Several issues remain for future work. First, what is causing the weakening of the relationship between GDP growth and wages at the lower end of the distribution? Our analysis provides another motivation for understanding the change in this relationship.
Second, what are the relationships among women’s labor force participation, female headship, labor market opportunities for women and poverty rates? Many analyses have linked two or three of these factors, but there may be important interactions among all of these that help determine the evolution of poverty rates.
A related question is why rising women’s labor force participation prior to 1980 did not push down poverty rates.
Third, one might explore indirect mechanisms through which poverty rates may be influenced, like the possible behavioral responses of family structure choices to changing labor market opportunities or the possible influence of immigration on native’s labor market opportunities.
Finally, what explains the change in the responsiveness of poverty to macroeconomic indicators starting in the 1980s?
We show that it is not a simple matter of controlling more fully for wage growth, inequality and female employment; even after conditioning on these factors, we see changes in the effects of key determinants of the poverty rate after 1980.
Labor market measures play an important role in determining overall poverty rates, but their role has changed over time, and they are likely to interact in important ways with demographic and other social changes.