SOCIAL ASSISTANCE AND LABOR-MARKET BEHAVIOR - A LONGITUDINAL ANALYSISOF WORK EXITS FROM POVERTY IN GERMANY

Recent dynamic analyses of social welfare payments have shown that the re are relevant flows out of poverty: indeed, quite a few recipients d o leave social welfare by taking up paid work. Following the results o f dynamic poverty analyses this study aims at clarifying the character istics and determinants of work exits from poverty. It is shown that t he chances of entering the paid work force in Germany, consistent with findings in the United States, depend heavily on the resources and la bor market potential of welfare recipients. There is less evidence for the impact of transfer disincentives, welfare dependency, or the dyna mics of the business cycle on labor market matching processes. It is o bvious, however, that only one of a variety of social processes underl ying the dynamics of poverty is described in the research. Analyses of poverty thus have to specify carefully the object under study in orde r to capture the heterogeneity of the experience of poverty both empir ically and theoretically.