Understanding Widow Poverty

了解寡妇贫困

• 批准号: 6458847
• 负责人: STEVEN J HAIDER
• 金额: $ 7.45万
• 依托单位: MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2002
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2002-09-15 至 2004-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/6458847
• 关键词: aging; behavioral /social science research tag; clinical research; data collection methodology /evaluation; female; food; health care service utilization; health surveys; household; human data; human old age (65+); low socioeconomic status; mathematical model; socioeconomics; widowhood

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The Census Bureau reports that the 1997 official U.S. poverty rate for married women who were 65 years and older was 4.2 percent, whereas the poverty rate for widows was 17.9 percent. Such disparities have been the impetus of much economic research. At the same time, there is much dissatisfaction with the official U.S. poverty because there are many reasons to believe it mis-identifies households that suffer low consumption. For example, a National Academy of Sciences panel suggests that the official poverty measure does not rely on an appropriate adjustment for household size. This problem is particularly relevant to understanding widow poverty because, if the adjustment for household size were not correct, the poverty rate for widowed and married women would not be directly comparable In addition, various authors have suggested that part of the relatively high poverty rate among widows is due to preexisting poverty. To improve our understanding of the well-being of widows, we propose a series of analyses that attempts to overcome many of the concerns about poverty measurement. First, we propose to examine consumption directly because the ultimate concern is that increased poverty might imply reduced consumption. Second, we propose to examine consumption and changes in consumption around the time of widowhood to better understand the direct impact of widowhood. We will rely on the various data sets that are collected as part of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and the Asset and Health Dynamics (AHEAD) surveys for this research.

描述（由申请人提供）：人口普查局报告说，1997年 美国65岁及以上已婚妇女的官方贫困率为 4.2%，而寡妇的贫困率为17.9%。等 贫富差距一直是许多经济研究的动力。与此同时， 人们对美国官方的贫困状况非常不满，因为 有许多理由相信它错误地识别了那些遭受低收入的家庭， 消费例如，美国国家科学院的一个小组建议， 官方贫穷计量并不依赖于适当调整， 家庭规模。这个问题与理解寡妇特别相关 贫困，因为如果对家庭规模的调整不正确， 寡妇和已婚妇女的贫困率不能直接比较， 此外，一些作者认为，部分相对较高的 寡妇的贫困率是由于先前的贫困造成的。改善我们 为了了解寡妇的福祉，我们提出了一系列分析， 努力克服对贫穷衡量的许多关切。一是 我建议直接研究消费，因为最终的问题是， 贫穷的增加可能意味着消费的减少。第二，我们建议 研究丧偶前后的消费和消费变化， 更好地理解丧偶的直接影响。我们将依靠各种 作为健康和退休研究（HRS）的一部分收集的数据集 以及本研究的资产和健康动态（AHEAD）调查。