Using data on nine countries from the Luxembourg Income Study database, we estimate trajectories in gross and disposable family incomes for families following one of several stylized life-courses: marrying or partnering at age 24 but not having children; partnering at age 24 and having one child...

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...

This paper updates and extends my earlier work, published in the Journal of Economic Issues, on how the middle class fares throughout the world. My 2007 paper provided a definition of the middle class as well as estimates of the size of the middle class in several nations. It argued that the...

This brief chapter introduces researchers to the possibilities for subnational research using the harmonized data sets made available via the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) (www.lisproject.org). We first offer a brief overview of the LIS and discuss specific challenges for subnational research...

We present a markovian homogeneous model that mimics the evolution of household income. With three parameters only, the model generates a set of theoretical curves that closely fit actual income distributions, as observed in 19 advanced economies in the period 1967-2004. The fit is better, and...

This paper examines the effects of public policies in shaping wives' economic standing within the family in advanced industrial societies. It conducts two types of statistical analysis. One is a multi-level regression analysis to examine the effects of employment protection regulation, the size...

We draw on LIS' various resources to sketch a portrait of child poverty in upper-income countries. We first summarize past LIS-based scholarship on child poverty, highlighting studies that seek to explain cross-national variation in child poverty levels. Our empirical sections focus on child...

Drastic changes in the demographic structure of Japan, that is, the decline in the fertility rate and the growth in the aged population, and their possible consequences have been seriously discussed by scholars, policy makers, and the media. The continuous decline of the fertility rate raised...

What are the principal sources of posttax-posttransfer inequality in affluent countries? To what extent do inequality of individual earnings, inequality of market household incomes, redistribution, and other factors influence the posttaxposttransfer income distribution? And what do the answers...

This paper analyses the impact of social transfers in seven Central and Eastern European countries using 16 datasets provided by the Luxembourg Income Study (Czech Republic 1992, 1996; Estonia 2000; Hungary 1991, 1994, 1999; Poland 1986, 1992, 1995, 1999; Romania 1995, 1997, Slovakia 1992, 1996; Slovenia 1997,...