Asset Poverty in Canadian Families with Children A presentation of thesis results Anne Blumenthal

Outline 1.Why should social work measure poverty? 2.Assets & children 3.Research Questions 4.Results 5.Discussion 1

Why should social workers be concerned with the measurement of child poverty? 2

1. Child poverty is associated with lifelong negative consequences Including: – Biological – Psychological – Social – Economic 3 (Bradbury, Corak, Waldfogel, & Washbrook, 2012; Brooks-Gunn & Duncan, 1997; Heckman & Masterov, 2007; Heckman, Moon, Pinto, Savelyev, & Yavitz, 2010; Heckman, 2012; Hill & Duncan, 1987; Magnuson & Votruba-Drzal, 2009)

2. Child poverty is a social injustice Social workers are mandated to pursue social justice (CASW, 2005) If social work promotes interventions that maximize benefits to the most disadvantaged members of society, then it must place particular emphasis on the welfare of children 4

3. Social work’s professional location Whether knowingly or unknowingly, social workers are, essentially, poverty experts 5

4. To achieve poverty reduction, we must identify the poor Measureable poverty reduction is important to sustaining positive social programs Social workers are largely absent from the poverty policy/poverty measurement conversation 6

Assets and Children Theory: – Income = short-term well-being – Assets = long-term well-being (Sherraden, 1991; Shanks, 2007) – Family stress model (Rothwell & Han, 2010b; Shanks et al., 2010; Shanks & Robinson, 2013) – Identity-based motivation (Destin & Oyserman, 2009; Oyserman, 2013) – Family investment model (Conger & Donnellan, 2007; Kaushal, Magnuson, & Waldfogel, 2011) 7

Assets and Children Influences – Children’s school focused goals – Math, reading, behaviour scores – Educational attainment Preliminary evidence that assets impact parenting and socio-emotional functioning 8 (Elliott & Beverly, 2011; Elliott & Nam, 2012; Elliott & Sherraden, 2013; Friedline, Elliott, & Chowa, 2013; Grinstein-Weiss et al., 2010; Haurin, Parcel, & Haurin, 2002; Huang et al., 2014; Huang, 2013; Kim & Sherraden, 2011; Shanks, 2007; Zhan & Sherraden, 2003)

Asset Poverty and Families Many families have no assets Scant information on child asset poverty in general – Very limited information in Canada 9 (Chawla, 2004, 2008; Robson, 2013)

Asset Poverty in American Families (Arartani & Chau, 2010)

Research Questions Prevalence Provincial variation Predictors 11

What is the prevalence of asset poverty for families with children compared to those without children using different poverty thresholds? 12

Measurement Questions Asset Poverty based on LIM Asset Poverty based on LICO 13

Asset Poverty Thresholds LIM threshold for income $29,208 for family of 2 adults & 2 kids Asset poverty LIM threshold = $7,302 Asset poverty LICO threshold = $8,139 14

Measures (1) Binary dependent variables: – Net worth LICO poverty (NW LICO) – Net worth LIM poverty (NW LIM) – Financial asset LICO poverty (FA LICO) – Financial asset LIM poverty (FA LIM) 15

Measures (2) Personal characteristics: – Age category (0/1/2/3/4) – Sex & marital status (0/1/2/3) – Education level (0/1/2/3) – Disability status (1/0) – Language (0/1) – Immigration (0/1) 16

Measures (3) Economic/regional: – Homeownership (0/1) – Province (0/1/2/3) – Rural (1/0) – Income (log) – Work full time (0/1) 17

Different Measures of Poverty for Families in Assets Income

Different Measures of Poverty for Families in

How do these prevalence estimates vary by province? 20

Income poverty by province 21

Financial asset poverty by province 22

Net worth poverty by province 23

What are the predictors of asset poverty for families with children versus those without children? 24

Odds of Being Asset Poor Previous research showed that certain family types and the number of kids were associated with higher odds of asset poverty Two separate models were run: one for children w/ families and one for families w/o children 25

Odds of Financial Asset (LICO) Poverty n = 2,924 26

Odds of Financial Asset (LICO) Poverty n = 2,924 27

Odds of Net Worth (LICO) Poverty n = 2,924 28

Odds of Net Worth (LICO) Poverty n = 2,924 29

n = 2, Odds of Income (LICO) Poverty

n = 2, Odds of Income (LICO) Poverty

Comparison of Predictors 32

Discussion Many families are financially insecure Provincial variation exists Predictors of asset poverty are different – For families with children – From income poverty 33

Limitations Limited information in the poverty measures used No casual inferences can be made Small sample size in 2005 Limited demographic information in the SFS Possible model misspecification – Uncontrolled variation = high likelihood of biased and inconsistent model results 34

Future Work Alternative measures of poverty 2012 Survey of Financial Security Heterogeneity in asset poor families Other statistical models to control for observed & unobserved variation 35

Conclusions It is important for social work to investigate concepts, measurements, causes, consequences, and interventions related to poverty The effect of financial insecurity on families may be negative in both the short- and long-term More work needs to explore how asset poor families differ from each other, as well as from non-asset poor families 36

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