Family and the dynamic of poverty in Argentina: a longitudinal study using the Encuesta Permanente de Hogares-EPH

María Marta Santillán Pizarro, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba - Universidad Católica de Córdoba
Benoît Laplante, Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS)

This paper analyses the effects of demographic factors and events in the dynamic of poverty, i.e., in the hazard of a given household of falling or exiting from poverty. To study the dynamic of poverty, longitudinal data are required. In Argentina there are no surveys designed for this purpose. However, it is possible to use the data of the Encuesta Permanente de Hogares (a rotating panel survey of households) as a proxy for biographical survey data. The paper uses techniques that allow that kind of analysis for the period between 1995 and 2003 for the total urban population of the country. The paper concludes that population factors related to the first demographic transition are losing their power to explain the dynamics of poverty, thus yielding place to new demographic phenomena related to the second transition.