This paper assesses women's poverty in 26 diverse LIS countries - five Anglophone countries, six Continental European countries, four Nordic countries, two Eastern European countries, three Southern European countries, and six Latin American countries. Our analyses are organized around four...

Focusing on an array of European and North American welfare states between 1985 and 2005, we consider how welfare state policies are related to households' relative incomes, taking into account cross-national and temporal differences in income distributions. At the same time, we consider how two...

In most OECD countries the gap between rich and poor has widened over the past decades. This paper analyzes whether and to what extent taxes and social transfers have contributed to this trend. Has the redistributive power of different social programs changed over time? The paper contributes to...

Despite its centrality to contemporary inequality, working poverty is often popularly discussed but rarely studied by sociologists. Using the Luxembourg Income Study, we analyze whether an individual is working poor across 18 affluent democracies circa 2000. We demonstrate that working poverty...

This study investigates an old question that has re-emerged in social policy-making and in analyses of global social development: to what extent does targeting and size of social transfers matter for poverty? Using multilevel logistic regression and LIS income data for 40 middle- and high-income...

A prime objective for welfare state activities is to take action to enhance population health and decrease mortality risks. Poverty has for several centuries been seen as a key social risk factor in these respects. Consequently, the fight against poverty has historically been at the forefront of...

This paper considers groups who are most likely to be vulnerable to new social risks and tests the effects of social policies on their poverty levels. Specifically, the paper conducts multi-level regression analyses across 18 OECD countries near the year 2004, analyzing the effects of social...

Social vulnerability due to insufficient income and earnings may come from many sources, both demographic and economic, in a globalizing world. This paper examines the problems of population aging, low wages, growing inequality, low work hours and insufficient social spending in Spain...

While the 2008 global economic crisis is over and many countries are into a recovery phase, the impacts continue to linger. Analysis of its aftermath offers insight into how economic shocks reverberate through modern economies to affect the lives of children and families and how governments...