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...

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...

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...

The standard poverty lines applied in empirical research tend to be problematic in terms of validity, reliability, ease of application or socio-political credibility. This paper introduces an international version of an alternative method, which originally has been developed for the Netherlands....

Compares the ability of prime-age, able-bodied workers in the U.S., Canada, Sweden, Netherlands, and the U.K. to keep themselves and their households out of poverty by working. The authors find that although the probability of being poor is smaller in households in which the head works...

Uses LIS data to study the sensitivity of cross-national income poverty comparisons to the method in which poverty is measured. Examined are the differences between using absolute and relative poverty comparisons as well as the consequence of lowering the real value of the poverty line to...

The living standard of the least well-off members of society - industrialized or not - is of public policy and ethical interest. One way to examine differences between societies in this respect is to study the extent and severity of income poverty between countries and over time. While poverty...