Suchergebnisse

There is cross-party agreement on the urgency of addressing child poverty in the UK, but less consensus on how to define and measure it, and understand its causes and effects. The Conservative/Liberal Coalition government's policy and rhetoric favoured individual explanations for poverty, portraying poor parents as making bad spending decisions, and transmitting their attitudes and behaviours on to their children. This article draws on the 2012 UK Poverty and Social Exclusion survey (PSE2012) to examine how far the realities of life for poor children match these explanations. Analysis covers four strands: the prevalence of child poverty; the demographics of poor children; the experiences of poor children; and how parents in poverty allocate household resources. Little evidence is found to support this 'culture of poverty' theory, and parents who are themselves in poverty are found to engage in a range of behaviours suggesting they sacrifice personal necessities to provide for children.

Abstract Background Informal payments for health care services can impose financial hardship on households. Many studies have found that the position within the household can influence the decision on how much is spent on each household member. This study analyses the intra-household differences in spending on informal payments for health care services by comparing the resources allocated between household heads, spouses and children. Methods Pooled data from two cross sectional surveys, the Albanian Living Standard Measurement Survey 2002 and 2005, are used to analyse both the probability and the amount paid in inpatient and outpatient health care services. A generalised Hausman specification test is used to compare the coefficients of probit and OLS models for nuclear and extended households. Results We find that due to the widespread informal payments there are no significant differences between households in the incidence of informal payments for households' members, but there are more differences in the amount paid informally. Results suggest that households strategically allocate their resources on health care by favouring individuals with higher earning potential who have invested more in human capital. Extended households pay higher amounts for spouses with higher education compared to nuclear households. On the other hand, nuclear households choose to pay higher amounts for children with a higher level of education compared to extended households. Conclusions The differences between households should be taken into account by public policies which should compensate this by redistribution mechanisms targeting disadvantaged groups. Governments should implement effective measures to deal with informal patient payments. JEL Codes: I10, I19, D10

Purpose: The authors aim to demonstrate the impact of allowing for unequal intra-household distribution of resources on income poverty and income inequality. Design/methodology/approach: The paper applies a collective consumption model to study the intra-household distribution of resources in Visegrád countries (V4). It utilises subjective financial satisfaction as a proxy for indirect utility from individual consumption to estimate the indifference scales within couples instead of the traditional equivalence scale. The European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) 2013 and 2018 data are applied. Findings: This study's results indicate substantial economies of scale from living in a couple that are generally higher than implied by the commonly applied equivalence scale. The sharing rule estimates suggest that at the mean of distribution factors, women receive a consumption share between 0.4 and 0.6; however, some of the results are close to an equal sharing of 0.5. The female consumption share rises with her contribution to household income. Regarding income poverty and inequality, the authors show that both these measures might be underestimated in the traditional approach to equal sharing of resources. Originality/value: The authors add to the empirics by estimating indifference scales for Czechia (CZ), Hungary (HU), Poland (PL) and Slovakia (SK), countries that have not been involved in previous research.

Background: Informal payments for health care services can impose financial hardship on households. Many studies have found that the position within the household can influence the decision on how much is spent on each household member. This study analyses the intra-household differences in spending on informal payments for health care services by comparing the resources allocated between household heads, spouses and children. Methods: Pooled data from two cross sectional surveys, the Albanian Living Standard Measurement Survey 2002 and 2005, are used to analyse both the probability and the amount paid in inpatient and outpatient health care services. A generalised Hausman specification test is used to compare the coefficients of probit and OLS models for nuclear and extended households. Results: We find that due to the widespread informal payments there are no significant differences between households in the incidence of informal payments for households' members, but there are more differences in the amount paid informally. Results suggest that households strategically allocate their resources on health care by favouring individuals with higher earning potential who have invested more in human capital. Extended households pay higher amounts for spouses with higher education compared to nuclear households. On the other hand, nuclear households choose to pay higher amounts for children with a higher level of education compared to extended households. Conclusions: The differences between households should be taken into account by public policies which should compensate this by redistribution mechanisms targeting disadvantaged groups. Governments should implement effective measures to deal with informal patient payments.