Journal of Population Economics· 2026Q1
Universal child benefit and child poverty: the role of fertility adjustments
- 0citations
- Q1SCImago
- 2026year
Short summary
Poland's universal child benefit increased births by 6% and shifted parenthood towards lower-income groups, with the share of births in the bottom half of the income distribution rising from 51% to 58%.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Key points
- Births increased by 6% nine months after Poland's universal child benefit announcement.
- Parenthood selection shifted, with less positive selection by education and more negative selection by income.
- The proportion of births among the lowest-income half increased from 51% to 58%.
- Fertility adjustments had a small but noticeable poverty reduction effect, particularly for middle-income families.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
Abstract I study fertility adjustments after the introduction of a large universal child benefit in Poland. Nine months after the program’s announcement, births increased discontinuously by 6%. Patterns of selection into parenthood changed significantly and persistently, with a weakening of positive selection based on education and a strengthening of negative selection based on income. The share of births in the bottom half of the income distribution increased from 51% to 58%. Using a microsimulation approach, I combine changes in the births structure with existing estimates of the transfer’s effect on labor supply to study the impact of these adjustments on poverty reduction. These impacts are very small due to the exceptional generosity of the transfer, but they become more pronounced in the middle of the income distribution.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Journal of Population Economics, 2026 · DOI ↗
Continue with a free account
Ask the paper: 3 free questions a day about this paper; save it, get its citation, new summaries every day for your field. Takeaways are Premium.
Continue free on the webSign in with Google or Apple; no card needed. You come back to this paper.
On your phone:
Field: Demography
DemographySocial Sciences