Evaluation of Child Poverty Dynamics in Seven Nations

Presentation

This workshop will focus on the Child Poverty Dynamics in Seven Nations working paper
(Bradbury et al, 2000). The research strategy, methodology, data collection and analysis
included in the paper will be identified and analysed. A comparison with other papers of a
similar character, and an evaluation of philosophical and ethical questions are also carried
out. The report is a comparative examination of the movement and removal of children from
poverty.

Design of research

The writers of this study address child poverty and how children move into and out of
poverty in different nations. They claim that government welfare is more effective in
reducing child poverty if it has knowledge of what causes children into and out of poverty
before they research. The research employs common criteria of relative poverty and
investigates youngsters from Britain, the USA, Germany, Ireland, Hungary and Russia for
mobility among the poorest fifth. It is customary to pick what strategy to explore in the
design stage of a project. Different epistemology and philosophy are an intrinsic aspect of any
method of investigation (Bryman, 2004). The study provides a general comparison of poverty
patterns between societies. Inter-society comparisons examine the similarities and contrasts
between countries. Numerous such studies have been carried out, one of these most recently,
being the investigation of the social welfare regimes of various nations conducted by
Espying-Anderson (1990). Comparative studies have a long history in sociology, for example
Weber's work on religion (1930 and 1965). (1952). Comparative studies form an important
aspect of study into poverty whether the definition of poverty as an insufficient available
income is conventional or the concept of social exclusion more contemporary (Bergman,
1995). Bradbury et al. (2000) recognise that they have adopted a somewhat wide-ranging
approach to the study, but argue that national mapping of the movement into and from
poverty is helpful to policy making aimed at reducing the number of impoverished children.
Investigators feel that children need little or no rationale to examine poverty from the
perspective of children because children represent the future of a country. This could be
challenged however, and may not necessarily be held in all the research countries. This is a
pretty Eurocentric attitude. The researchers further advocate their technique choice:

Comparisons among countries are a benchmark for evaluation of results in each country, e.g.
if a certain figure is large or tiny. Cross-national study also creates challenges as to whether
discrepancies in results are attributable, for example, to policy divergences or demographic
characteristics. The utility of cross-border analyses, of course, is based on adequate data, and
comparing data can involve in-depth analytic compromises that will not be required for a
single study in each country. (The number of nations considered depends on the trade-off)
Our study shows the numerous pros and disadvantages of a cross-border perspective
(Bradbury et al, 2000, p.7-8).

The authors so generally believe that comparative research has fundamental strengths and
shortcomings and the following analysis seeks to show whether or not its strengths exceed
any drawbacks.
Data Collection Methods

Panel data from the seven countries involved are the major source of data for this study.
These data are predominantly domestic survey data and thus household heads' incomes. The
study is supported in addition to that conducted by Duncan et al (1993). The research is
different since the study of Duncan et al. focuses on the family as the analytical unit, while
the children are concentrated in Bradbury et al. (2000). Children under the age of 18 are
analytical units. The data are from the beginning of the 1990's [1] and 1996 was the latest. In
order to analyse the dynamics of poverty between 1 year and next, researchers would like to
use the data to examine figures from 2 years in all 7 countries. Four countries, Germany,
Hungary, UK and the US provide five-year data while 10-year data from Germany and the
US differ. Some countries are thus analysed more thoroughly than others since more data is
being collected. The households' income numbers are employed as a child's income with the
appropriate household requirements modification.

The main indicator of a child's poverty and its journey into and out of poverty are available
income measurements. However, academics point out that disparities exist in the way this is
judged between nations - i.e. whether the recorded earnings are prior to or after-tax
deductions etc. They recognise that these distinctions have substantial consequences for
disparities in poverty dynamics. [2] [4] [2] This reduces any credibility in your data
collection methods, because there is no explanation of how this affects the dynamics of
poverty. Except for Ireland and the US, revenues are recorded as net. The researchers note
that the UK's net income cannot be documented in all instances, causing a sample size
reduction, with likely effects of difference (?).

In addition to family incomes only two nations, Spain and Russia show household spending
and this is perhaps a weakness in the figures as expenses may vary greatly from country to
country and is a larger indicator of the disparity between absolute and relative pores
(Giddens, 2001).

[3] Increased divergences across the countries may be demonstrated again if more of those
data were found and the credibility of the results of the study would be questioned.

In a way this is a step backwards in terms of development, because Bergman (1995) has
noted that the focus has changed from purely economic poverty to whether an individual can
engage fully in the community to which they belong. The study uses disposable income as a
measure of poverty solely This is not mentioned in Bradshaw et all’s study, and so the choice
of conceptual indicators can be regarded to be a flaw. Although this measure worked for the
characteristics that researchers wanted to quantify children poverty, it was nevertheless a little
manner. This is especially the case when one takes into consideration researchers' recognition
that they have not a single comparable income measurement method in all seven countries,
and this raises issues about their methodologies' internal validity.

Technical Data Analysis

The study employs quantitative data and is extremely extensive with panels of households
from seven different countries. The researchers argued that this not only allows them to
compare how and why children go into and out of poverty, but also to identify major
variations among nations. There are between 1 and 2,000 families selected by country for
analysis (see table one above). Statistical comparisons of child poverty, relative income, and
income inequality are made. The numbers are comparable to those in the previous chapter,
however they are not detailed. One wonders why they indicate any parallels here, because:
the definition of the income measure, the year referred to in the sample and even the survey
in many cases (this is so for Britain, Ireland, Spain and America) are not totally comparable
(Bradshaw et al, 2000, p.13). [4] Researchers say they utilise children's median incomes to
gauge material well-being, although they have to clarify what their data set and methodology
is somewhat mixed. [5] Their use of a median is problematic, as later (p.15 ibid) they claim
that: the level of median income is not a reference to the difference of revenues across
children. They are also questionable about their use of arithmetic averages, as they can
disguise the very high and very low revenues, a feature they explicitly admit. Their strategies
involve the utilisation of a Gini coefficient statistical approach. [6] [6] [6] The methodology
has been termed Corrido Gini, an Italian statistician who created it. [7] [6] [7] In the case of
the use of the Gini coefficient, it is commonly employed to indicate that income inequality
increases or falls. Its ability to measure inequity, however, is also influenced by the way it is
handled and information is not available. The use of the Gini coefficient thus provides a
precise reproduction of the data might be argued for.

The application of the Gini coefficient tends to show a significantly different income
inequality for children across the seven countries. Western Europe has lower levels of
inequality than Russia and America, and there may be further inconsistencies here as the
Russian data offers household spending specifics and American data do not provide this. The
findings of Bradshaw et al (2000) show the Gini income inequality in Germany to be 0.3,
while in America and Russia to be a 0.4 increase by 0.4, which is 10 percentage points, and is
more pronounced by the authors than the total income inequality between the United States
and the United States during the entire 1980s. Nevertheless, more issues are raised
concerning the credibility of US data since the US Census Bureau discloses that the
formulation of the US index was altered in 1992 which resulted in an upward shift of 0.02 in
comparisons of the coefficient after the deceptive era.

The main findings of Bradshaw and other (2000) were that the mobility patterns of income
and poverty in the seven nations are substantially (but not completely) uniform. The main
exception is Russia, which has brought far greater mobility through the economic shift
(Bradshaw et al, 2000, p.6).

Having said this, the authors eventually show that there are major variances between the
seven countries rather than strong homogeneity. Their results show that the US has the
highest rate of income disparity that affects economic mobility, although American numbers
already show that they may be misleading after 1992. The fact that the data is only accessible
for two, five, and two over ten years, all countries, is an issue which renders their results
problematics because the author admits that extended periods of time effect poverty greatly.
Therefore, the only major comparison of income mobility is, probably, between America and
Germany. Income mobility is larger in those nations where the most statistics are available.
Like the remainder of this article, the technique in which data are analysed is somewhat
sophisticated. When they talk about the method and transition to data analysis approaches, it
isn't always easy to decide, since information tends to be mixed. The complications of the
publication make it difficult to evaluate what the author's analysis might have overlooked,
however the authors claim that there are other results from the research that show that they
can find the opposite.

Conclusion
It was a difficult process to analyse this research work. The writers continuously mention
other articles in the collection, but as they don't disclose enough information on what they
refer to it, it may well be argued that it makes no sense to refer back to material that cannot be
compared. It gives no clear indication of the organisation of this work as to when it goes from
study plan to gathering of data to analysis. The concerns are being discussed continuously
and sometimes again. This work contains severe faults. Ethics are barely discussed as
secondary data analysis is used, yet by their own admission there are substantial variances
and contradictions in the data, which leads to the notion that the methodology's reliability and
validity are both problematic. On the plus side, the researchers realise that the data are weak
and that this can alter the results. There are aspects on which academics claim (probably at
least) for their data, which are difficult to justify, for example, that in all seven nations there
are considerable parallels in income mobility patterns. In view of further analysing facts that
list the variances among the countries, this claim does not actually hold up. Moreover,
according to the US Census Bureau most of the data linked to the US could be misleading.
Finally, the repeated reference to other documents but does not clarify the concerns does not
help researchers explain how poverty impacts the lives and well-being of children who are
supposed to focus on research or their use of incomes as the main conceptual indicator.