歐美研究季刊第47卷第3期

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MERICA

B. Poverty Rates

Table 2 illustrates how young adults’ economic well-being

differs across countries. Based on net disposable income (after

taxes and social transfers, see Table 2), the poverty level ranges

from 5.16% for Taiwan to 22.81% for Norway. As expected,

Scandinavian young adults are the most vulnerable to poverty,

followed by their counterparts in Spain and liberal countries except

for Australia. East Asian young adults are more economically

secure. ANOVA tests are conducted to evaluate whether the

differences in poverty rates (based on net disposable income)

between Taiwan and other countries are statistically significant.

The results show that the poverty rate of Taiwanese young adults is

significantly lower than that of their counterparts in 17 of the

selected countries (

<.01 to

<.001). The differences in youth

poverty between Taiwan and the other four countries (i.e. Australia,

Czech Republic, Luxembourg, and Switzerland) are not statistically

significant.

Youth poverty also varies substantially across household type.

Not surprisingly, young adults living with coupled parents are less

likely to be poor. Young adults living with spouses are also doing

well financially. Interestingly, although single young adults with

children are generally the most economically disadvantaged,

Scandinavian single parents are actually better off than single

young adults without children. This is because Nordic welfare

regimes are likely to provide generous social provisions for families

with children.

Table 3 shows that BTST income poverty rates are

substantially higher than poverty rates based on net disposable

income for most countries outside of East Asia. As expected,

when social transfers and taxes are not taken into consideration,

the disparities in poverty across household type widen substantially.

While young adults living with coupled parents and married young

adults living only with their spouses still fare well, single mothers

are most vulnerable, with poverty rates ranging from 13.5% for