Supervisors

1. Poor Children in Europe.An Analytical Approach to the Study of Child Poverty, in the European Union, Between 1994 and 2000 Prof. Jos Berghman PhD program in Social Sciences PhD program in Comparative Social Research Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Università degli studi di Torino Prof. Chiara Saraceno Gian Lorenzo Venturini Supervisors

2. Structure of the Presentation I. The need for an analytical approach II. The general features of the research design III. Accounting for the situational mechanism IV. Accounting for the action-formation mechanism V. Summary of the findings

3. 1. The cognitive question Mt Mt+1 Child poverty at time t Child poverty at time t+1 Intensity Incidence presistence Child poverty in Europe between 1994 and 2000

4. Macro «Paradigm of action» Micro «Paradigm of structure» Macro Micro 2. An Epistemological and Empirical Empasse When we deal with such issues we have to fight against two ISMs Micro-riductionism Structuralism

5. Analytical level The level of the issue that I aim to explain Theoretical level The heuristic potential of the theoretical system I aim to apply 3. Multilevel theories of child poverty Wippler and Lindenberg (1987) Macro an empasse… Macro & micro We need multilevel theories of child poverty

6. Mt Mt+1 The situational mechanism The transformational mechanism mt mt+1 The action-formation mechanism 4. A Solution to the Dilemma: The Coleman’s Boat The situational mechanism It refers to the fact that actors live in a specific social situation that, to some extent, affects them and the environment in which they live The action–formation mechanism It considers the way in which individuals’ actions take a form The transformational mechanism It depicts how the actions of different actors collide with one another and generate collective macro outcomes

7. 5. Coleman’s Boat Implementation

8. Germany Cross-country comparison Denmark Multiple case study based on holistic cases (Yin, 2003) Belgium France «Replication logic» as opposed to the «sampling logic» (see Yin, 2003, p.45) UK Italy Spain Literature EUROSTAT «Data» The first ECHP seven waves (1994-2000) 6. The General Features of the Research Design

9. 7. Other Theoretical and Methodological Issues 1. The operazionalization of the concept of poverty (see Ravallion, 1992) i) How do we assess individual well-being? Household’s equivalized disposable income ii) At what level of well-being we can say that a person is not poor? 60% of the median of the equivalized income distribution iii) How do we aggregate individual indicators of well-being into a measure of poverty? Headcount ratio (poverty incidence) Average poverty gap ratio (poverty intensity) 2. A model of the social actor The D-B-O model (see Elster 1993)

10. 8. The Description of the Situational Mechanism (MACRO) Pathways of interaction among Family-State-Market Theories Structure of intra-household care giving obligations and family policies • Policy Reducing households’ expenses • Bring people into work that pays; • Improving living standard through direct cash transfer. Contributions to describe the «situational mechanism» Policy analysis Policy increasing households’ resources Policy strengthening prevention and children’s well-being Data

11. Data Trends in child poverty Trends in household poverty Trends in national wealth, income inequalities and social protection expenditure Child poverty incidence Child poverty intensity Child poverty duration Child deprivation Household poverty incidence Household poverty intensity Child poverty rates Child poverty incidence reduction after social transfers Average child poverty gap ratio Child poverty intensity reduction after transfers First child poverty spell duration (Survival Analysis) Proportion of children experiencing a second poverty spell Incidence of deprivation First deprivation spell duration (Survival analysis) Household poverty rates Average household poverty gap ratio GDP per capita, in PPS Income share of the 10th decile Social protection expenditure as a proportion of GDP Social protection expenditure, per capita, in PPS Detailed social protection expenditure, per capita, in PPS Social benefits expenditures by type, per capita, in PPS Social benefits expenditures by function, per capita, in PPS Degree of heterogeneity of the pattern of social protection expenditure

12. 9. The Macro data: Child Poverty Incidence Dk, It: stable Be, De: decreasing UK: steepest reduction Fr, Es: increasing Continental cluster: is split up into two parts • De, Be are sliding north and coming closer to Denmark; • Fr is sliding south and moving nearer to Spain, Italy and the UK

13. 9. The Macro Data: Child Poverty Intensity Dk, Fr, It, Es: stable Be, De, UK: decreasing

14. 9. The macro data: child poverty presistence Dk: low Be, De: medium Fr, It, Es, UK: high

15. 9. The macro data: child presistence in deprivation See: current life-style deprivation (Whelan and Maître 2004) Dk: low Be, Es: medium Fr, It: high

16. O SR Black-box O SR i's endowment 10. A Micro Model to Account for the Action-Formation Mechanism The Concept of Endowment The individuals’ endowment Set of material and immaterial resources transmitted by the macro environment in which i lives (see the situational mechanism), accumulated or wasted by i in the past (see i’s foregoing actions), made available as well as unavailable by other individuals’ action (see j…n’s actions) and mediated by the individual’s desires and beliefs. The parents’ endowment Set of material and immaterial resources parents can resort to, to prevent the risk of poverty for their dependent children

17. Ex-ante intervention «Empowering» Situational mechanism Macro Family and Market Situational mechanism Macro State, welfare regime Parents’ endowment micro Child poverty risks Ex-post intervention «Re-equalizing» Child poverty outcomes The higher the «correlation» between parents endowment and child poverty outcomes, the higher the level of inequalities

18. Father’s position of the labour market Mother’s position of the labour market Number of dependent children Household’s occupational endowment Parents’ citizenship Father’s health status Household’s health endowment Household’s demographic endowment Status on poverty at time t Parents’ age Mother’s health status Children’ age Children’ sex Household’s educational endowment Household’s economic endowment Mother’s highest level of education completed Father’s highest level of education completed Mother’s main source of income Father’s main source of income

19. 11. The Operationalization of the Concept of Endowment

20. 1. The statistical tool Since the explanandum is operationalized as a dummy variable, I opted for the logistic regression 2. Modelling Cross-country Comparison Country is treated as a stratification variable. Therefore the same model has been estimated over 7 different samples (one for each country) and odds-ratio are compared. 3. Modelling Panel Data Random-effect logistic model 4. Unit of Analysis Children, younger than 15 y.o., living with a parental couple 12. The Micro Model: general features 5. Controlling factors Father’s and mother’s age Father’s and mother’s citizenship (national/non national) Father’s and mother’s health status Child’s age and sex Unobserved heterogeneity (see random-effect model)

21. Household’s demographic endowment One dependent child Household’s economic endowment Father’s main source of income: income from work Mother’s main source of income: income from work Household’s occupational endowment Father: full-time worker Mother: full-time worker Household’s educational endowment Father’s highest level of education completed: high (recognised III level education) Mother’s level of education: high (recognised III level education) 13. The Micro Model: Controlling factors and reference categories Reference categories in the random-effect logistic regression Let us define this as the baseline - the theoretically most protective endowment

22. Child poverty risks are endowment dependent: the weaker the endowment the higher the risks A. Significantly higher than 1 B. No significant differences Child poverty risks are not endowment dependent 14. Testing the hypothesis: endowment dependency of child poverty risks Are child poverty risks endowment-dependent? Let us observe the odds ratios

23. Random-effect logistic regression, odds ratios Low Medium High * Significant for p<0,05 ** Significant for p<0,01

24. Children with at least two siblings, whose parents: • are not working • have social transfers or private income as their main source of income • have low educative credentials • suffer of a physical or mental disability Low Medium High

25. 15. Summary of the Findings: Denmark, the Benchmark At the macro level • The highest per capita GDP • One of the highest per capita GDP growth rate (in PPS) • The lowest level of income inequalities • The highest level of social protection expenditure (as a proportion of GDP and in PPS per capita) • The lowest levels of child poverty incidence, intensity and presistence • The lowest level of child deprivation incidence and presistence At the micro level • Child poverty risks depend on parents’ endowment to a very low extent A comparatively higher capacity of the macro welfare-triangle to counteract endowment inequalities causes child poverty risks to be low Re-equalizing effect

26. 16. Summary of the Findings: Germany, Belgium and France, the Halfway Position with a Northern/Southern Shift At the macro level • Level of per capita GDP in PPS and GDP average growth rate lower than in Denmark and similar to Italy and Spain. • The overall economic wealth appears to be more equally distributed among the population than in Italy and Spain • Income inequalities faced a small decline in France and they kept stable in Germany • Higher levels of social protection expenditure than in Italy and Spain, that succeeded in alleviating child poverty incidence and intensity to a progressively higher extent • Child poverty incidence has been generally stable or decreasing in Belgium and Germany, but increasing in France • Child poverty presistence is higher in France than in Belgium and Germany • Child deprivation is higher in France than in Belgium At the micro level • Child poverty risks are less dependent on parents’ endowment in Belgium than in Germany and France Halfway position. Yet the cluster is splitting up: Belgium, and to some extent Germany, sliding north, while France sliding south

27. 17. Summary of the Findings: The UK, a country in transition Changes at the policy level, during the 1998-2003 period (See Levy, Lietz, Sutherland, 2005)

28. At the macro level • The second higher average annual increase of per capita GDP in PPS • Small increase of income inequalities • Low level of social protection expenditures (as a % of GDP and in PPS per capita), but the highest average annual increase of per capita expenditure in PPS • UK shares the features of the southern European countries: high levels of child poverty incidence and intensity; one of the highest degrees of child poverty presistence (both in terms of the first observed child poverty spell duration and chances for the children to fall back into poverty) • Yet: child poverty incidence and intensity has been clearly declining At the micro level • Child poverty risks are still endowment dependent Mismatch between changes at the policy level, poverty outcomes and endowment effect estimated on the ECHP (1994-2000) Such transformations are likely not to be fully reflected in the micro data at our disposal. A time lag is likely to exist between the point in time when a change at the macro level takes place and the moment when it is perceived at the micro level

29. 18. Summary of the Findings: Italy and Spain, the intergenerational transmission of poverty At the macro level • The lowest per capita GDP • Italy: the lowest average annual GDP growth rate • Spain: the highest average annual GDP growth rate • The highest level of income inequalities • By far, the lowest level of social protection expenditure • Decreasing, in terms of GDP • Increasing, but less than in the other countries, in term of PPP per capita. • The most polarized pattern of social transfer provision (the overwhelming majority going to pensions and public health care) • Low levels of employment rates, especially among females • Higher rates of long-term unemployment • Lower effectiveness of the social transfer in reducing moderate and extreme child poverty, both in terms of incidence and intensity

30. At the micro level • Child poverty risks strongly depend on the configuration of the parents endowment • Poverty risks for households with very weak endowments are far higher than in the other countries Deprivation experienced during childhood interferes with the process of construction of protective endowments Child poverty incidence, intensity and presistence is much higher in Italy and Spain Intergenerational transmission of poverty In Italy and Spain, child poverty risks are strongly endowment-dependent

31. 19. Limits of the study • I disregarded the transformational mechanism • Difficulties in investigating both the macro and the micro level deeply • Difficulties in merging the macro and micro findings into a multilevel theory • A great deal of attention to describing; far less attention to explaining