Lone Mothers: What is to be done?

This Dialogue presents the views of four authors, from the US, the UK, and Norway, on the best policies to help lone mothers. Lone mothers face an inevitable dilemma in allocating their time between earning income and caring for their children. The low-earning capacity of women in an unequal labor market exacerbates the problem, causing material hardship for many lone mothers and their families. The policy solutions proposed lie along a spectrum, ranging from those that seek to enable all lone mothers to take employment to those that aim to let mothers choose whether to take employment or care for their children themselves. Other policies discussed concern ways to value and support caregiving, improve the low-wage labor market for women, and provide a set of income supports that would both boost income and provide time to care for children.     

The Route Matters: Poverty and Inequality among Lone-Mother Households in Russia

Using the case of Russia, this paper takes issue with the stereotype of lone mothers as the poorest women in society, with the most disadvantaged children. Analysis of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey suggests there is enormous diversity in the material circumstances and livelihoods of lone mothers. Complementing the diversity of lone mothers' experiences is the finding that women who live with male partners, but who are responsible economically for their households, face problems much like those of lone mothers. The structural inequities that result from combining paid labor with unpaid care and childrearing have particularly adverse consequences for lone mothers and for women who bear the brunt of maintaining their households. While this analysis emphasizes the different aspects of the falsely homogenizing category “lone mother,” it also recognizes the structural disadvantages shared by lone mothers and other women in Russia today.     

If You're Happy and You Know It: How Do Mothers and Fathers in the US Really Feel about Caring for Their Children?

This paper considers the question posed by popular media: Do women like doing childcare more than men? Using contemporaneous subjective well-being data paired with 24-hour time diaries from the 2010 American Time Use Survey, the paper explores gender differences in how mothers and fathers feel when engaged in a set of common daily activities. We find that both mothers and fathers engaged in child caregiving enjoy their time spent in child caregiving; fathers as much, or even more so, than mothers as evidenced by their average values for happiness, meaningfulness, tiredness, and stress and an aggregated statistic, the unpleasantness index. Simulations provide evidence that the difference between mothers and fathers comes almost completely from differences in their subjective well-being rather than from differences in how they use their time.     

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF MINIMUM-WAGE INCREASES IN REDUCING POVERTY: PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE

Extending the work of Card and Krueger, we find minimum-wage increases (1988–2003) did not affect poverty rates overall, or among the working poor or among single mothers. Despite employment growth among single mothers, most gainers lived in nonpoor families and most working poor already had wages above the proposed minimums. Simulating a new federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, we find 87% of workers who benefit live in nonpoor families. Poor single mothers receive 3.8% of all benefits. Expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit would far more effectively reduce poverty, especially for single mothers. ( JEL J21, J31, J38)     

Welfare as We [Don't] Know It: A Review and Feminist Critique of Welfare Reform Research in the United States

Reform of the United States welfare system in 1996 drastically changed welfare receipt for low-income lone mothers. This paper explores the effects of these changes on lone mothers by summarizing empirical work on caseload reduction, labor force participation, income, poverty, material hardship, and family formation. While it appears that the economic status of many lone mothers improved during the economic expansion in the late 1990s, many lone mothers continued to experience poverty and material hardship. Building on the work of feminist scholars from both the US and other countries, this paper goes on to critique mainstream research on welfare reform. It identifies a particularly feminist approach to welfare reform research, stresses its advantages over mainstream research, and speculates about why there is comparatively less feminist research to date. The paper concludes by calling for more structural analyses of poverty and of lone motherhood itself.     

Ontology and Feminist Theorizing

There are large research, policy, and economic gaps between the ways US researchers and policy makers address the work/family bind amongst middleclass professionals and poor lone mothers. This is clearly seen in US welfare reform, an important piece of work/family legislation in the 1990s. The new rules make the work/family binds worse for low-income, poor mothers and do not alleviate poverty. With its clear expectation that poor mothers be employed, the legislation opens up new avenues to revamp low-wage work for breadwinners and to socialize the costs of caring for family. Closing the literature gap may help to close the policy gap, which, in turn, would promote more income equality.     

Are Lone Mothers Responsive to Policy Changes? Evidence from a Workfare Reform in a Generous Welfare State*

There is a heated debate in many developed countries about how to design a welfare system that moves lone mothers off welfare and into work. We analyze the consequences of a major Norwegian workfare reform of the generous welfare system for lone mothers. The reform imposed work requirements and time limits on welfare receipt, while raising in‐work benefits. Our difference‐in‐differences estimates show that the reform was successful in improving labor‐market participation and in increasing the earnings of lone mothers. However, the reform was associated with income loss and increased poverty among a sizeable subgroup of lone mothers, who were unable to offset the loss of out‐of‐work benefits with gains in earnings.     

ESCAPING POVERTY THROUGH WORK: THE PROBLEM OF LOW EARNINGS CAPACITY IN THE UNITED STATES, 1973–88

This paper documents the changes in earnings capacity poverty that occurred between 1973 and 1088. Families are "Earnings Capacity Poor" if they are unable to generate enough income to lift them out of poverty, even if all working-age adults in the family work full-time, year-round. Data from the March 1974 and March 1989 Current Population Surveys indicate that earnings capacity poverty increased more rapidly than official poverty. Much of this increase can be attributed to the rise in earnings capacity poverty among whites, intact families, and family heads with more than a high school diploma. Most alarming, the percentage of children in earnings capacity poor families is considerably higher than it is among persons over eighteen; in 1988, nearly 15 percent of children under six lived in families that could not have escaped poverty even if the adults in their family were working and earning at their full capacity levels.     

Welfare and the family size decision of low-income,two-parent families

This study determines the increase in family size given an increase in the per child welfare benefit for a family with children in the US. The family size decision was modeled as a discrete choice decision. Data were obtained from the 1980-91 March Current Population Surveys of the US Census Bureau on 13,516 low-income, nonmilitary, non-farm, two-parent families with at least one dependent child. Low income was any amount under twice the official poverty level. Parents were limited to ages 18-40 years. Alaska and Hawaii were excluded. The data sets for 1979-90 were pooled. The sample included 10% Blacks and 27% receiving some amount of welfare. Average ages were 28.9 years for mothers and 30.8 years for fathers. The average number of children was 2.43. Findings from the ordered probit model indicate that education had a negative impact on family size, and age and race had positive impacts. Wages did not have a significant effect. The state unemployment rate and the average state income had negative effects. Unearned income had a small but significant effect on family size. The marginal welfare benefit had a positive impact. Findings reinforce the wealth hypothesis, that wealthier societies have smaller family sizes. Family size declines with increases in wages and education, which reflect increases in opportunity costs for time. Family size increases with age, as rearing children is labor-intensive. Family size increases with unearned income and welfare benefits that make childbearing affordable. It is argued that poor people in developed societies behave more consistently like poor people in developing countries. A 100% increase in the per child welfare benefit resulted in a 2% increase in the number of children. The policy implication is that a considerable increase in welfare benefits will have only trivial behavioral impacts for the poor on family size decisions.     

Work and Wage Dynamics around Childbirth

In this paper, we investigate how the wage processes of women who are well established in the labour market are affected by having children. We estimate a flexible fixed‐effects wage regression model extended by post‐childbirth fixed effects. We use register data on West Germany, and we exploit the expansionary family policy during the late 1980s and 1990s for identification. On their return to work after childbirth, the wages of mothers drop by 3–5.7 per cent per year of leave. We find negative selection back to full‐time work after childbirth. We discuss the policy implications regarding statistical discrimination and the results concerning the family gap.     

Minimum Wages and the Gender GAP in Pay: New Evidence from the United Kingdom and Ireland

Women are disproportionately in low‐paid work compared to men so, in the absence of rationing effects on their employment, they should benefit the most from minimum wage policies. This study examines the change in the gender wage gap around the introduction of minimum wages in Ireland and the United Kingdom (U.K.). Using survey data for the two countries, we develop a decomposition of the change in the gender differences in wage distributions around the date of introduction of minimum wages. We separate out “price” effects attributed to minimum wages from “employment composition” effects. A significant reduction of the gender gap at low wages is observed after the introduction of the minimum wage in Ireland, while there is hardly any change in the U.K. Counterfactual simulations show that the difference between countries may be attributed to gender differences in non‐compliance with the minimum wage legislation in the U.K.     

Fertility Decisions and Gender Differences in Labor Turnover, Employment, and Wages

A striking observation of the U.S. and other labor markets is the weak position of women in terms of job attachment, employment, and earnings relative to men. We develop a model of fertility and labor market decisions to study the impact of fertility on gender differences in labor turnover, employment, and wages. In our framework, individuals search for jobs and accumulate general (experience) and specific (tenure) human capital when they work. They can also increase their wage by moving to a job of higher quality. Labor market decisions (e.g., job acceptance and job mobility) may differ across genders: females that give birth may decide to interrupt their labor market attachment in order to enjoy the value of staying at home with their children. The model economy is successfully calibrated to match aggregate statistics in terms of fertility, employment, and wages. We find that fertility decisions generate important gender differences in turnover rates, with long lasting effects in employment and wages. These differences in labor turnover account for almost all the U.S. gender wage gap that is attributed to labor market experience by Blau and Kahn (2000, Journal of Labor Economics15(1), 1–42). The model also implies a very small role of tenure capital in accounting for wage differences between males and females (gender gap), and between females with and without children (family gap). Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: E24, J13, J21, J31.     

The Temporary Leave Dilemma: Lone and Partnered Mothers in Sweden

Abstract

Lone mothers have to take care of a sick child with little or no help from the child's other parent and have to carry all costs connected to leave-taking. This paper empirically tests whether lone mothers take more temporary parental leave to care for sick children than partnered mothers and whether parental leave is associated with a signaling cost. The results from this study of Swedish mothers show that lone mothers use more temporary parental leave than partnered mothers. Further, within the group of lone mothers, those with higher socioeconomic status take less temporary parental leave than those with lower socioeconomic status, whereas no such differences are found within the group of partnered mothers. One possible interpretation is that signaling costs negatively influence the utilization of temporary parental leave for lone mothers.     

Business Cycles,Economic Crises,and the Poor

This paper examines whether output contractions associated with downturns and crises have an asymmetric effect on poverty. Several potential sources of asymmetry are identified first. A vector auto-regression model (involving the output gap, unemployment, real wages, and the poverty rate) is then used to test whether the initial cyclical position of the economy, and the magnitude of the initial drop in the output gap in a downturn, matter in assessing the impact of output shocks on poverty. Empirical results for Brazil indicate that poverty shows less sensitivity to output shocks when the economy is initially in a downturn.     

Social insurance and social justice—Another look at the antipoverty effects of social insurance programs

This paper analyzes social insurance programs in the United States to determine if they support the principles of social justice, with special emphasis on the principle of preferential treatment of the poor. The paper also examines the antipoverty effects of social insurance programs. The major conclusions are the following: (1) social insurance programs generally are consistent with the principles of social justice, but parts of certain programs clearly violate the norms of social justice; (2) social insurance programs are especially powerful in reducing the poverty rate and poverty gap for the elderly, but are generally ineffective in reducing the poverty rate for single-parent families with related children under age 18; (3) social insurance programs have only a minor impact in reducing the poverty rate among married-couple families with related children under age 18; and (4) although the Social Security payroll results in a small increase in the poverty rate, social insurance programs are especially effective in reducing income inequality.     

A social economist’s search for justice: Comment

This paper analyzes social insurance programs in the United States to determine if they support the principles of social justice, with special emphasis on the principle of preferential treatment of the poor. The paper also examines the antipoverty effects of social insurance programs. The major conclusions are the following: (1) social insurance programs generally are consistent with the principles of social justice, but parts of certain programs clearly violate the norms of social justice; (2) social insurance programs are especially powerful in reducing the poverty rate and poverty gap for the elderly, but are generally ineffective in reducing the poverty rate for single-parent families with related children under age 18; (3) social insurance programs have only a minor impact in reducing the poverty rate among married-couple families with related children under age 18; and (4) although the Social Security payroll results in a small increase in the poverty rate, social insurance programs are especially effective in reducing income inequality.     

The Sins of the Fathers: Intergenerational Income Mobility in China

This paper aims to obtain an accurate estimate of China's intergenerational income mobility and to present evidence on its distributional pattern. Using panel data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) over the period 1989–2009, I find that China is less mobile than most developed countries. Then, I employ five different approaches to investigate the distributional pattern of China's intergenerational mobility across income levels. The results suggest that poor families have relatively high mobility, indicating opportunities for the poor children to escape poverty. Finally, I show that while wealthy fathers are likely to pass on their favorable economic status to their sons, rich sons come from a very wide range of family economic backgrounds.     

A gender analysis of U.S. labor market policies for the working poor

Current anti-poverty policy proposals focus on welfare reform to the exclusion of reforming the low-wage labor market. In contrast, we compare two policy proposals aimed at low-wage labor markets: a national comparable worth policy and an increase in the minimum wage. With both policies we pay specific attention to their impact by gender. Our findings suggest that while both would reduce poverty among working women, the impact of a comparable worth policy on female poverty would be greater under most scenarios presented. It is estimated that an increase of 96 cents per hour in the national minimum wage would be necessary to equal the poverty reduction effect for women workers of a comparable worth policy which excludes small employers. Both policies decrease the incidence of povertylevel wages less among men, since roughly 60 percent of minimum wage workers are women. Additionally, not only would a national comparable worth policy improve the economic status of low-waged women workers, it would also narrow the gap between male and female poverty. While an increase in the minimum wage would also reduce this gap, comparable worth would virtually eliminate it.     

Who takes the child to the doctor? Mom,pretty much all of the time

We document the degree to which Danish mothers are responsible for handling their children’s medical services. Using unique administration data on detailed medical services that were performed on all Danish children from 1992 to 1995, we find that, on average, more than 90% of all children’s medical services were handled by their mothers rather than their fathers. To our knowledge, this is the first study to use medical register data to quantify domestic time use. As these services are mainly performed during work hours, this finding provides one mechanism by which absenteeism increases as a consequence of motherhood. Furthermore, the economic variables that should affect a household’s assignment of a task like taking the child to the doctor are shown to explain very little, suggesting that other factors, such as societal norms, are at play.     

LONGITUDINAL MEASURES OF POVERTY: ACCOUNTING FOR INCOME AND ASSETS OVER TIME

This paper uses data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation to estimate durations of poverty spells and to determine whether temporarily poor families have sufficient assets to cover the shortfall of their incomes below poverty—their personal poverty gaps. If poverty is measured using monthly rather than annual income data, four times as many persons enter poverty, but most spells are short: the median duration is between four and six months. More than one-third of all poverty spells are eliminated if financial assets are used to fill poverty gaps, but remaining poverty spells are longer. Separate estimates are made for the elderly and for families with children.