In this article, we use data on five social inclusion indicators (poverty, inequality, unemployment, education and health) to assess and compare the performance of 15 European welfare states (EU15) over a 12-year period from 1995 to 2006. Aggregate measures of performance are obtained using...

The European population is living longer but retiring earlier. More and more individuals are spending an increasing fraction of their life-time relying on retirement benefits. At the same time, social security programs face mounting financial difficulties. The purpose of this paper is to explain...