326 / 138
326
E
UR
A
MERICA
not add much to the poverty differences between Taiwan and these
countries (
p
>.1, df=99). The higher levels of BTST income
poverty significantly add 4 to 17 percentage points to the
poverty of Taiwanese young adults. Finally, the social provisions of
most social democratic, liberal, and conservative countries (except
for Australia, Luxembourg, Norway, and Switzerland) could
substantially reduce of the poverty of Taiwanese young adults
whereas the welfare systems of Spain, Japan, South Korea, and
post-socialist countries do not lead to significant differences in
youth poverty.
V. Conclusion
While the economic well-being of youth continues to
deteriorate, rates of youth poverty differ substantially across
countries. Variations in family composition, the market,
and social
welfare contribute to cross-national differences in poverty risks.
Although generous social provisions are consistently found to
alleviate child and elderly poverty, contrary to expectations, high
youth poverty has been found in advanced welfare states and low
youth poverty in less developed welfare states. This raises the
question of why high social expenditures do not translate into low
youth poverty and how each structural factor helps shape the
economic prospects of young adults. This research decomposes the
contributions of these three structural factors to the cross-national
disparities in youth poverty. The decomposition analyses confirm
that social welfare is critical to the economic well-being of youth.
Consistent with previous studies (Tai & Treas, 2009), Western
welfare systems, particularly the Scandinavian welfare states, are
much more effective in reducing youth poverty than the Taiwanese
welfare system. According to these analyses, adopting social
democratic welfare systems could reduce youth poverty rates in
Taiwan by 7-9 percentage points (or 8-11 percentage points
according to the results based on the resamples).