Households' labor supply arrangments and in-work poverty: longitudinal dynamics in a cross-country comparison

• Applicant: Professorin Anette Eva Fasang, Ph.D., since 4/2022
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 492434941

The working poor are individuals who are employed but live in impoverished households: They represent 10% of the working population in the EU-27. In-work poverty is dynamic over historical time because changes in welfare states affect access to social protection, and across individual life courses because changes in household composition and household labor supply affect the amount of resources needed and available to householdsThis project contributes by addressing two issues: 1) which household-level decision-making processes and behaviors about working hours drive differential risks of in-work poverty, and 2) how household-level labor supply decisions shape longitudinal dynamics of in-work poverty over individual life course in different welfare contexts. To fill these gaps, we ask the following question: How are household-level labor supply adaptive strategies over the life course associated with in-work poverty risks?We assume that household-level labor supply strategies will be most consequential for in-work poverty risks in countries where decommodification was weakened and defamilization is underdeveloped. We contrast Italy and Israel, where recommodification was pronounced and defamilization was underdeveloped between the late 1990s and the early 2000s, with Germany, where recommodification was more modest and accompanied by increasing defamilization. Empirically, first, we conduct a survey experiment to elicit work and working-time preferences of household members for different household types under different policy conditions. Specifically, we consider whether activating or compensating policy measures are more effective for reducing in-work poverty risks at given preferences for household-level labor supply. Second, we map longer-term pathways in and out of in-work poverty that result from household-level adaptive strategies for work and working-time. Using country-representative survey data and new techniques that combine sequence and event history analysis, we map longitudinal dynamics of in-work poverty risks in different policy contexts. This analytical setting allows for an approximation of causal processes driving in-work poverty. The project will generate empirical evidence that informs theory building on the temporal dynamics of social inequality across the life course as well as policy recommendations on how to combat in-work poverty for different households in different countries. Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, both poverty and in-work poverty rates are expected to increase as a consequence of rising unemployment, furlough employment and short-time schemes, which, if available, compensate only partially for lost income. Our findings will be highly relevant in a “post-COVID” labor market where the synergies between household-level labor supply and family and labor market policies will have to be reinforced to protect vulnerable workers from the risk of long-term and extreme poverty.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Israel
• International Co-Applicant: Professor Dr. Asaf Levanon, Ph.D.
• Ehemalige Antragstellerin: Dr. Emanuela Struffolino, until 4/2022