What helps households with children in leaving poverty? Evidence from Spain

Abstract

In this paper we analyse the distinct effectiveness of demographic, labour market and welfare state transfers events in promoting exits from deprivation for childbearing households in Spain, a Southern European Country with high and persistent child poverty and a familial welfare regime. We undertake a thorough analysis of outflow rates and of the effect of events on them by household types using a detailed descriptive approach and a multivariate analysis to control for household heterogeneity. Our multivariate results imply that, in contrast with the descriptive analysis, the presence of children robustly reduces household's chances to step out of poverty. In turn, both methodologies show that the effectiveness of labour market events is consistently lower for childbearing households while their prevalence is particularly high. Also, both the prevalence and the effectiveness of events related to the beginning of state transfers are high for households without children.

Citation

Cantó, O., del Río, C. and Gradín, C. (2007), "What helps households with children in leaving poverty? Evidence from Spain", Bishop, J. and Amiel, Y. (Ed.) Inequality and Poverty (Research on Economic Inequality, Vol. 14), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 1-29. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1049-2585(06)14001-6