| Abstrakt: |
Despite its centrality to contemporary inequality and theory, working poverty is often popularly discussed but rarely studied by sociologists. Using the Luxembourg Income Study, we conduct a multi-level analysis of whether an individual adult is working poor across 18 affluent democracies circa 2000. We demonstrate that there is greater cross-national variation in working than overall poverty rates (ranging from 1.9% in Belgium to 11.2% in the U.S.), and working poverty rates do not simply mirror overall poverty rates. We then examine four explanations for working poverty: demographic characteristics, economic performance, unified theory, and welfare generosity. Our initial analyses provide limited evidence for the economic performance and unified theory explanations. Yet, the most substantial and robust evidence supports the demographic characteristics and welfare generosity explanations. An individual's likelihood of being working poor is best explained by a) the lack of multiple earners, low education, single parenthood and youth; and b) the generosity of the welfare state in which they reside. The odds of being working poor in the U.S. (the least generous welfare state) are greater by a factor of about 4.3 than in Sweden (the most generous welfare state). Even among the particularly vulnerable, a young single mother or young lone male is about twice as likely to be working poor in the U.S. as in Sweden. We conclude that alleviating working poverty must involve more than just raising private labor market wages, and that expanding the public welfare state is essential. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
