AccessMyLibrary provides FREE access to over 30 million articles from top publications available through your library.
Create a link to this page
Copy and paste this link tag into your Web page or blog:
Family time.(income distribution according to fammily size)
IMAGINE a society with only three people. Each of them has an annual income of $50,000. At some point, two of them marry. Has the income distribution changed?
The answer, of course, is no. Before and after the marriage, each person has $50,000 in income. The distribution remains exactly the same.
But government statistics would suggest otherwise--that the share of total income has shifted dramatically in favor of the rich. That's because most government surveys track data for "family units," not individuals. And the number of individuals per family unit can vary greatly, depending on marital status, children, and other factors.
My colleague Aparna Mathur and I have presented evidence in these pages that many of the statistics commonly used to paint a picture of middle-class misery are misleading. The best measure of how the middle class is doing, we argued, is consumption, and consumption has been doing just fine.
Our earlier work accepted the standard assumption that the family unit is the correct level of analysis. In a new paper we have just completed, however, we find that this assumption is highly misleading.
The problem is that, much to our surprise, there is enormous variation in family size across income distribution. Family units with higher incomes are more likely to contain a married couple, and more likely to include children. In 2005, for example, the average family unit in the lowest quintile had 1.8 individuals. The average family unit in the top quintile ...
- DETERMINANTS OF REGIONAL INCOME DISTRIBUTION IN THE U.S. SOUTH, 1980-1990:...
- Magazine article from: The Review of Black Political Economy Ngarambe, Octavian Goetz, Stephan J. September 22, 1998 700+ words
...recent studies of regional income distribution have suggested growing...international migration on income distribution using cross-country data...several ways to measure income distribution. In this study, we use...Suppose income Y of a family unit is a random variable ...
- A positive theory of optimal personal income distribution and growth.
- Magazine article from: Atlantic Economic Journal Sell, Friedrich L. Blumle, Gerold December 1, 1998 700+ words
...clear how such changes in personal income distribution will affect the economy's per...to be achieved and the prevailing income distribution. If there are economic reasons...capita growth rate or by a more equal income distribution. This paper's social optimization...
- Commentary: a reply to Ken Judge: mistaken criticisms ignore overwhelming...
- Magazine article from: British Medical Journal Wilkinson, Richard G. November 11, 1995 700+ words
...between national mortality rates and income distribution. The criticisms that Judge directs...a relation between mortality and income distribution, and then deal with methodological...association between mortality and income distribution was first reported by Rodgers using...
- Income distribution and business cycles.
- Magazine article from: Review of Social Economy Van Lear, William September 22, 1992 700+ words
...to argue for the importance of income distribution in generating capitalist cycles...two-fold: (1) To explain how income distribution is determined and how changes in income distribution induce cycles, and (2) To measure...
- Measuring income distribution across space and time in the American states...
- Magazine article from: Social Science Quarterly Langer, Laura March 1, 1999 700+ words
...examine the relationship between state income distribution and a state's political and economic...our understanding of the role that income distribution plays in society, the fact remains...government and political processes shape income distribution under alternative institutional...
- Political Economy of Income Distribution: A Comparative Study of Taiwan and...
- Magazine article from: Policy Studies Journal Li, He June 22, 2000 700+ words
...compares the government policies of income distribution in Mexico and Taiwan and identifies...Taiwan and to the highly uneven income distribution in Mexico. The paper concludes...different conclusions on appropriate income distribution policy. Marxists believe that poverty...
- World income distribution: which way?
- Magazine article from: Journal of Development Studies Svedberg, Peter June 1, 2004 700+ words
...inter-related issues concerning income distribution in the world have come to the forefront...questions for distribution. Studies of income distribution have also been helped by improvements...there is a general tendency for income distribution within countries to become more...
- Income distribution and mortality: cross sectional ecological study of the...
- Magazine article from: British Medical Journal Kennedy, Bruce P. Kawachi, Ichiro Prothrow-Stith, Deborah April 20, 1996 700+ words
...have suggested a relation between income distribution and life expectancy: the greater...underlying the association between income distribution and mortality are poorly understood...instance, it is not clear whether income distribution is related to particular causes...
- Chinese president chairs meeting on reforming income distribution system.
- Newspaper article from: BBC Monitoring International Reports May 26, 2006 700+ words
...the questions of reforming the income distribution system and regularizing order in income distribution. CCP Central Committee General...meeting emphasized that reforming the income distribution system, regularizing order in...
- Income distribution and convergence in the transition process--a cross-country...
- Magazine article from: Comparative Economic Studies Holscher, Jens June 1, 2006 700+ words
INTRODUCTION Income distribution has dramatically changed during...statement is true and how income distribution does affect the overall growth...known about the behaviour of income distribution. Is the dramatic increase...
Source: HighBeam Research, Family time.(income distribution according to fammily size)