We examine the poverty rates and the income configurations among Japan and the LIS countries. The LIS countries are Germany, Italy, the UK, Denmark, the US, and Taiwan. We divide household including elderly into five types: living alone, couples only, living with their married children, living...

According to the 'median-voter' hypothesis, greater inequality in the market distribution of earnings or income tends to produce greater generosity in redistributive policy. We outline the steps in the causal chain specified by the hypothesis and attempt to assess these steps empirically. Prior...

This paper addresses the question of the institutional flexibility of three major European welfare states. Using Data from the second and fifth wave of the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), we measure first how effectively the German, British and Italian welfare state have responded changes in...

The Great Recession has increased concerns over the fairness of the distribution of wealth and income in many societies. Using data on eight advanced economies (Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Slovakia, Spain, the United Kingdom, and United States) between 2007 and 2010, I show how the Great...

We analyze trends in the age of economic independence in six industrialized countries, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The paper compares trends in the household living arrangements, employment rates, earnings levels, and net incomes as young adults...

Using data from the mid-1990s from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), we analyze for several household types the effect of mothers' work participation on families' relative income position and poverty risk. Results are compared across seven European countries with contrasting family policies:...

This paper examines gender differentials in the resources of households and individuals across seven welfare states. In its first part, it asks whether female-headed households can secure a living income without recourse to either the state or the income of a male partner. It then steps inside...

Great strides have been made in reducing poverty amongst the elderly in most rich countries over the past forty years. But pensioner poverty has not been eradicated, especially in the English-speaking nations. Poverty rates amongst older women are much higher than those for older men and much...

This paper investigates wage gaps between part- and full-time women workers in six OECD countries in the mid-1990s. Using comparable micro-data from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), for Canada, Germany, Italy, Sweden, the UK, and the US, the paper first assesses crossnational variation in the...

Total household income inequality can be very different from inequality measured at the income per-capita level but only in recent years has the patter of this divergence been investigated. In this paper, result form Coulter et al. (1992) using a one-parameter equivalence scale are updated using...