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Social Indicators Research
Published in: Social Indicators Research 3/2012

01-05-2012

Childhood and Capability Deprivation in Germany: A Quantitative Analysis Using German Socio-Economic Panel Data

Authors: Kirsten Wüst, Jürgen Volkert

Published in: Social Indicators Research | Issue 3/2012

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Abstract

Child poverty has been widely discussed in Germany since the publication of the third official Poverty and Wealth Report of the German government in 2008 which—inter alia—focused on the situation of children and families. However, child poverty is not only caused by low household incomes and impacts of child poverty are not only restricted to financial consequences. The capability approach takes into account this multidimensionality of well-being and poverty of children. It conceptualizes human well-being as not only depending on financial means but also gives the same importance to the personal and social conversion factors which determine how far financial means can be converted into personal well-being. Before 2008 the capability approach had only been applied to the well-being of adults in Germany, but not specifically to the well-being of children. However, there are several reasons why a capability analysis for children will differ from a capability analysis for adults. Adults’ capability sets comprise dimensions that are less relevant for small children while other valuable capabilities have to be added. Furthermore the capability set depends to a large extent on the age of the child. The paper focuses on a multidimensional poverty analysis in the capability perspective of 5–6 years old children. In the domains of “Education/Leisure”, “Health”, “Social Participation” and “Income” child poverty is measured by predefined indicators. The relationship to the social and personal conversion factors of the caretakers is then evaluated. Additionally, a multidimensional poverty measure is analyzed.
previous article Income Inequality and its Consequences for Life Satisfaction: What Role do Social Cognitions Play?
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Appendix
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Footnotes
1
For more details refer to Volkert and Wüst (2010).
 
2
See among others Nussbaum (2006: p. 75); Sen (1987a: 7) and Sen (1992).
 
3
See among many others Sen (2009: pp. 225–252; 1992: pp. 39–40 and p. 110), Volkert (2006: pp. 361–362).
 
4
Determinants of capabilities for adults in Germany are discussed in Arndt and Volkert (2007).
 
5
This is the reason for a specific challenge regarding capability analyses in early childhood and childhood; in this age group, it is difficult to determine whether a decision in favor of certain functionings is a personal decision by the child or whether it is driven primarily by parental education and influence; Addabbo et al. (2004: p. 4).
 
6
Again, the answers for both components of the score, i.e. “walks/other activities outside” and “visits to the playground” were ranked in the order “daily” (1), “several times a week” (2), “at least once a week” (3) and “not at all” (4).
 
7
Visits of museums, children theatres, etc. were only recorded for the last 2 weeks before the interview. As 2 weeks are a relatively short period of time for these cultural activities, there may be a bias in the examination. Even if a family visits cultural institutions on a regular basis, it can be classified as poor with respect to “social participation which charges fees” because by chance it didn’t visit any museums, etc. during the last 2 weeks.
 
8
Including “Imputed Rent”, i.e. the advantage resulting from the use of proprietary. To analyze a per-capita income we calculated an equivalence-weighted net income according to the modified OECD scale. Here, the first adult in a household gets a weight of 1, further adults and adolescents above 14 years old a weight of .5 and children less than 14 years a weight of .3. The net income of the household was divided by the sum of the weights of all persons living in the household.
 
9
Income poverty was the only indicator in our study that was measured on the household level.
 
10
See e.g. Volkert (2006).
 
11
For one child the household type was missing.
 
12
p values were calculated with the chi-square-test. No adaptations were made in case more than 25% of the cells had expected values less than five.
 
13
All caretakers who did not have a degree were female.
 
14
As will be discussed later on, the difference between the ages might result from a feeling of shame of not being so wealthy which is only perceived at a higher age.
 
15
According to the third official German Poverty and Wealth report (Bundesregierung 2008) 18% of the total population are—on the basis of SOEP data—income poor, i.e. the net income at their disposal lies below 60% of the median of the equivalence-weighted net income.
 
16
The KIGGS-Study (Robert-Koch-Institut 2006) identified a correlation between a higher social status of the parents and a higher participation in preventive medical examinations of children.
 
17
All single parents in the study were female.
 
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Metadata
Title
Childhood and Capability Deprivation in Germany: A Quantitative Analysis Using German Socio-Economic Panel Data
Authors
Kirsten Wüst
Jürgen Volkert
Publication date
01-05-2012
Publisher
Springer Netherlands
Published in
Social Indicators Research / Issue 3/2012
Print ISSN: 0303-8300
Electronic ISSN: 1573-0921
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-011-9817-6

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