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Income mobility in old age in Britain and Germany
- ASGHAR ZAIDI, JOACHIM R. FRICK, FELIX BÜCHEL
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- Journal:
- Ageing & Society / Volume 25 / Issue 4 / July 2005
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 30 June 2005, pp. 543-565
- Print publication:
- July 2005
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- Article
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The increases in human longevity and early retirement in recent decades have posed new challenges for policy makers, and require a comprehensive understanding of the processes that influence the economic resources of older people. This paper examines the income mobility experienced by older people living in Britain and Germany during the 1990s, and identifies the influential personal attributes and lifecourse events. The analysis uses British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) and German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) panel data. The comparative perspective yields insights about the different income experiences of older people in the two markedly different welfare regimes. It is found that old-age income mobility has been more pronounced in Britain than in Germany, and that in both countries its occurrence was strongly associated with changes in living arrangements, with the employment status of co-residents, and with widowhood among women. Unemployment during working life associated significantly with negative late-life income mobility. Among those on low incomes, a high share of income from an earnings-related pension had a significant and positive effect in both countries. To reduce downward income mobility in old age, particularly among widows, there is a need to strengthen the social safety-net. Policies are required to encourage flexible living arrangements in old age, as well as to give greater protection in later life from unemployment during working life, especially in Germany.
six - The impact of poverty on children’s school attendance – evidence from West Germany
- Edited by Koen Vleminckx, Timothy M. Smeeding
- Robert O. Rowlands
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- Book:
- Child well-being child poverty and child policy
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 20 January 2022
- Print publication:
- 23 February 2001, pp 151-174
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Summary
Introduction: childhood poverty and school attendance
Over the last decades most Western industrialised countries have experienced a considerable change concerning the economic situation and relative income position of the old and the young. While the situation of older people significantly improved in quite a few of those countries, the well-being of children appears to have got worse (Cornia, 1997; Habich and Krause, 1997; Burniaux et al, 1998; Bradbury and Jäntti, 1999; Bradshaw, 1999). On the other hand, educational opportunities for children in general have improved in most OECD countries (OECD, 1998). This leads to the expectation of increasing differences in educational prospects. The question of whether income inequality and poverty do affect educational attainment remains therefore a most crucial one in educational research.
Attending school is important for two reasons. First and most obviously, school helps children to acquire learning skills and information on a wide range of subjects. Second, and in many ways just as important, formal schooling provides the forum through which children develop social skills, learning to be independent and to relate to non-family members in a group-based setting. This latter reason is particularly important for children who may be underprivileged or deprived, where school may enrich or compensate for the other areas of their life which are lacking, and may provide a constancy of environment not found at home. (Rushton, 1995, p 94, cited in Howarth et al, 1998, p 50)
Existing literature (Gregg and Machin, 1998; Hobcraft, 1998) reveals severe disadvantages for children growing up in poverty with regard to their educational prospects. This chapter contributes, with German data, a special focus for measuring the income situation of children and thereby provides a more differentiated picture than gained with traditional research designs.
Although poverty rates among children in Germany appear less dramatic when compared to other countries (especially the US), the link between poverty and school attendance needs to be carefully investigated. This seems to be true in general for countries with relatively low child poverty rates where one could hypothesise that the educational prospects of children are negatively influenced by a low family income. However, a counter hypothesis would be that a relatively small variation in socioeconomic background is accompanied by relatively equal educational prospects for children.