E
UR
A
MERICA
Vol. 47, No. 3
(
September 2017
)
,
299-343
©
Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica
http://euramerica.orgDecomposing Youth Poverty in 22 Countries
—
Contributions of Household Composition,
Social Welfare, and the Market to
Cross-national Variations in Youth Poverty
*
Tsui-o Tai
Department of Sociology, National Taipei University
No. 151, University Rd., San Shia District, New Taipei City 23741, Taiwan
Abstract
Based on 2010 Luxembourg Income Study data, this
research examines cross-national patterns of rates of youth
poverty, using Taiwan as a representative of East Asian
welfare regimes and comparing it to 21 countries. With
decomposition analyses, I investigate the ways in which
three structural factors
—
household composition, market
income poverty, and social welfare
—
contribute to divergent
patterns of youth poverty. Taiwan is a society in which
intergenerational coresidence is prevalent but in which
young adults and young parents are eligible for limited social
provisions. The results show that in Scandinavian countries,
leaving the parental home is associated with high levels of
poverty, although generous social provisions offset some of
Received September 29, 2016; accepted June 21, 2017; last revised June 8, 2017
Proofreaders: Liang-Wei Huang, Min-Fang Tsai, Tsai-Ying Lu
*
This research is supported by a grant from the Ministry of Science and
Technology (MOST 105-2410-H-305-002-MY2). I am grateful to the three
anonymous referees, Professor Yi-Fu Chen and the research group of National
Taipei University for their useful suggestions.