Trends in Poverty And Welfare Alleviation Issues

132 Pages·2006·1.63 MB·English

by  Marie V. Lane

T P
RENDS IN OVERTY AND
WELFARE ALLEVIATION ISSUES

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T P
RENDS IN OVERTY AND
WELFARE ALLEVIATION ISSUES

MARIE V. LANE
EDITOR

Nova Science Publishers, Inc.
New York
Copyright © 2006 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Trends in poverty and welfare alleviation issues / Marie V. Lane (editor).
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN: 978-1-60876-237-8 (E-Book)
1. Public welfare--Research. 2. Poverty--Research. 3. Poverty--Government policy. I. Lane,
Marie V.
HV51.T74 2004
362.5--dc22 2005033920

Published by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. (cid:30) New York
CONTENTS

Preface vii

Chapter 1 Prospects for Welfare Alleviation in an Obesogenic 1
Environment
Patricia K. Smith, Barry Bogin, Maria Inês Varela-Silva
and Brian Gossiaux

Chapter 2 The Role of Urban Policy in the Battle Against Poverty: The 33
Experience of the Philippines
Charles L. Choguill

Chapter 3 The Persistence of Asset Poverty in the 51
United States 1984-2001
Asena Caner and Edward N. Wolff

Chapter 4 Choosing Measures of Welfare: Adapting Existing 81
Approaches using Social Choice Theory
Matthew Clarke

Chapter 5 A Distribution-Free Test for Deprivation Dominance 101
Kuan Xu and Lars Osberg

Index 113

PREFACE

Poverty is a social fact of life for billions of people around the world. The developed
countries abhor poverty, or seem to, for several reasons. Perhaps it is a blotch on their
consciences. Perhaps there is a genuine desire to help those who are not prospering while
others around them are. Perhaps they wish to pay lip service to the good cause of eliminating
either poverty or the poor, whichever comes first. This book brings together new economic
research on programs and policies related to poverty and its elimination or alleviation.
As discussed in Chapter 1, the poor, like the general population, live in an increasingly
obesogenic environment. Furthermore, the prevalence of women’s obesity in developed
nations tends to increase as socioeconomic status decreases. Consequently, the rapid rise in
obesity in the U.S. might be related to welfare programs, especially those in which women
make up a large share of the caseload. This paper explores the possible relationships between
welfare programs and obesity. The authors first review the literature examining the causes of
obesity and consider whether welfare, food assistance programs in particular, are part of the
problem. They then review the literature examining the implications of increased obesity for
both cash and in-kind assistance for the poor. Is there evidence that rising obesity (whatever
the cause) leads to higher welfare caseloads? Finally, they carry out an original analysis of
data from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III) of the
health of Americans. The analysis finds that poverty is related to overweight and obesity, but
the relationship is complex. Socioeconomic, “race/ethnic,” and food security issues all
impinge on the risk for overweight and obesity. They find no evidence that welfare assistance
through the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program impacts the likelihood of weight
problems among children and adults. They also find no evidence that food stamp receipt
increases the likelihood of weight problems among children and teens. However, the results
do provide evidence that food stamp receipt does raise the chance of overweight and obesity
among adults.
By bringing to together the available evidence on how welfare programs impact obesity
and, conversely, how obesity impacts welfare programs, this paper provides a more
comprehensive and multifaceted understanding of the relationship between these two
variables. Where the research provides compelling evidence they discuss the policy
implications. Where the evidence is mixed or lacking we suggest avenues for future research
needed to fill the gaps in our knowledge.
In 1999, Professor Choguill was commissioned by the Asian Development Bank to lead
the team assisting in the preparation of the Philippine National Urban Development and
viii Marie V. Lane
Housing Framework, 1999-2004. This document, which constitutes the urban policy of the
Philippines, was designed to set the urban agenda for the island nation. Yet the approach to
urban policy generation was an unusual one from the very beginning, as the policy itself was
designed as a poverty alleviation exercise. Furthermore, it is probably the first time that a
national urban policy has been the result of a nation-wide participation exercise. Chapter 2,
based on a Dean’s Lecture delivered at the University of Melbourne on 8th October 2002,
explores how all of this came about, giving an indication as to the types of policies included,
and assesses the difficulties that have arisen in implementing a new approach to urban policy
that is designed as a weapon in the fight against poverty.
Professor Choguill is Director of the consultancy Development Planning International
Ltd., a Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne, Editor of the academic journal
Habitat International, which is published by Elsevier Science Ltd., and Professor Emeritus of
the University of Sheffield, UK. He has 37 years experience as an academic in the
international urban and regional development field as a researcher and as a project and
training consultant. Professor Choguill has taught at the University of Sheffield (where he
was Head of Town and Regional Planning and Director of the University of Sheffield Centre
for Development Planning Studies), Harvard University, University of Illinois, the Middle
East Technical University, and at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. In addition,
he has acted as consultant for such organizations as the Asian Development Bank, UNESCO,
United Nations Development Programme, the UN Centre for Human Settlements, and the
International Civil Aviation Organization.
In Chapter 3 we estimate the level, severity, and determinants of asset poverty, using the
Panel Study of Income Dynamics data for years 1984-2001,. A household is considered to be
asset-poor if its access to wealth-type resources is insufficient to enable the household to meet
its basic needs for three months. We find that despite a sharp decline in the official income-
based poverty rate, the asset poverty rate barely changed over this period. Moreover, the
severity of asset poverty increased during this period as indebtedness went up. The aging of
the population would have pulled the overall asset poverty rate down by a few percentage
points, but increases in poverty rates among the younger groups kept the rate unchanged.
During the period, the likelihood of being asset poor decreased for those who are college
graduates or married with children, whereas it increased for those who are white, working or
homeowners. According to our analysis, there is much more persistence in asset poverty than
in income poverty. Persistence is the highest among blacks, the elderly, single mothers and
those with low education. We also find that lifetime events, such as changes in the job
market, marital and homeownership status are correlated with transitions into and out of asset
poverty.
Numerical measures of social welfare have become an important issue within
contemporary welfare economics. Welfare measures are only valuable however, if they offer
practical analysis for policy makers seeking to improve human welfare. Is it possible that
welfare measures designed for developed countries can also be used for developing countries?
Chapter 4 argues that it is possible and highlights how one measure, an Index for Sustainable
Economic Welfare (ISEW), can be adapted using normative social choice theory. Normative
social choice theory reflects the views, opinions and perspectives of societies of differing
economic and social circumstances so that measures of human welfare retain their relevance
for public policy makers in those countries. Normative social choice refers to the processes of
ordering alternative social states on the basis of the preferences, choices and value