This week, the University of Washington’s Global Innovation Fund awarded Evans School Professor Scott W. Allard $15,000 for a new research collaboration with Professor Jennifer Romich, UW School of Social Work, and Professor Aya Abe, Tokyo Metropolitan University, around child poverty and social welfare policy in the United States and Japan.
Even though there is broad concern about child poverty globally, relatively few studies examine the dynamics of child poverty, its downstream consequences, and the impact of safety net programs comparatively across different countries. Their project “Child Poverty and Mobility: A Comparative Study of Demographic Trends and Policy in the U.S. and Japan” will fill this critical gap in existing scholarship on child poverty and anti-poverty policy through a comparative lens.
Allard and research partners hope this project will foster international collaboration between UW and Japanese scholars around issues of poverty and social welfare policy, increase the research attention dedicated to this topic, and find opportunities for UW graduate students to participate in scholarly exchange about child poverty, the impact of government-led social welfare programs on poverty, and how an individual’s environment affects child poverty outcomes and transitions to adulthood.
To see a complete list of awarded projects in this cycle, please visit the Global Innovation Fund website. The next call for applications will be in Autumn 2020.
About the Global Innovation Fund: The Global Innovation Fund supports faculty-led initiatives to develop new collaborations and programming with a focus on interdisciplinary and international engagement. These innovative projects expand the UW’s global reach, magnify our research impact, and create leading-edge student experiences.