The Welfare State, the Labor Market, and the Stability of Family Income: A Comparison of the U.S. and Germany

这是对美国和德国家庭收入稳定性的研究。 它比较了劳动力市场和福利国家机构在占或控制生活水平的时间不稳定性的相对重要性。 近年来出现了大量研究，以评估快速技术变革和市场全球化对工作生涯、收入和社会不平等结构的影响。 现在很清楚，结构变化对这些结果的影响取决于劳动力市场的制度特征和国家社会福利政策，学者们已经讨论了有关这些联系的一些重要方面。 然而，有两个重要问题却很少受到注意。 首先，很少有研究关注家庭收入的动态，而不是个人收入。 其次，劳动力市场制度、福利国家政策和家庭构成的变化在创造或抑制家庭财务状况动荡方面的相对重要性，人们知之甚少。 对美国和德国进行比较是有价值的，原因有三。 首先，德国劳动力市场的制度特征和德国的福利国家政策与美国有很大不同。 第二，家庭结构在德国比在美国更稳定。 第三，存在高质量的纵向数据，可以对两国的相关变量进行可比衡量。 该研究利用来自收入动态小组研究和德国社会经济小组的数据，测量了从1983年到最近这段时间内家庭总收入及其主要组成部分（劳动收入、资产收入、私人转移、税收和政府转移）的波动水平。 这些收入组成部分和总收入的波动将使用标准方法进行分解，并将对美国和德国的分解进行比较，以确定跨国差异的数量，并解释这些差异。 这些发现对于社会学和经济学的几个分支学科以及理解政府政策对家庭的影响都很有价值。 这项研究解决了有关人力资本的关键问题，特别是替代劳动力市场和福利国家机构影响家庭收入和福祉的方式。

This is a study of the stability of family income in the United States and Germany. It compares the relative importance of labor market and welfare state institutions in accounting for or controlling temporal instability in living standards. A substantial body of research has arisen in recent years to assess the impact of rapid technological change and the globalization of markets on work careers, earnings, and the structure of inequality in society. It is now clear that the impact of structural change on these outcomes depends both on the institutional characteristics of labor markets and on state social welfare policy, and scholars have addressed a number of important aspects concerning these linkages. Two important issues, however, have received relatively little attention. First, little research has focused on the dynamics of family income as opposed to individual earnings. Second, little is known about the relative importance of labor market institutions, welfare state policies, and changes in family composition in creating or damping turbulence in the financial situation of families. A comparison of the United States and Germany will be valuable for three reasons. First, the institutional character of both Germany's labor markets and Germany's welfare state policies are quite different from those of the United States. Second, family structure is more stable in Germany than in the United States. Third, there exist high quality longitudinal data that allow comparable measures of the relevant variables for the two countries. The research utilizes data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and from the German Socio-Economic Panel to measure the level of fluctuation in overall family income and in its principal components (labor income, asset income, private transfers, taxes, and government transfers) for the period from 1983 until the very recent past. Fluctuation in these components of income and in overall income will be decomposed using standard methods, and the decomposition s for the United States and Germany will be compared in order to establish the amount of cross national differences, and the explanation for these differences. The findings will be valuable for several subdisciplines of sociology and economics, as well as for understanding the effect of government policies on families. This research addresses key questions concerning human capital, especially the ways that alternative labor market and welfare state institutions affect family income and well-being.