scholarly journals Living Arrangements, Doubling Up, and the Great Recession: Was This Time Different?

2015 ◽  
Vol 105 (5) ◽  
pp. 166-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marianne Bitler ◽  
Hilary Hoynes

The Great Recession marks the worst downturn since those of the early 1980s. A large literature considers how the public safety net responded to this shock. We instead consider the responsiveness of one dimension of the private safety net. Families can react to negative shocks by moving in with relatives or downsizing. We use across-state over-time variation to estimate the effects of cycles on living arrangements, paying particular attention to young adults. We find living arrangements are cyclical, but effects are small. Surprisingly given the press attention, we find no evidence that things are different in the Great Recession.

Author(s):  
Youssef Cassis ◽  
Giuseppe Telesca

Why were elite bankers and financiers demoted from ‘masters’ to ‘servants’ of society after the Great Depression, a crisis to which they contributed only marginally? Why do they seem to have got away with the recent crisis, in spite of their palpable responsibilities in triggering the Great Recession? This chapter provides an analysis of the differences between the bankers of the Great Depression and their colleagues of the late twentieth/early twenty-first century—regarding their position within, and attitude towards the firm, work culture, mental models, and codes of conduct—complemented with a scrutiny of the public discourse on bankers and financiers before and after the two crises. The authors argue that the (relative) mildness of the Great Recession, compared to the Great Depression, has contributed to preserve elite bankers’ and financiers’ status, income, wealth, and influence. Yet, the long-term consequences of their loss of reputational capital are difficult to assess.


Author(s):  
Fernanda Mazzotta ◽  
Lavinia Parisi

Abstract This article provides an analysis of the return of young people to the parental home in 23 European countries. It analyses the effect of the Great Recession, considering the period between 2006 and 2014 and controlling for two key determinants of living arrangements: employment and partnership. The main finding is that the Great Recession has increased the probability of returning home: two peaks are observed in 2009 and 2011, with a percentage of returnees almost double that at the beginning of the period under consideration. Returning home seems more closely linked to partnership than to employment.


Author(s):  
Karen Dynan ◽  
Douglas Elmendorf ◽  
Daniel Sichel

Abstract Using a representative longitudinal survey of U.S. households, we find that household income became noticeably more volatile between the early 1970s and the late 2000s despite the moderation seen in aggregate economic activity during this period. We estimate that the standard deviation of percent changes in household income rose about 30 percent between 1971 and 2008. This widening in the distribution of percent changes was concentrated in the tails. The share of households experiencing a 50 percent plunge in income over a two-year period climbed from about 7 percent in the early 1970s to more than 12 percent in the early 2000s before retreating to 10 percent in the run-up to the Great Recession. Households’ labor earnings and transfer payments have both become more volatile over time. As best we can tell, the rise in the volatility of men’s earnings appears to owe both to greater volatility in earnings per hour and in hours worked.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 900-913 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miriam K. Forbes ◽  
Robert F. Krueger

The full scope of the impact of the Great Recession on individuals’ mental health has not been quantified to date. In this study we aimed to determine whether financial, job-related, and housing impacts experienced by individuals during the recession predicted changes in the occurrence of symptoms of depression, generalized anxiety, panic attacks, and problematic alcohol use or other substance use. Longitudinal survey data ( n = 2,530 to n = 3,293) from the national Midlife in the United States study that were collected before (2003–2004) and after (2012–2013) the Great Recession were analyzed. The population-level trend was toward improvements in mental health over time. However, for individuals, each recession impact experienced was associated with long-lasting and transdiagnostic declines in mental health. These relationships were stronger for some sociodemographic groups, which suggests the need for additional support for people who suffer marked losses during recessions and for those without a strong safety net.


Author(s):  
Rachel E. Dunifon ◽  
Kathleen M. Ziol-Guest ◽  
Kimberly Kopko

U.S. children today have increasingly diverse living arrangements. In 2012, 10 percent of children lived with at least one grandparent; 8 percent lived in three-generational households, consisting of a parent and a grandparent; while 2 percent lived with a grandparent and no parent in the household. This article reviews the literature on grandparent coresidence and presents new research on children coresiding with grandparents in modern families. Findings suggest that grandparent coresidence is quite common and that its prevalence increased during the Great Recession. Additionally, these living arrangements are diverse themselves, varying by the marital status of the parent, the home in which the family lives, and the economic well-being of the family. Suggestions for future research are also proposed.


Author(s):  
Andrew Cherlin ◽  
Erin Cumberworth ◽  
S. Philip Morgan ◽  
Christopher Wimer

Recessions can alter family life by constraining the choices that individuals and couples make concerning their family lives and by activating the family’s role as an emergency support system. Both effects were visible during and after the Great Recession. Fertility declined by 9 to 11 percent, depending on the measure, and the decline was greater in states that experienced higher increases in unemployment. The decline was greater among younger women, which suggests postponement rather than forgoing of births. The fall in fertility was sharpest for Hispanics, a result the authors attribute to a drop in Mexican immigration, which reduced the number of recent immigrants, the group with the highest fertility. Substantial increases occurred in the percentage of young adults, single and married, who lived with their parents, augmenting a long-term trend toward intergenerational coresidence. There was a slight decline in divorce and separation in states with higher unemployment.


2015 ◽  
Vol 105 (5) ◽  
pp. 161-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia M. Anderson ◽  
Kristin F. Butcher ◽  
Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach

We examine how participation in social safety net programs differs by income-to-poverty levels, and how that relationship changed after the Great Recession. We define income-to-poverty based on the average of 2 years of merged CPS data, and investigate program participation among households with income less than 300 percent of poverty. We find changes in both the level and distribution of safety-net program participation during the Great Recession, with SNAP expanding most at the bottom, the EITC expanding most in the middle, and UI expanding most at the top of the income ranges that we investigate; TANF did not expand.


2018 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 156-172
Author(s):  
Kathryn R. Fingar ◽  
Rosanna M. Coffey ◽  
Andrew W. Mulcahy ◽  
Roxanne M. Andrews ◽  
Carol Stocks

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