Achievements and challenges of energy poverty alleviation policies: Evidence from the select states in India

Indian energy sector has undergone a tremendous transformation with consistent government policy interventions since 2000. Against this backdrop, we examine the extent to which energy poverty has decreased due to the expansion of energy services and the significant determinants of energy poverty in select six states in India. Overall, results reveal that absolute multidimensional energy poverty has substantially decreased across all states examined in the study as well as across all income and social groups between 2015 and 2018. Specifically, acute multidimensional energy poverty has reduced by an average of 30% between 2015 and 2018 in six states. At the same time, dependency on biomass remains more or less the same between 2015 and 2018. Results also show that inequality in the access to energy across income and social groups exists, and education is negatively related to energy poverty. Energy poverty has declined by a similar percentage among most employment groups, except for people practicing cattle rearing. Finally, culture is a significant determinant of energy poverty as households with the elderly and more land owned have higher energy poverty, probably due to the easy access to biomass and preference of such households to use it.     

Nativity differences in neighborhood quality among New York city households

Abstract

This article adds to the literature on locational attainment of immigrants by evaluating how immigrant households in New York City compare with native‐born households with respect to neighborhood characteristics. It also examines whether the relationship between immigrant status and neighborhood quality varies by race/ethnicity and place of birth.

Overall, foreign‐born households are more likely than native‐born households to live in neighborhoods with less access to medical care, higher rates of tuberculosis, and higher concentrations of poverty. Multivariate analyses reveal that all but one of these disadvantages disappear for foreign‐born households as a group. However, island‐born Puerto Ricans and immigrants—especially Dominicans, Caribbeans and Africans, and Latin Americans—are more likely to reside in lower‐quality neighborhoods than native‐born white households. Equally important, native‐born blacks and Hispanics are also disproportionately disadvantaged relative to native‐born whites, suggesting that a racial hierarchy exists in the locational attainment of households in New York City.     

How Vehicle Access Enables Low-Income Households to Live in Better Neighborhoods

ABSTRACT

Transportation influences residential location choices generally, but low-income households often face unique constraints because of a lack of access to automobiles. This article examines how vehicle access influences the type of neighborhoods in which low-income households are able to secure housing following a move to a new neighborhood. We rely on data from the Moving to Opportunity program to estimate locational attainment models, including a wide range of variables capturing various dimensions of neighborhood opportunity. Our findings suggest that auto access enables low-income households to secure housing in neighborhoods that exhibit a wide range of positive neighborhood attributes, including lower poverty rates, lower housing vacancy rates, higher median household income, higher labor-force participation, and higher adult high school graduation rates.     

What Happens the Morning After? The Costs and Benefits of Expanding Access to Emergency Contraception

Emergency contraception (EC) can prevent pregnancy after sex, but only if taken within 72 hours of intercourse. Over the past 15 years, access to EC has been expanded at both the state and federal level. This paper studies the impact of those policies. We find that expanded access to EC has had no statistically significant effect on birth or abortion rates. Expansions of access, however, have changed the venue in which the drug is obtained, shifting its provision from hospital emergency departments to pharmacies. We find evidence that this shift may have led to a decrease in reports of sexual assault.     

Transit-Induced Gentrification: Who Will Stay,and Who Will Go?

Abstract

Transit-oriented development (TOD) has been promoted by planners and policy advocates as a solution to a variety of urban problems, including automobile traffic congestion, air pollution, and urban poverty. Since the enhanced accessibility offered by transit proximity is often capitalized into land and housing prices, many express concern that new transit investments will result in the displacement of the low-income populations likely to benefit most from transit access, a phenomenon which we term transit-induced gentrification. Whereas policy advocates have proposed a variety of interventions designed to ensure that affordable housing for low-income households is produced and preserved in areas proximate to transit stations, little is known about the effectiveness of these policy proposals. This article relies on an integrated land use/transportation model to analyze how TOD-based affordable housing policies influence the intraurban location of low-income households. We find that affordability restrictions targeted to new dwellings constructed in TODs are effective tools for promoting housing affordability and improving low-income households’ access to transit while simultaneously reducing the extent of transit-induced gentrification.     

Gateway to Opportunity? Disparities in Neighborhood Conditions Among Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Residents

A key goal of housing assistance programs is to help lower income households reach neighborhoods of opportunity. Studies have described the degree to which Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) developments are located in high-opportunity neighborhoods, but our focus is on how neighborhood outcomes vary across different subsets of LIHTC residents. We also examine whether LIHTC households are better able to reach certain types of neighborhood opportunities. Specifically, we use new data on LIHTC tenants in 12 states along with eight measures of neighborhood opportunity. We find that compared with other rental units, LIHTC units are located in neighborhoods with higher poverty rates, weaker labor markets, more polluted environments, and lower performing schools, but better transit access. We also find that compared with other LIHTC tenants, poor and minority tenants live in neighborhoods that are significantly more disadvantaged.     

Spaces of exception: governing fuel poverty in England’s multiple occupancy housing sector

Homes in multiple occupancy (HMOs) – residential properties containing common areas shared by several households – are a growing feature of the housing landscape across the UK. They have often been subject to political stigmatization as a result, in part, of comprising poor quality dwellings. This paper uses a “spaces of exception” framework to explore the juridical and material mechanisms involved in the rise of fuel poverty among people living in HMOs. Having analysed evidence from interviews, census data and the secondary literature pertaining to the English context, we highlight the processes that have led to the biopolitical othering of this housing stock in institutional and infrastructural terms. We argue that the expansion and persistence of fuel poverty in HMOs are promoted not only by the disproportionate concentration of low-income residents in relation to the rest of the private rented sector, but also by the socio-technical configurations that underpin this type of housing. Fuel poverty can thus be seen as the joint outcome of broader practices of legal, political and material delegitimization.     

Work,fertility, and the status of women in Mexico

Among the major transformations affecting Mexican women in recent decades were their growing participation in the labor market and the fertility decline that began in the 1970s with widespread access to contraception. Data from 3 major Mexican fertility surveys, employment surveys, and censuses are used to analyze changes in female employment and their determinants during the years of economic recession in the 1980s. The main characteristics of the Mexican fertility decline are described, and the relationship between fertility and female employment before and during the economic recession is scrutinized for different social sectors. Suggestions for research on the affects of these changes on the social condition of Mexican women are then presented. The proportions of Mexican women over 12 years old who declared themselves economically active increased from 16% in 1970 to 21% in 1979 and 32% in 1987. Until the 1970s the majority of employed women were young and single or childless. But a clear increase occurred between 1976-87 in the economic participation of older women in union. Economic participation of low income and less educated women increased as they sought work or created their own in response to deteriorating living conditions during the recession. Young women with intermediate or higher educational levels did not increase their relative presence in the labor market in the same period. The marked increase in economic participation of less educated women in union with small children was accompanied by a significant increase in manual occupations. Between 1982-87, the proportion of women aged 20-49 in nonsalaried manual occupations rose from 7.6% to 18.5%. Mexico's fertility decline has been well documented. The total fertility rate declined from 6.3 in 1973 to 3.8 in 1986, while the percentage of women in union using a contraceptive method increased from 30.2 in 1976 to 52.7 in 1987. Fertility differentials have been declining but are still considerable. The inhibitory influence of children on female labor force participation in Mexico is clear, but in the years of economic recession the most notable increase in female workers was in women with 3 or more children of whom the youngest was under 3. It appears that the influence of children on women's employment depends on the socioeconomic status of the woman as well as on the dynamism or sluggishness of the labor market. Research is needed on the significance of changes in fertility and female employment for women's status in Mexico. Several recent works have presented results of microsocial analyses of the ways in which women experience changes in their lives resulting from fertility and employment decisions. A methodological strategy for studying these changes and their influence on women's status should focus on comparisons between different generations and birth cohorts, different types of employment, and different socioeconomic statuses. Both macrosocial and microsocial forms of analysis are needed to provide a full picture.     

For richer or for poorer: Marriage as an antipoverty strategy

This study examines the effects of changes in family structure on children's economic well‐being. An initial shift‐share analysis indicates that, had the proportion of children living in female‐headed families remained constant since 1970, the 1998 child poverty rate would have been 4.4 percentage points lower than its actual 1998 level of 18.3 percent. The March 1999 Current Population Survey is then used to conduct a second analysis in which marriages are simulated between single mothers and demographically similar, unrelated males. The microsimulation analysis addresses some of the shortcomings of the shift‐share approach by making it possible to account for the possibility of a shortage of marriageable men, to control for unobservable differences between married men and women and their unmarried counterparts, and to measure directly the effects of increases in marriage on the economic well‐being of children. Results from the microsimulation analysis suggest that, had the proportion of children living in female‐headed families remained constant since 1970, the child poverty rate would have been 3.4 percentage points lower than its actual 1998 level. Among children whose mother participated in a simulated marriage, the poverty rate would have fallen by almost two‐thirds. © 2002 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Justice for All? A Cross‐Time Analysis of Toxics Release Inventory Facility Location

This paper contributes to the environmental justice literature by addressing several outstanding issues in a single study. Using a cross-time data set that allows us to control for the prevalent "chicken-and-egg" or "which-came-first" problem, we analyze the relative importance of poverty and race/ethnicity in an analysis that includes economic costs, potential legal costs, and potential collective action. Because the most appropriate functional form is not obvious, we use several methods, including Tobit, Poisson, and ordinary least squares, on different forms of the dependent variable. In every case, controlling for the population present at the time of disamenity location and controlling the other factors mentioned, we find evidence of disproportionate collocation based on race/ethnicity, but not on poverty alone. We also find that the potential for collective action decreases the likelihood of receipt of the studied disamenities.     

城市化进程中的反贫困:制度创新与法律保障

面对日益严峻的城市贫困问题,国家初步建立了涵括基本养老保险制度、城市居民最低生活保障制度等在内的城市反贫困制度法律体系。但是这一制度法律体系还不够系统完善,还存在城市反贫困主体单一、社会参与有限的问题,尚未建立系统完备、保障全面的社会保障制度和全国统一的城市反贫困法律体系。城市化进程中的主体贫困、制度贫困和法律贫困是致使产生城市贫困问题的重要原因。这就需要建立政府主导、社会共同参与的城市反贫困工作管理机制,解决反贫困制度建设滞后和立法不规范的问题,科学规划、统筹规范反贫困工作,形成以宪法为基本依据、以《反贫困法》为核心、以《社会保障法》等相关社会保障法律法规为支撑的反贫困法律体系,强化城市反贫困权利救济和责任追究制度,不断提升城市反贫困制度化、法治化进程。     

“It Was Like I Lost Everything”: The Harmful Impacts of Homeless-Targeted Policies

In response to housing crises across the country, many localities are implementing homeless-targeted policies that attempt to regulate public space by prohibiting sitting, lying, sleeping, and storing property in public places such as parks and sidewalks. We term these sociospatial control policies. Our research investigates the direct impacts of such policies in the city of Honolulu, which had become notorious for legal measures targeting homeless residents. We interviewed members of 70 households living in temporary shelters in public spaces, all of whom had experienced enforcement of city ordinances, such as receiving citations or being forcibly moved by city agents. Our data revealed three interconnected ways that enforcements of sit–lie and nuisance policies harmed homeless households. (a) Our respondents described feeling dehumanized and treated unfairly by city agents. We therefore argue that enforcement catalyzed both civic and social exclusion. (b) Second, the city’s confiscation of property spurred material hardship and posed obstacles to work, education, and access to services. And, finally, (c) respondents’ narratives revealed that enforcements provoked lasting worry, fear, anxiety, and despair.     

The Incidental Fertility Effects of School Condom Distribution Programs

While the fertility effects of improving teenagers’ access to contraception are theoretically ambiguous, most empirical work has shown that access decreases teen fertility. In this paper, we consider the fertility effects of access to condoms—a method of contraception not considered in prior work. We exploit variation across counties and across time in teenagers’ exposure to condom distribution programs in schools. We find that access to condoms in schools increases teen fertility by about 12 percent. The results suggest that the effects of condom access varied significantly across different programs; the positive fertility estimates are driven by communities where condoms are provided without mandated counseling. Programs that mandated counseling have zero or negative fertility effects, but estimates on these counties are less robust across specifications.     

Growing inequality in black wages in the 1980s and the emergence of an African-American middle class

Much recent scholarship and popular discussion posits a substantial movement of African-American households into the “middle class.” Yet over the course of the 1980s, the proportion of individual black wage-earners receiving “annualized” (work experience-adjusted) wages and salaries in excess of about $35,000—three times the poverty line—fell by 22 percent, even as the share of African-Americans earning below the poverty line increased by a fifth. This was true for all age groups, and even for persons within the black community who had completed four or more years of college. The growth of low wage employment was most pronounced for black men between the ages of 25 and 34, among whom the incidence of below-poverty-level employment doubled. Black women aged 35–54 experienced relatively greater progress than any other part of the African-American community, but their gains lagged far behind those of comparable white women. We speculate on possible explanations for these developments, on the basis of which a potential public policy agenda is examined.     

LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION AND POVERTY STATUS AMONG RURAL AND URBAN WOMEN WHO HEAD FAMILIES

This paper examines differentials in the propensity to be living in poverty among women who head families with minor children. Characteristics of mothers are examined for four subgroups: residents of central cities, suburbs, small towns, and rural areas. Using Public Use Microdata Sample data from the 1980 Census, results are presented using Multiple Classification Analysis. After controlling for the effects of mother's race, marital status, education, work status, and ages of her children, single mothers in central cities and smaIl towns have the highest rates of poverty (48% and 45% respectively), closely followed by those in rural areas (41%). Suburban single mothers are least likely to live in poverty (33%).
Results show that employment status is the strongest predictor of poverty, followed by education and marital status. A subanalysis of women who work full-time reveals major differences in earned income, with suburban women earning the highest incomes, followed by women living in central cities, then rural areas and, finally, small towns. A decomposition of this difference reveals that about two-thirds of the difference is due to pay scales, and only one-third due to the structure of occupational opportunity.     

Subsidized Housing and Residential Trajectories: An Application of Matched Sequence Analysis

Scholars have long debated the relative merits of site-based, subsidized housing owned and operated by a public entity or by the private sector. This is the first study to classify long-term residential trajectories of nationally representative low-income households in the United States by their initial assisted housing status. We employ a matched sequence analysis of neighborhood poverty and racial trajectories of low-income households in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics who formed during 1988–1992. Among households carefully matched by their demographic and economic attributes, we find that those first forming households in public housing spend much longer durations over the subsequent 20 years in poorer, minority dominant neighborhoods than similar households first forming in market-rate housing do. In contrast, forming a household in private site-based subsidized housing is associated with superior neighborhood socioeconomic (but not desegregated racial composition) trajectories compared with starting in market-rate housing. Implications for housing policy are discussed.     

Transportation Access,Rental Vouchers,and Neighborhood Satisfaction: Evidence From the Moving to Opportunity Experiment

The Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program is designed in part to expand the neighborhood choices of assisted households, thereby enabling assisted households to find a living environment that simultaneously meets their housing and neighborhood preferences. While several studies have examined the impact of rental subsidies on neighborhood satisfaction, few have examined whether access to adequate transportation enables HCV recipients to locate housing in more desirable locations. This article relies on data from the Moving to Opportunity experiment to examine the impact of transportation access, rental housing vouchers, and geographic constraints on neighborhood satisfaction. We find that access to both vehicles and public transit positively influences neighborhood satisfaction, and the influence of vehicle access varies with transit proximity. These findings point to the importance of transportation in helping low-income assisted renter households locate housing in more desirable neighborhoods.     

Understanding the changing fortunes of metropolitan neighborhoods, 1980 to 1990

Abstract

This article develops a model that relates decadal changes in neighborhood poverty rates to metropolitan‐wide economic changes and the neighborhood's demographic profile, predetermined poverty rate, and locational characteristics. The model is estimated for the 1980–1990 period using metropolitan census tracts as proxies for neighborhoods. This national sample of tracts is stratified into predominantly white, African‐American, Hispanic, and mixed subsamples.

Results indicate that only a few variables consistently predict growth in neighborhood poverty: overall job availability; the age composition of neighborhood residents; the proportion of nonmarried households; and the neighborhood's 1979 poverty rate. Other variables have distinctly different coefficients depending on the racial‐ethnic subsample. These coefficients include segregation, welfare benefits, the location of manufacturing employment, and availability of automobiles. We conclude that studies that focus solely on African‐American poverty neighborhoods fail to recognize common patterns across all neighborhoods and to discern unique features of neighborhoods inhabited predominantly by non‐African Americans.     

Marriage patterns among unwed mothers: Before and after PRWORA

The promotion of marriage and two‐parent families became an explicit public policy goal with the passage of the 1996 welfare reform bill. Marriage has the putative effect of reducing welfare dependency among single mothers, but only if they marry men with earnings sufficient to lift them and their children out of poverty. Newly released data from the 2002 cycle of the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), along with data from the 1995 cycle, allow us to compare pre‐ and post‐PRWORA differences in (1) cumulative marriage rates among unwed mothers, and (2) patterns of marital choice (that is, differences in characteristics of the men these mothers marry, such as their education and employment status). Overall, our results show that unwed childbearing is associated with lower marriage rates and marital quality. Difference‐in‐difference models show that welfare reform was not strongly associated with pre‐ and post‐welfare reform changes in marriage among nonmarital birth mothers, even among the most disadvantaged mothers. Compared with other women, nonmarital birth mothers also were less likely than other women to marry “economically attractive” men in the post‐welfare reform period. The success of marriage promotion initiatives may depend heavily on whether women themselves are “marriageable” and whether potential spouses have the ability to support a stable family life. © 2008 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.