Zewde Naomi, Crystal Stephen
CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, New York City, New York, USA.
Center for Health Services Research, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA.
J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci. 2022 Apr 1;77(4):780-789. doi: 10.1093/geronb/gbab141.
To examine the distributional effects of the 2008 recession and subsequent recovery across generational cohorts.
Using data from the Survey of Consumer Finances (2007-2016), we constructed a measure of economic well-being accounting for income, household size, and annuitized value of assets. We examine trajectories of adjusted income and inequality, using Gini coefficients and income shares by decile, for the overall population and by cohort during the recession and recovery.
Inequality declined temporarily during the recession, but reached new highs during the recovery. During recovery, population-level increases in economic resources were not reflected among below-median households, as the more concentrated financial assets rose while broader-based home equity and employment fell or remained stagnant. Inequality measures increased for cohorts in their primary working years (Generation-X and Baby Boomers), but not among the younger Millennials, who were at early stages of education, workforce entry, and household formation.
The study illustrates an integrative approach to analyzing cumulative dis/advantage by considering interactions between historically consistent macrolevel events, such as economic shocks or policy choices affecting all cohorts, and the persistent life-course processes that tend to increase heterogeneity and inequality as cohorts age over time. Although recovery policies led to rapid recovery of financial asset values, they did not proportionately reach those below the median or their economic resource types. Results suggest that in a high-inequality environment, recovery policies from economic shocks may need tailoring to all levels of resources in order to achieve more equitable recovery outcomes and prevent exacerbating cohort inequality trajectories.
研究2008年经济衰退及其后的复苏在不同代际群体中的分布效应。
利用消费者金融调查（2007 - 2016年）的数据，我们构建了一种衡量经济福祉的指标，该指标考虑了收入、家庭规模和资产的年金化价值。我们使用基尼系数和按十分位数划分的收入份额，研究了衰退和复苏期间总体人口以及各代际群体调整后收入和不平等的轨迹。
不平等在衰退期间暂时下降，但在复苏期间达到新高。在复苏过程中，经济资源在总体水平上的增加并未反映在中位数以下的家庭中，因为更集中的金融资产上升，而基础更广泛的住房净值和就业下降或停滞不前。主要工作年龄段的群体（X世代和婴儿潮一代）的不平等指标有所增加，但较年轻的千禧一代（他们正处于教育、进入劳动力市场和组建家庭的早期阶段）则没有。
该研究说明了一种综合方法，即通过考虑历史上一致的宏观层面事件（如影响所有群体的经济冲击或政策选择）与随着群体年龄增长往往会增加异质性和不平等的持续生命历程过程之间的相互作用，来分析累积的劣势/优势。尽管复苏政策导致金融资产价值迅速复苏，但这些政策并没有按比例惠及中位数以下的人群或他们的经济资源类型。结果表明，在高度不平等的环境中，应对经济冲击的复苏政策可能需要针对所有资源水平进行调整，以实现更公平的复苏结果，并防止加剧代际不平等轨迹。
