhaps most alarming about these elevated rates is that a substantial body of research has revealed the deleterious effects of poverty on a childs development. Poor infants and young children are more likely to have lower levels of physical and mental growth, compared with their counterparts who are not poor (Duncan & Brooks-Gunn, 1997; Korenman & Miller, 1997; Smith, BrooksGunn, & Klebanov, 1997). As children grow older, the disadvantages of experiencing poverty can multiply (Lichter, 1997). These include attending inferior schools (Schiller, 1998), residing in less educationally stimulating home environments (Mayer, 1997), living in high-risk neighborhoods (BrooksGunn, Duncan, & Aber, 1997), having health needs left unattended (Sherman, 1994), and a host of other disadvantages. In short, the risk of poverty at any point for U.S. children is substantial and potentially harmful. Yet in spite of this body of research, an essential question remains unaddressed: What is the risk of poverty across the entire span of childhood? Although several studies have looked at the longitudinal dynamics of child poverty, none has calculated the age-specific and cumulative probabilities of experiencing poverty during the complete span of childhood. This article estimates the overall distribution, likelihood, and age that American children will experience a first spell of poverty during childhood. BACKGROUND With the advent of several national panel studies, including the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), and the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), considerable light has been shed on understanding the longitudinal dynamics of spells of poverty. These data sets have allowed researchers to observe and track the individual dynamics of poverty and income mobility over time. …

Estimating the Risk of Food Stamp Use and Impoverishment During Childhood

OBJECTIVE To estimate the lifetime risk that an American child will reside in a household receiving food stamps and, as a result, will encounter poverty and a heightened exposure to food insecurity. DESIGN Thirty years of longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics survey data set. SETTING Nationally representative sample of the US population. PARTICIPANTS Approximately 90 000 childhood years of information are pooled together to create a series of life tables that span the ages of 1 to 20 years. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE Self-reporting measure of whether survey households received the Food Stamp Program during the prior year. RESULTS Between the ages of 1 to 20 years, nearly half (49.2%) of all American children will, at some point, reside in a household that receives food stamps. Households in need of the program use it for relatively short periods but are also likely to return to the program at several points during the childhood years. Race, parental education, and head of households marital status exert a strong influence on the proportion of children residing in a food stamp household. CONCLUSIONS American children are at a high risk of encountering a spell during which their families are in poverty and food insecure as indicated through their use of food stamps. Such events have the potential to seriously jeopardize a childs overall health.

The link between population density and welfare participation

This article explores a neglected topic in the social welfare, poverty, and demographic literatures—the link between population density and welfare participation in the United States. Longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics are used to meet two objectives: first, to test whether a relationship exists between population density and use of the food stamp program among eligible households; second, to explore the potential reasons for such a relationship. Our findings show that population density has a strong, positive impact on the likelihood of participating in the food stamp program. Low-income respondents in urban areas are significantly more likely to use food stamps in both an aggregate and a multivariate context. In analyzing the dynamic underlying such an effect, we find that those in urban areas are more likely to possess accurate eligibility information and to hold less adverse attitudes toward the use of welfare. These factors in turn increase the likelihood of food stamp participation.

Cutting edge : technology, information capitalism and social revolution

Bringing together contributions from workers employed in the new electronics and information industries with work from theorists and economics, politics and science, this title provides an up-to-date analysis of the complex relations between technology and work. Individual essays look at topics including the cyclical nature of a technologically-driven economy, the privatization of knowledge which new information industries demand, and the strategies which trade unionists and governments might deploy to potect jobs and living standards. A robot can build a car, but a robot cannot buy a car. The explosion in the development of computer- and robotic-based manufacturing is seeing the rapid expansion of labourless production systems. Such systems create enormous instability, both for the overall economy where money previously paid in wages is now invested in labour-saving technology and, therefore, cannot be spent on goods, and for workers whose jobs are being de-skilled or are simply disappearing. Contributors to the book include: Abdul Akalimat, Michael Brand, George Caffentzis, Guglielmo Carchedi, Jim Davis, Thomas A. Hirschl, Tessa Morris-Suzuki, Gerardo Otero, Nelson Perry, Ramin Ramtin, Dan Schiller, Steffanie Scott, Michael Stack and Nick Witheford.

The increasing risk of poverty across the American life course

This article extends the emerging body of life course research on poverty by empirically identifying the incidence, chronicity, and age pattern of American poverty and how these dimensions have changed during the period 1968-2000. Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we construct a series of life tables that estimate the risk of poverty for adults during their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s, and compare these estimates for Americans in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Our empirical results suggest that the risk of acute poverty increased substantially, particularly in the 1990s. This observed increase was especially pronounced for individuals in their 20s, 30s, and 40s; for all age groups with respect to extreme poverty; and for white males. On the other hand, the risk of chronic poverty declined during the 1990s (as measured by the percentage of the poor who experienced five or more years of poverty within a 10-year interval). The results in this article tell a very different story than the Census Bureaus yearly cross-sectional rates, which have shown little overall change in the U.S. poverty rate during this 30-year period. In contrast, a life course approach reveals a rising economic risk of acute poverty for individuals, one that is consistent with recent observations and research suggesting that a growing number of Americans will eventually find themselves in an economically precarious position.

Likelihood of Using Food Stamps during the Adulthood Years

OBJECTIVE The Food Stamp Program represents the cornerstone of the federal nutrition assistance safety net. This article estimates the likelihood that Americans will use such food assistance at some point during their adulthood. The probability and duration of food stamp use are estimated for the population as a whole and for differences in race, education, and gender. Based on these food stamp percentages, a lower boundary is also estimated with regard to the life course risk of food insecurity. DESIGN, SETTING, AND ANALYSIS: Thirty waves (1968 to 1997) of the nationally representative Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) data set were merged for analysis. Food stamp use is defined as an individual being in a household that has used the Food Stamp Program at some point during the year. Approximately 260 000 person-years of information on food stamp use are analyzed using both life table techniques and logit modeling. RESULTS Between the ages of 20 and 65, slightly over half (50.8%) of all Americans will, at some point, receive food stamps. Use of the program takes place over relatively short periods of time but typically recurs at several points in the life course. Race and education exert a profound influence on the odds of program participation. Based on the life course patterns of food stamp use, it is estimated that at least 42% of the American population will experience food insecurity at some point between the ages of 20 and 65. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS The overall life course patterns reveal a substantial need and use of food stamps within the US population. These results also suggest a significant risk of food insecurity across the life course. The implications for nutritionists are discussed.

Teenage sexual attitudes in China.

Not much is known about the sexual attitudes of Chinese teenagers. In this article we endeavor to address this void by examining the sexual attitudes of Chinese teenagers with survey data collected in Sichuan Province in 1988. Our analysis has two goals: first, to describe aggregate attitudes toward premarital sexual practices; and second, to identify the principal factors that influence these attitudes. To accomplish the second goal we estimate several regression equations with predictor variables known to influence teen sexual attitudes. Our analysis reveals major differences and similarities between China and the United States and indicates that Chinas teenagers are somewhat strongly opposed to teen sexual contact, but seem to be more understanding of others who so engage, despite strike laws and public morality forbidding it.

Community Effects on Welfare Participation

This paper conceptualizes and estimates a model of welfare participation that tests for community effects. Theoretically, the model is consistent with Fischers (1984) notion of urban life, and a welfare participation model developed by Rank and Hirschl (1993). The empirical analysis includes aggregate and multivariate tests, and an identification of these effects in terms of household knowledge and behavior. We find strong evidence that community structure influences the decision to get food stamps, and one notable difference with the Rank and Hirschl findings: community poverty level is a more powerful and global predictor of participation than is population density. The findings suggest emendations to Wilsons notion of the “truly disadvantaged” insofar as residence in high poverty areas afford opportunities for information exchange and the development of specialized networks.

Ideology and the Experience of Poverty Risk: Views About Poverty Within a Focus Group Design

This study analyzes the tension between ideological individualism with regard to views about poverty, versus the high social risk of poverty that prevails in the U.S. Because of this tension, we anticipate fissures and caveats to individualism, contingent on the individuals direct experience with poverty. Eight focus groups comprised of 80 individual respondents are interviewed across three communities in upstate New York, and the analysis confirms that individualism is the dominant attitude toward poverty. The article also identifies significant challenges to individualism, and that social stigma is a defining element within the experience of poverty.