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Family Structure and Subjective Economic Well-Being: Some New Evidence

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Abstract

The paper investigates the main socio-demographic and economic determinants of subjective economic well-being in different typologies of households. Previous studies have used dummy variables to explore the effect of family structure. In this paper, however four different models—one for each family typology—have been estimated to test if each selected explanatory variable is significant and how it acts in determining the level of subjective economic well-being. To achieve this, we apply an under-used logit model—the partial proportional ordered model. Our analysis, based on data from the 2005 Italian Survey on Income and Living Conditions highlights the main variables affecting the subjective economic well-being of all household typologies. These main variables are related to income adequacy, such as being able to afford housing, clothes and holidays, and also include the work-status and level of education of the respondent. These variables produce notable differences in the level of subjective economic well-being. We find that couples with no children have the highest level of perceived economic well-being, while couples with two or more children and even more so one-person households are more economically insecure.

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Notes

  1. We would like to thank an anonymous referee to have suggested us to point out this evidence.

  2. Originally, the answer was on 6-point scale but due to the low percentage of observations in the points 1, 5, and 6 a re-coding to a 3-point scale has been done.

  3. To check the parallel-lines constraint the autofit option of GOLOGIT procedure of STATA software was followed. This STATA procedure does a series of Wald tests on each variable to see whether its coefficients differ across equations, e.g., whether the variable meets the parallel-lines assumption. If the Wald test is statistically insignificant for one or more variables, the variable with the least significant value on the Wald test is constrained to have equal effects across equations. A global Wald test is also done of the final model with constraints versus the original unconstrained model; a statistically insignificant test indicates that the final model does not violate the parallel-lines assumption.

    To estimate our model, we use GOLOGIT2 routine made by Richard Williams. For more details on this routine see Williams (2006a, b).

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to four anonymous referees for their helpful comments. The authors acknowledge the University of Palermo for financial support (FFR Project 2012–2013). Although this is a joint paper, Sects. 1 and 5 are attributed to Miranda Cuffaro, Sects. 2 and 4 to Maria Francesca Cracolici, and Sect. 3 is attributed to Francesca Giambona.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche, Aziendali e Statistiche, University of Palermo, Viale delle Scienze, Ed. 13, 90128, Palermo, Italy

    Maria Francesca Cracolici & Miranda Cuffaro

  2. Dipartimento di Ricerche Sociali e delle Istituzioni, University of Cagliari, Viale Sant’Ignazio, 78, 09123, Cagliari, Italy

    Francesca Giambona

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  1. Maria Francesca Cracolici
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  2. Francesca Giambona
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  3. Miranda Cuffaro
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Correspondence to Maria Francesca Cracolici.

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Cracolici, M.F., Giambona, F. & Cuffaro, M. Family Structure and Subjective Economic Well-Being: Some New Evidence. Soc Indic Res 118, 433–456 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-013-0425-5

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