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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
| By: | Brunori, Paolo; Ferreira, Francisco H. G.; Neidhöfer, Guido |
| Abstract: | How strong is the transmission of socio-economic status across generations in Latin America? To answer this question, we first review the empirical literature on intergenerational mobility and inequality of opportunity for the region, summarizing results for both income and educational outcomes. We find that, whereas the income mobility literature is hampered by a paucity of representative datasets containing linked information on parents and children, the inequality of opportunity approach – which relies on other inherited and pre-determined circumstance variables – has suffered from arbitrariness in model selection. Two new data-driven approaches – one aligned with the ex-ante and the other with the ex-post conception of inequality of opportunity – are introduced to address this shortcoming. They yield a set of new inequality of opportunity estimates for 27 surveys covering 9 Latin American countries over various years between 2000 and 2015. In most cases, more than half of the current generation’s inequality is inherited from the past – with a range between 44 and 63%. We argue that on balance, given the parsimony of the population partitions, these are still likely to be underestimates. |
| Keywords: | inequality of opportunity; intergenerational mobility; Latin America |
| JEL: | D31 I39 J62 O15 |
| Date: | 2025–03–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:124533 |
| By: | Huang, Haifang (University of Alberta, Department of Economics); Helliwell, John (University of British Columbia); Norton, Max (University of British Columbia) |
| Abstract: | We find a large decline in the life satisfaction of younger Canadians - those below age 35 - since the mid-2010s in the Gallup World Poll (GWP), several different themes of the Canadian General Social Surveys (GSS), and the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS), often driven by 2-3-fold increases in misery (very low responses) and around 30% declines in very high responses. The declines appear in happiness levels and relative to older Canadians. The timing of the decline is consistent across surveys. In all cases the downward trend started before COVID-19 and continued during the pandemic. In terms of birth cohorts, the declines are the most dramatic for Gen Z. But Gen Y follows not far behind. Boomers, in contrast, stand out in their resilience. The decline in younger Canadians’ subjective well-being has turned the “midlife crisis, ” captured by a U shape in the age-happiness relationship and frequently seen in earlier Canadian data, into a crisis for the young: most surveys now feature a monotonically rising age curve, with happiness starting low and rising until the retirement age. |
| Keywords: | subjective well-being; generation; demographics |
| JEL: | E24 H23 J64 J68 |
| Date: | 2025–05–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:albaec:2025_003 |
| By: | Guido Neidhofer (ZEW Mannheim); Luis Laguinge (CEDLAS); Leonardo Gasparini (CEDLAS) |
| Abstract: | Conditional Cash Transfers (CCTs) have become a key antipoverty policy in Latin America inthe last 25 years. The ultimate goal of this kind of programs is to break the intergenerationaltransmission of poverty through the promotion of human capital accumulation of children invulnerable households. In this paper, we explore this issue by estimating the long-run effectsof the largest CCT in Latin America: the Brazilian Bolsa Familia. Through a combinationof the two-stage-two-sample method and a difference-in-differences approach, we find evidenceconsistent with a positive long-run impact of Bolsa Familia among former beneficiaries. Inparticular, we find a significant positive effect on education and labor income, and a negativeeffect on the likelihood of being a current beneficiary of this social transfer. |
| Keywords: | Conditional cash transfers, long term effects, human capital formation, Bolsa Familia, Brazil, Latin America. |
| JEL: | D04 I38 J24 |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inq:inqwps:ecineq2025-684 |
| By: | Brewer, Mike; Cominetti, Nye; Jenkins, Stephen P. |
| Abstract: | This report uses a newly available dataset – payroll data held by HM Revenue and Customs on over 250, 000 working-age people covering April 2014 to March 2019 – to look at monthly and weekly volatility in employee pre-tax earnings. It is one of a very few UK studies to look at high-frequency earnings volatility on a large scale, and the first do so on a sample that is representative of the population of employees in the UK. Earnings volatility will not pose problems for all workers (for example, if erratic earnings are the minority of a household’s income, or if they are the side effect of being able to take shifts that fit around other parts of a worker’s life). But unpredictable earnings can mean financial stress, difficulty planning for the future, and increased reliance on credit or social support. So understanding earnings volatility is crucial for building fairer labour markets, effective social policies, and financial security in an uncertain world. |
| JEL: | R14 J01 |
| Date: | 2025–03–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:127596 |
| By: | Attanasio, Orazio; de La O, Ana L; Ferreira, Francisco H G; Ibáñez, Ana Maria; Messina, Julián |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2025–03–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:127502 |