Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research - Research Publications
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ItemDoes poverty in childhood beget poverty in adulthood in Australia?(Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, 2020-10-01)Analysis of the intergenerational transmission of economic disadvantage and entrenched poverty is concerned with discovering the extent to which an individual’s socio-economic outcomes as an adult depend on the economic fortunes of his or her parents. This includes examining the level to which children who grew up in poor households perform worse in terms of educational attainment, labour market outcomes, health status and even life satisfaction and well-being, than their peers who grew up in better-off households. This report provides new empirical evidence that the length of time children live in households experiencing income-based disadvantage is a predictor of other forms of disadvantage experienced by early adulthood. This analysis explores the extent and structure of this form of intergenerational transmission of disadvantage, and especially entrenched income-based poverty, in Australia. The analysis draws on the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey to examine a cohort born between 1986 and 1992 over the 18-year period from 2001 to 2018. The HILDA Survey is a unique longitudinal dataset which is well suited to the study of the transmission of poverty across generations in Australia. This survey is nationally representative and contains rich information on individuals’ personal, family and household characteristics, economic circumstances educational outcomes and labour market activity, and furthermore allows us to match parents to their children. The results suggest that low household income during childhood is a key predictor of disadvantage in later life (as a young adult) and therefore an important indicator to guide policy interventions to break intergenerational cycles of disadvantage.
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ItemWhat accounts for the rising share of women in the top 1%?(Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research, 2020-06-01)The share of women in the top 1% of the UK’s income distribution has been growing over the last two decades (as in several other countries). Our first contribution is to account for this secular change using regressions of the probability of being in the top 1%, fitted separately for men and women, in order to contrast between the sexes the role of changes in characteristics and changes in returns to characteristics. We show that the rise of women in the top 1% is primarily accounted for by their greater increases (relative to men) in the number of years spent in full-time education. Although most top income analysis uses tax return data, we derive our findings taking advantage of the much more extensive information about personal characteristics that is available in survey data. Our use of survey data requires justification given survey under-coverage of top incomes. Providing this justification is our second contribution.
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ItemThe effect of job search requirements on welfare receipt: Evidence from an Australian welfare reform(Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research, 2020-09-01)Many countries impose job search requirements as a condition of unemployment benefit receipt, but there is relatively little evidence on the efficacy of these requirements. Australian reforms in 1995 and 2003 saw groups of welfare recipients newly subjected to job search requirements, providing an opportunity to identify their effects on welfare receipt. Using this quasi-experimental design and administrative data, we find negative effects on welfare receipt for the mature-age partnered women targeted by the reforms. We also find large negative effects on welfare receipt of their partners, suggesting family labour supply decisions were considerably affected.
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ItemSurvey Under-Coverage of Top Incomes and Estimation of Inequality: What Is the Role of the UK’s SPI Adjustment?(Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, 2017)Survey under-coverage of top incomes leads to bias in survey-based estimates of overall income inequality. Using income tax record data in combination with survey data is a potential approach to address the problem; we consider here the UK’s pioneering ‘SPI adjustment’ method that implements this idea. Since 1992, the principal income distribution series (reported annually in Households Below Average Income) has been based on household survey data in which the incomes of a small number of ‘very rich’ individuals are adjusted using information from ‘very rich’ individuals in personal income tax return data. We explain what the procedure involves, reveal the extent to which it addresses survey under-coverage of top incomes, and show how it affects estimates of overall income inequality. More generally, we assess whether the SPI adjustment is fit for purpose and consider whether variants of it could be employed by other countries.