We argue that independent entitlement to income is important. This implies that earnings replacement benefits paid to individuals fulfil a range of functions which means-tested benefits, assessed at the family rather than individual level, cannot. The argument also highlights the need to...

The UK Attendance Allowance (AA) and Disability Living Allowance (DLA) are non means-tested benefits paid to many disabled people aged 65+. They may also increase entitlements to means-tested benefits through the Severe Disability Premium (SDP). We investigate proposed reforms involving...

This paper provides a self-contained introduction to the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), concentrating on aspects relevant to analysis of the distribution of household income. I discuss BHPS design features and how data on net household income are derived. The BHPS net household income...

Average real UK household income has almost doubled over the past forty years. With four decades of micro-data on household incomes, and relatively simple decomposition methods, we document the contribution to this growth in the mean net household income of working-age households from different...

Conventional in-work benefits (IWB) are means-tested, open to all workers with sufficiently low income, and usually paid without a time-limit. This paper evaluates an IWB with an alternative design that was aimed at lone parents in the UK and piloted in one third of the country, and that...

Test-retest reliability assessments rarely investigate whether reliability itself is stable or whether change in reliability affects findings from substantive models. Research across the social sciences often recognises that measurement error could influence results, yet it rarely applies...

This paper investigates the effect of price variations on the diet composition in Britain. It describes the dynamics of food demand in relation to food prices over time using data from the British National Food Survey (NFS) covering the period 1975-2000. Demand elasticities with respect to price...

The UK Government enacted simplification of its tax credit system in 2003. An inter- esting consequence of the reform is that tax credit payments were split between partners in couples, causing a rare wallet to purse transfer. This paper presents evidence on the effects of the reform on family...

We assess comprehensively how incomes, employment, housing, mental health and life satisfaction change following a partnership dissolution, using data from 18 waves of BHPS. We confirm that women and children see living standards decline by more than men, on average, upon separation, but find...