Most cross-country comparisons of living standards focus on real Purchasing Power Parities (PPP) adjusted Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per person. These measures provide no variance in living standards within the nation, nor do they account for the amount of real incomes that families actually...

Inequality has been an increasingly prominent object of study among comparativists. We use data from the Luxembourg Income Study to examine household market inequality, redistribution, and the relationship between market inequality and redistribution in affluent OECD countries in the 1980s and...

While many nations lay a claim to supporting 'family values', these values may be interpreted in a variety of ways. How do nations support families, particularly families with children? What strategies do different nations take, and how do these strategies lead to different outcomes? In this...

A prime objective for welfare state activities is to take action to enhance population health and decrease mortality risks. Poverty has for several centuries been seen as a key social risk factor in these respects. Consequently, the fight against poverty has historically been at the forefront of...

The paper considers child poverty in rich English-speaking countries - the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and Ireland. Do all these countries really stand out from other OECD countries for their levels of child poverty, as is sometimes assumed? And what policies have they adopted to...

This study explores the plausibility of extending research on income inequality to incorporate relative living standards based on household head's industry of employment. Data from the Luxembourg Income Study is used to assess the relative level and movement of per capita disposable household...

Children experience a higher poverty rate in the U.S. than in most comparable nations a poverty gap traceable to international differences in income redistribution across households rather than to market earnings. Using Luxembourg Income Study data, we find that child poverty rates are higher in...

This paper estimates the redistributive effects of welfare state expenditures on children and disparities in the economic well-being of children in ten nations and relates the two. Data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and other sources for cash and non-cash...

It is well established that class and gender predict occupational placement across advanced industrialized countries. In exploratory analyses the authors document a third dimension to occupational segregation associated with family responsibilities, and consider explanations for cross- national...

The past 30 years have witnessed a dramatic change in the way Western democracies deal with ethnic minorities. In the past, ethnic diversity was often seen as a threat to political stability, and minorities were subject to a range of policies intended to assimilate or marginalize them. Today,...