UC Davis experts: Economics of poverty

The UC Davis faculty has broad expertise regarding economic and social factors involved with poverty in the United States and internationally. If you need information on a topic not listed, please contact Claudia Morain at the UC Davis News Service, (530) 752-9841, cmmorain@ucdavis.edu or Pat Bailey, UC Davis News Service, (530) 752-9843, pjbailey@ucdavis.edu.

EFFECTS IN THE UNITED STATES

Family stress

UC Davis human development Professor Rand Conger can talk about how economic hardship creates stress in American families. Conger has been conducting research on the consequences of stress in families for more than 20 years. In a recent report, he demonstrated that economic hardship has the same damaging impact on family relationships and child development in rural and urban African American families as in the European American families that he had previously studied in rural Iowa. Conger is an expert on social and economic stress, life-course development, and family interaction processes. Contacts: Rand Conger, Human Development, (530) 757-8454 (lab), rdconger@ucdavis.edu.

The sibling buffer

Katherine Conger, an assistant professor of human development at UC Davis, studies the impact of economic stress on families, with a special emphasis on sibling relationships and adolescent adjustment. Conger has been conducting research on sibling relationships for the last 15 years. Her research has found that parents respond to economic stress by becoming hostile and are less able to be effective parents, which contributes to problem behaviors in young adolescents. She has also discovered that children who have a warm, supportive relationship with an older sibling are buffered against the negative effects of poor parenting. Conger is currently examining the interpersonal dynamics of sibling relationships to determine how siblings contribute to the development of problem behaviors and the acquisition of competent behaviors. Contacts: Katherine J. Conger, Human Development, (530) 757-8453 (lab), kjconger@ucdavis.edu.

U.S. welfare and families

Hilary Hoynes, a UC Davis economist, is an expert on how welfare and the Earned Income Tax Credit affects families and children. She can talk about welfare reform; the effectiveness of financial work incentives; and work, welfare and the family structure in the United States. Hoynes is a senior research affiliate in the National Poverty Center, University of Michigan, a research affiliate with the National Bureau of Economic Research's Public Economics Program and a research affiliate for the Joint Center for Poverty Research at University of Chicago and Northwestern University. Contact: Hilary Hoynes, Economics, (530) 752-3226, hwhoynes@ucdavis.edu.

Poverty and inequality

In her studies of poverty and inequality, UC Davis economist Marianne Page has focused on intergenerational mobility and education. She can talk about how parental poverty affects their children's outcomes, difference in race in family economic outcomes, how neighborhood environments affect people's adult incomes, the economic impact of absent parents, and intergenerational correlations in welfare participations. She is an affiliate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and a research affiliate with the Association of Public Policy Analysis and Management and the Joint Center for Poverty Research. Contact: Marianne Page, Economics, (530) 752-1551, mepage@ucdavis.edu.

Children and the elderly

UC Davis economist Ann Huff Stevens looks at the effects of poverty and income on children and the elderly. She can talk about the relationship between parents' education and income and their children's future; racial differences in the economic costs of growing up in a single-parent family; and trends in lifetime employment in the past three decades. She is affiliated with the National Bureau of Economic Research's Labor Studies and Children's programs. Contact: Ann Huff Stevens, Economics, (530) 752 3034, annstevens@ucdavis.edu.

Rural poverty in California

In California, poverty is not relegated just to the inner cities; it is also found in the state's agricultural communities. UC Davis agricultural economists Philip Martin and Edward Taylor have been studying this growing trend for the past decade, noting that California risks the re-creation of a new rural poverty through the settlement of immigrating seasonal workers in small farm towns. These new residents usually do not have the education necessary to advance to higher paying jobs. As a result, some of the highest rates of welfare dependency are in California's agricultural counties. The researchers have urged California policymakers to take steps to speed the integration of these immigrants into the state's economic and social main stream. Martin specializes in farm labor, immigration and agricultural policy, while Taylor's research emphasis is in the areas of economic development, population and resources, and technology adoption. More information on their research is available online at http://migration.ucdavis.edu/. Martin can be reached at (530) 752-1530, plmartin@ucdavis.edu and Taylor is at (530) 752-0213, jetaylor@ucdavis.edu.

GOVERNMENTAL POLICIES

Does welfare-to-jobs system work?

UC Davis Cooperative Extension Specialist David Campbell is leading a team of nine researchers who are assessing how well the federal Workforce Investment Act is being implemented in California. The team is analyzing the California Workforce Investment Board and the development activities of the state's 50 local work force investment areas that serve job seekers and businesses. One issue being studied is whether focusing on the needs of business also serves the needs and interests of low-income job seekers, including those seeking to leave welfare. The final report should be completed by early 2006. Campbell directs The California Communities Program, a UC outreach effort. Contact: Dave Campbell, Human and Community Development, (530) 754-4328, dave.c.campbell@ucdavis.edu.

Social policies

UC Davis economic sociologist Fred Block, who has spent his career understanding the quantity and depth of poverty in the United States, can talk about the degree of effectiveness of various types of social policies on poverty. He can also discuss how people in this society understand poverty and how those understandings lead to different policy choices. Contact: Fred Block, Sociology, (530) 752-5893, flblock@ucdavis.edu.

INTERNATIONAL ISSUES

Welfare state economics

Contrary to deeply held American political beliefs, large budgets for welfare programs are not a drag on healthy democratic economies, says UC Davis economic historian Peter Lindert. "The tale you hear told by economists and the press is that a large government sector for pensions, welfare, etc., will crush us," Lindert said. "If that were true, Europe would have died a long time ago -- but the welfare state survives quite fine, thank you." In Lindert's 2004 book "Growing Public: Social Spending and Economic Growth Since the Eighteenth Century" he spells out the impacts of big social safety nets on the world's richest democracies. Contact: Peter Lindert, Economics, (530) 752-1983, phlindert@ucdavis.edu.

United Nations millennium report

UC Davis economist Wing Thye Woo, one of the world's leading experts on Asian economies, is the Asian economies adviser to the United National Millennium Development Reports, released in early 2005, about a plan to improve the living conditions for the world's poor. He has particularly deep knowledge of economic development in China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Taiwan. He was special adviser to U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin in 1997-1998. Contact: Wing Thye Woo, Economics, (530) 752-3035, wtwoo@ucdavis.edu.

Women, men and Third World poverty

UC Davis economic geographer Janet Momsen has spent four decades studying the economic changes for men and women in developing countries such as the Caribbean, Mexico, Costa Rica, Brazil, Eastern Europe, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Momsen can talk about the economic futures for the poorest of the poor. Her latest book, "Gender and Development," was published in 2004. Momsen's current projects include tea tourism and micro credits in Sri Lanka and entrepreneurship in Hungary. Contact: Janet Momsen, Human and Community Development, (530) 752-5061 office, (530) 758-8312 home, jdmomsen@ucdavis.edu.

Migrant caretakers

In their quest to leave poverty behind, women from the Philippines, Mexico, Sri Lanka, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Peru and Indonesia live in wealthier northern nations where the demand is high for nannies, nurses and other domestic-care employees. In this global economy of haves and have-nots, the children left behind when their mothers migrate are often better off than their absent parent, says Rhacel Parre√±as, an assistant professor of Asian American studies at UC Davis. Parre√±as' book "Servants of Globalization" was made into the documentary "The Chain of Love." Her new book, "The Gender Paradox of Globalization: Children and Transnational Families in the New Economy," was published this year. Contact: Rhacel Parre√±as, Asian American Studies Program, (81) (90) 4122-8815 (Japan), rparrenas@ucdavis.edu.

AFRICA

Roots in poverty

Unlike the rest of the world, in Africa the situation has grown worse over the past two decades so that almost half of the continent's population lives in extreme poverty. UC Davis historian Benjamin Lawrance can talk about poverty's roots in the colonial past. A specialist in West Africa, Lawrance can also discuss the effects of AIDS, colonial agricultural schemes, international debt and famine relief. Contact, Benjamin Lawrance, History, (530) 752-8207, bnlawrance@ucdavis.edu.

Power and the poor

UC Davis cultural anthropologist Donald L. Donham studies how systems of power affect the poor in Africa, looking at the ways that class, race, gender and sexuality interact in transnational settings. He has written extensively about economic and political systems in rural southern Ethiopia. Currently, he is completing a book about black migrant laborers who work in the gold mines of South Africa -- specifically about a violent conflict among black workers that took place in 1994, just at the time of the elections that ended apartheid. Contact: Donald Donham, Anthropology, (530) 754 4390, dldonham@ucdavis.edu.

Claudia Morain, UC Davis News Service, (530) 752-9841, cmmorain@ucdavis.edu
Pat Bailey, UC Davis News Service, (530) 752-9843, pjbailey@ucdavis.edu

Top of page

Last updated June 10, 2008