On Elderly Poverty
| Autor: | Wei-Feng Hung, 洪偉峰 |
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| Rok vydání: | 2013 |
| Druh dokumentu: | 學位論文 ; thesis |
| Popis: | 101 The great impact of population aging is a major challenge facing the world today. The speed of population aging in Taiwan is even faster than anywhere else, which brings pressure to the government, society, family, and the individual as well. This research addresses the issue of old-age poverty. We use the Survey of Family Income and Expenditure conducted by the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics of 2005 and 2010. Two approaches are adopted. The first one uses a dual classification scheme to decide which households are considered poor, with respect to either income or consumption. We then look into the income and consumption of individuals when households are classified in this scheme. A second approach is used to discuss the difference of consumption and income in poor elderly, using the methodology of National Transfer Accounts (NTA, hereafter). Under the modified NTA framework, we are able to take public-sector consumption and intra-familial transfer into account, while these variables are important but hardly estimated in the past due to lack of proper methodology. Major findings are as follows: (1) Among elderly households, single, couple and three-generation households face higher risk of poverty than other households. Hence they deserve particular attention. (2) Viewing from the perspective of individuals, elders are far easier to be poor than other age groups, and the situation worsens over time. (3) Public-sector consumption helps to reduce the gap in consumption between poor and non-poor elders. In other words, public-sector consumption serves to “reallocate” resources to the poor. (4) The function of intra-familial transfer is apparent only in non-poor elders. Net asset incomes are higher for the elderly who are non-poor regarding income. And elders with low income rely heavily on government transfer. The literature has found that, population aging and changing family structure weaken the function of intra-familial transfer and lower net asset incomes of the elderly, while the importance of government transfer continues to increase. This paper has shown that the latter will likely be compressed in the future. However, if poor elders still depend on government transfer, old-age poverty could get a lot worse. In this regard, the government and individuals must have a more clear understanding of old-age poverty, and set up proper policies in advance. |
| Databáze: | Networked Digital Library of Theses & Dissertations |
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