A study on countermeasures, evaluation of social safety net, and change of the poor after economic crisis: A gender perspective on Human New Deal Policy(Agenda on Family and Youth in the USA)
Among the industrialized countries, the gender gap in poverty is widest in the U.S. Poverty has both short term and long term impacts on children. Negative effects of poverty on young children are also associated with difficulties later in life and even to the next generation. The impact of 2007 ? 2010 economic recession caused increase in unemployment and increasing rates. The increase in unemployment level is much larger among men than among women, but the increase in poverty rate is higher among women than men. As the recession continued for more than a year, health insurance coverage began to decline. The decline is mostly due to the decrease in employment based health insurance which declined from 73.7% in 1999 to 64.6% in 2009. The poorest coverage is for people in ages18?24.
This report includes statistical analysis of the determinants of poverty and the determinants of earnings using the Current Population Survey (CPS ASEC) conducted by the Bureau of the Census for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The analysis of poverty shows that the gender gap in poverty among heads of households is large and the gap is larger among households with children. The results also show that the effect of education is very large on the probability of being poor, has increased during the economic recession, and is greater among women household heads.
The earnings among full time, year?round workers increased modestly between 2006 and 2009 among men but hardly any among women. Full time women workers are earning less than men for two reasons: concentration in the low?paying occupations such as “service” and “clerical” and earnings disparity in categories of occupation (“professionals” and “sales”) with large proportions of women.
A key lesson for Korea implied by this study is that policies to eliminate gender gap in employment and income should continue and strengthen. Specifically, it is important to make sure that the labor force participation of women is not affected strongly by their marital status and parenthood status. Another issue is the income differentials of employed persons by gender and education. Finally, the educational system needs to improve. Although the level of education in Korea is among the highest in the world, the educational system does not help the children in poor families to move up the social ladder. It is well known that Korean families spend more than families in other countries for the education of children making it very difficult for the children in poor families to achieve high level of education.
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