De Santis, Gustavo. "Population Ageing in Industrialized
Countries: Challenges and Issues." No. 18. October 2001. 17
pages.
Abstract: None Available.
http://www.iussp.org/English%20Site/Publications/7listPRP.htm
Cutler, David and Ellen Meara. "Changes in the age distribution
of mortality over the 20th century." October 2001. #8556. 48
pages.
Abstract:
Mortality has declined
continuously in the United States over the course of the 20th century,
and at relatively constant rates. But the
constancy of mortality reductions masks significant heterogeneity by
age, cause, and source. Using historical data on death
by age and cause, this paper describes the characteristics of mortality decline over the 20th century.
Early in the 20th century, mortality declines resulted from public health and economic measures that
improved peoples’ ability to withstand disease. Because nutrition and public health were more important for
the young than the old, mortality reductions were concentrated at younger ages. By mid-century, medical
care became more significant and other factors
less so. Penicillin and sulfa drugs brought the first mortality reductions at
older ages, which were coupled with continuing
improvements in health at younger ages. The pattern of mortality reduction
was relatively equal by age. In the latter part
of the 20th century, death became increasingly medicalized. Cardiovascular disease mortality was prevented in significant
part through medical intervention. Most of the
additional years added to life in the last few decades of the 20th century were
at older ages.
http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Boersch-Supan, Axel, Alexander Ludwig and Joachim Winter. "Aging
and international capital flows." October 2001. #8553. 31
pages.
Abstract:
Throughout the world, population
aging is a major challenge that will continue well into the 21 st century. While the
patterns of the demographic transition are similar in most countries, timing
differs substantially, in particular between
industrialized and less developed countries. To the extent that capital
is internationally mobile, population aging will
therefore induce capital flows between countries. In order to quantify these international capital flows, we employ a
multi-country overlapping generations model and
combine it with long-term demographic projections for several world regions over
a 50 year horizon. Our simulations suggest
that capital flows from fast-aging industrial countries (such as Germany
and Italy) to the rest of the world will be
substantial. Closed-economy models of pension reform are likely to miss quantitatively important effects of international
capital mobility.
http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Deaton, Angus and Christina Paxson. "Mortality, income, and
income inequality over time in Britain and the United States."
#8534. October 2001. 48 pages.
Abstract:
We investigate age-specific mortality in Britain and the
United States since 1950. Neither trends in
income nor in income inequality provide plausible explanations. Britain and the
US had different patterns of income growth but
similar patterns of mortality decline. Patterns of income inequality were
similar in both countries, but adult and elderly
mortality rates declined most rapidly during the period when inequality increased. Changes in the rate of mortality
decline in the US led changes in Britain by about four years, most notably for infant and older adult
mortality where there have been significant technical improvements in treatment. British mortality is
lower, but the schedules cross at around age 65. This pattern was established before Medicare, and most likely
comes from rationing by age in Britain. Merged income, income inequality, and mortality data on an
age/year (or cohort/year) basis show no evidence
that income has any effect on mortality in Britain. Education is protective, but
less so than in the US. Understanding the effect
of income on mortality presents many puzzles, between countries, and
between analyses at different levels of
aggregation. Our results suggest an important role for medical
technology in determining the rate of mortality decline
since 1950.
http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Ezra, Markos. "Ecological degradation, rural poverty, and
migration in Ethiopia: A contextual analysis." No. 149. 37
pages.
Abstract:
The
interrelationships between ecological degradation, poverty, and rural
out-migration in Ethiopia are
examined using data from a Household and Community Survey conducted in 1994–95. The survey, which
covered a sample of 2,000 house-holds, collected retrospective data on changes in household composition,
including migration of household
members, during the period 1984 to 1994. The study hypothe-sizes that the decision to out-migrate in the
impoverished rural areas of northern Ethiopia is influenced by a combination of factors based on individual,
household, and community
characteristics. A multilevel analysis is applied to determine the role
of these factors in the decision. The
findings show that individuals belonging to economically poor households in ecologically vulnerable communities have
a higher propensity to out-migrate
for economic reasons, compared with those who belong to wealthier households in ecologically less
vulnerable communities. The study pro-vides information relevant to policy formulation in the interrelated areas of
environ-mental planning, workers’
mobility, poverty alleviation, and urban development.
http://www.popcouncil.org/publications/wp/prd/rdwplist.html
Hölscher, Jens. "Income Distribution and Convergence in the
Transition Process." Working paper No. 275. April 2001. 29
pages.
Abstract:
The aim of this study is to clarify, whether and where
the widespread opinion that systemic change from socialism to capitalism went
along with dramatically rising inequality is true and how income distribution
does affect the overall growth performance of transition countries. The
countries under review are: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Russia. The
findings are analysed against the background of convergence or divergence
respectively vis-à-vis the European Union (EU) level of income and income
distribution. Here Germany, being the neighbouring country and biggest EU
economy, is taken as benchmark. For the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland it
can be shown that income distribution remained relatively stable before and
throughout the transition period on the basis of so far unpublished data from
the Luxemburg Income Study database. Russia however displays a sharp increase in
income distribution. These results are illustrated by Lorenz curves and
underpinned by developments in functional income distribution and social
transfers. An attempt is made to locate these transition countries on a stylised
Kuznets curve and further qualitative factors referring to growth and equality
are
considered.
http://lisweb.ceps.lu/publications/wpapersentire.htm
Osberg, Lars. "Poverty Among Senior Citizens: A Canadian
Success Story in International Perspective." Working Paper No. 274.
September 2001. 40 pages.
Abstract:
Canada was very late in
establishing a comprehensive retirement security system - lagging roughly thirty
five years after the US built its Social Security system and about eighty years
after Bismark first established a state funded pension system in Germany. As a
consequence, the reduction in income poverty among senior citizens is a fairly
recent, and very strong, trend in income distribution data in Canada. Section 1
therefore begins by describing the long run trend in poverty among senior
citizens (those aged 65 and over) in Canada, and presents the "Poverty Box" to
compare the rate and depth of poverty over time, before and after taxes and
transfers, among both seniors and the younger population. Section 2 discusses
some of the problems of poverty measurement that are peculiar to the over 65
population. Section 3 uses Luxembourg Income Study data to compare the income
changes of Canadian, American, Swedish and British households as they move into
their retirement years, with particular emphasis on the income of poorer
households. Section 4 concludes with some discussion of the challenges facing
the design of retirement security.
http://lisweb.ceps.lu/publications/wpapersentire.htm
Mahler, Vincent A. "Economic Globalization, Domestic Politics
and Income Inequality in the Developed Countries: A Cross-National
Analysis." Working Paper No. 273. July 2001. 39
pages.
Abstract:
During the last decade, few issues have generated as much
debate among scholars, policy-makers and political activists as the relationship
between economic globalization and domestic income inequality in the developed
world. The central aim of this paper is to offer an empirical assessment of the
impact of economic globalization on the distribution of income generated by the
market and the ability and willingness of states to redistribute it. Three basic
analyses will be conducted. The first and most extensive is an unbalanced pooled
cross-sectional time-series analysis of the international and domestic sources
of cross-national variance in income distribution and redistribution for various
years between the early 1980s and the early 1990s. This analysis will employ
measures of post-government disposable income, pre-government earnings and
fiscal redistribution that have been calculated from household-level income
surveys available from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), which provides by far
the most comprehensive, detailed and accurate cross-national data on income
inequality currently available. The second analysis will offer a full-scale
pooled cross-sectional time-series analysis of less complete and comparable
annual data from non-LIS sources on pre-government wage dispersion between 1970
and 1990. Finally, the paper will examine trends over an even longer period in
the distribution of post-government income in a single country, the United
States, for which reliable annual figures are available for the period from 1967
to 1996. Among the questions addressed in the paper are the following: Is
integration into the world economy systematically related to domestic income
inequality across countries or over time? Can any economic dislocation resulting
from globalization be ameliorated by the redistributive activities of the state?
Are there differences in the impact of the three main modes of international
integration, trade, direct foreign investment and global financial flows? To
what extent are income distribution and redistribution the product of
essentially domestic political variables not directly associated with economic
globalization?
http://lisweb.ceps.lu/publications/wpapersentire.htm
Ritakallio, Veli-Matti. "Trends of Poverty and Income Inequality
in Cross-National Comparison." Working Paper No. 272. August
2001. 36 pages.
Abstract:
Comparative research of poverty, income
inequality and the effectiveness of income transfer systems has flourished
during the last two decades, largely owing to the contribution of the Luxembourg
Income Study project. So far, however, the majority of comparative analyses have
been based on a single year. For this paper we analysed cross-national patterns
of poverty and income inequality with a special emphasis on their stability. We
studied trends of poverty and income inequality between 1980 and 1995 in nine
countries representing three different ideal types of social policy. The
differences in poverty across the countries studied corresponded with the
respective models of social policy more clearly in the mid-1990s than they did
15 years earlier. Generally speaking, the poverty rate is slightly under 5% in
the Nordic countries, around 7.5% in Central Europe, 10% in Canada, 12.5% in the
UK, and as high as 17.5% in the USA. All the countries included in the analysis
share the trend that the primary distribution - based on the market income - has
become less equal than before. In each country, the proportion of population
being able to gain subsistence from the market alone has decreased continuously.
This trend is significantly more remarkable than the change in actual poverty,
which means that the absolute poverty alleviating impact of the income
redistribution systems became stronger in these countries during the period
1980-1995. The analysis of income inequality produced a basically similar
picture of the differences across the countries and the models of social policy
as the analysis of poverty did. In comparison to poverty, however, the change is
generally speaking less extensive. The Nordic countries, in particular, have
been capable of responding to the rise of the market income differences so that
the income inequality for disposable incomes has practically not increased at
all. Canada shows a parallel trend. The USA and, in particular, the UK represent
the opposite development. We also analysed trends of poverty in various
population groups. It was found that by 1995 poverty had turned into a risk of
young adults in all the countries studied. The poverty rate increased for the
age group 18-30 years in all countries, while an opposite trend was observed
among the elderly, in particular those aged over 65. Poverty rate among the
elderly is nowadays below the average population-level rate in all the countries
studied.
http://lisweb.ceps.lu/publications/wpapersentire.htm
Zuberi, Dan. "Transfers Matter Most." Working Paper No.
271. May 2001. 42 pages.
Abstract:
Three decades ago, Canada
and the United States shared almost identical relative poverty and inequality
levels. Yet despite experiencing similar macro-level social and economic
transformations from 1974 to 1994 , the two nations have experienced
diametrically opposite trends in relative household poverty. While levels of
poverty increased in the U.S. during this period, Canada has experienced
declining household poverty. Several institutional economists have utilized the
comparative case of Canada to emphasize the important role of one kind of
institution for explaining differences in poverty or inequality rates at one
point in time i . These economists have presented compelling evidence that
institutional differences, and not broader cultural or economic differences,
explain the poverty and inequality differences between Canada and the U.S. in
the late 1980s. These institutional differences include unionization policy and
social welfare packages. Yet despite the importance of these institutional
differences for explaining differences in poverty or inequality levels at one
point in time, my analysis of Luxembourg Income Survey (LIS) data on Canada and
the U.S. over this period clearly demonstrates that it is the different ways
each nation has reformed their transfer systems over this period, and not other
institutional differences or reforms, that comprehensively explain the divergent
trends in relative household poverty rates from 1974 to 1994. My analysis
utilizes harmonized LIS data to identify the relative explanatory strength of
different facets of the transfer systems for explaining the divergence in
poverty from 1974-1994. Surprisingly, the breakdown analysis reveals that the
divergent trends can largely be explained by differences in the structure and
reform of each nation's Social Retirement benefits, a factor not mentioned as an
explanatory factor in the previous literature. Differences in other "Social
Insurance" transfers and "Means-Tested" benefits together also helped explain
the divergence in poverty trends, but with less power than expected. The
increased effectiveness of the Canadian transfers for reducing its relative
household poverty rate compared to the American system over this period has
consequences for explaining divergence in inequality and possibly health
outcomes and other measures of well-being between these two nations.
http://lisweb.ceps.lu/publications/wpapersentire.htm
Rein, Martin and Heinz Stapf-Finé. "Income Packaging and
economic well-being at the income last stage of the working career."
Working Paper No. 270. April 2001. 37
pages.
Abstract:
First considered, at a point in time, is how
cross-country differences in the mix of income sources are related to three
measures of economic well-being. Poverty, defined as 50 percent of mean-adjusted
household income; relative adjusted disposable income of aged households with
heads over 55 years of age relative to those under 55; and inequality as
measured by the gini coefficient. Second, the broader question, namely that if
the institutions providing social benefits are changing, over time, what is the
likely redistributive impact of this development is addressed. The analysis
focuses on income sources in the last stages of the working career. Starting at
age 55, four different five-year age groups are identified to describe the last
stage of the working career. LIS data is used to analyze the experience of ten
countries: Australia 1994, Canada 1997, Finland 1995, Germany 1994, Netherlands
1994, Norway 1995, Sweden 1995, Switzerland 1992, United Kingdom 1995 and United
States 1997. Data for Finland are available, but difficult to interpret, since
the mandated earnings-related public social security is administered by a
private life insurance company making the distinction between public and private
especially difficult to draw. These are the only countries which had usable data
on occupational pensions at the time of this first analysis. In this analysis we
were able to include trends over time, broadly from 1980 to 1995, but actual
available years varied by country.
http://lisweb.ceps.lu/publications/wpapersentire.htm
Mason, William M. and William Lavely. "An Evaluation of the One
Percent Clustered Sample of the 1990 Census of China." No. 01-12. October,
2001. 22 pages.
Abstract: None available.
http://csde.washington.edu/pub/papers/01-12.pdf
Gyimah, S. Obeng-Manu. "Missing Data in Quantitative Social
Research." Discussion Paper 01-14. October, 2001. 30
pages.
Abstract:
Almost invariable, the data available to the social
scientist display one or more characteristics of missing information. Even
though reasons for non response are varied, most frequently, they reflect the
unwillingness of respondents to provide information on undesirable social
behaviours and on issues considered as private. Besides these, sloppy
research designs often leads to ambiguous and poorly structured survey questions
which provide a recipe for low response. Longitudinal surveys also suffer
from incompleteness due to attrition resulting from death and emigration, while
in retrospective surveys, memory effect might be a major source of non-response.
While there is no consensus among methodologists on the single most effective
technique of handling missing information, certain pertinent questions need to
be addressed: should we completely ignore the missing data and proceed
with the analysis? What are the implicit assumptions if one adopts such an
approach and how unbiased will our estimates be? This paper reviews a
variety of methods of handling missing information.
http://www.ssc.uwo.ca/sociology/popstudies/dp2001.html
Gyimah, S. Obeng-Manu. "Residential Location and Intra City Mobility
in an African City: Some Empirical Observations among Migrants in Metropolitan
Accra, Ghana." Discussion Paper 01-15. October, 2001. 35
pages.
Abstract:
This paper examines the residential mobility behaviour of
migrants in Accra using a retrospective survey. Unlike studies elsewhere,
the inner part of Accra does not serve as the major port of entry for
migrants. While the former periphery served as the zone of entry for the
majority of the migrants in the past, the recent periphery has become the
predominant entry point in recent years, and has also become the zone where most
eventually move to. Considering the problems of initial adjustment into
the urban community, we expected migrants to initially located in neighborhoods
where the predominant language and culture are their own kind. The
relationship was found to be statistically significant and that the null
hypothesis of independence be rejected. With the exception of the Akans,
we observed a marked concentration of ethnic groups in certain sectors of the
city. For instance, almost two thirds of the Mole-Dagbanis initially
settled in the former periphery, where the four predominantly Mole-Dagbani
speaking neighborhoods of Mina, Kotobabi, New Town and Maamobi served as the
initial residential location for 81 percent of them.
http://www.ssc.uwo.ca/sociology/popstudies/dp2001.html
Schultz, T. Paul. "The Fertility Transition: Economic
Explanations." No. 833. August 2001. 19
pages
Abstract:
Economic explanations for the
fertility transition focus on the role of returns to schooling, especially for women, which have encouraged women to
obtain more education and facilitated the rise in women’s wages relative to men’s. The private
opportunity costs of children have therefore increased, and parents have been motivated to substitute
child schooling for additional births. Declines in fertility have proceeded unevenly, first
across the high income countries, and more recently across the low income countries. The cross
sectional differentials in fertility are also frequently analyzed in household surveys, suggesting
parallels with the cross-country comparisons. At an aggregate level, states have
simultaneously legislated socialized support for the consumption of the elderly, which has eroded the
incentives for childbearing, and subsidized child human capital through schools and public health
programs, which has encouraged parents to demand fewer, higher quality, children.
http://www.library.yale.edu/socsci/egcdis2.html
Compiled by: Kari Swanson - Library Assistant
Center for
Demography and Ecology Information Services
Rm. 4471 Social Science
Building
1180 Observatory Drive
Madison, WI 53706-1393 USA
Email: kswanson@ssc.wisc.edu