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We analyze the economic well‐being of older women in cross‐national perspective, comparing the United States with four other high‐income countries: the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, and Sweden. We report some of the first findings based on microdata from a new source, the Luxembourg Wealth Study (LWS). The LWS, a project within the larger Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), is a database containing harmonized wealth datasets from a number of industrialized countries. Using the LWS data, we analyze the income and wealth packages held by women, aged 60 and older, across these five countries. We begin by assessing employment, income, and wealth outcomes, first among all older women's households and, second, in one particularly vulnerable group: older women who live alone. We then turn our attention to poor older women and, finally, to those who are extremely poor. We close with brief comments about policy implications and further research.

Objectives: Public policies generally target a subset of the population defined as poor or needy, but rarely are people poor or needy in the same way. This is particularly true among older adults, as they have fewer options to compensate for financial decisions made earlier in life. This study investigates poverty among this group in order to identify who among them is financially worst off. Methods: We use 20 years of data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey to examine the income and consumption of older Americans. Results: The poverty rate is cut in fourth if both income and consumption are used to define poverty. Those most likely to be poor using a combined measure over both income and consumption are women, widows, blacks, and renters. The income poor alone display sufficient assets to raise consumption above poverty thresholds, while the consumption poor are shown to have income just above the poverty threshold and have few assets. Discussion: The poorest among the older population are those who are income and consumption poor. Understanding the nature of this double poverty population is important in measuring the success of future public policies to reduce poverty among this group.

Direct provision of public services can alter the balance of resources across income groups. We focus on the issues arising when taking account of the impact of publicly provided education services across the income distribution. We combine OECD information on spending per student in particular levels of the education system with micro data from nationwide income surveys to track the allocation of resources. We pay particular attention to the role of third‐level education, and provide comparable results for seven European countries (Belgium, Germany, Greece, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom).

This chapter focuses on how intergenerational mobility is affected by children’s earliest life experiences from conception through preschool. These experiences are important because of their effects on outcomes later in life. One consequence is that intervening early is the most cost-effective way to put a child on course to pass through the gates that determine adult success and thereby reduce differences in mobility among children born in different circumstances. Using a life-cycle model, we examine the evidence on trends in factors that affect child development. The evidence we assess leads to the conclusion that opportunity and mobility are declining for lower and even middle class children as changes in family life, parenting practices, economic inequality, unresponsive social institutions, and increasingly economically homogeneous neighborhoods all point to a serious decline in the factors that are associated with greater mobility. We conclude that the decline in opportunity and mobility for current generations of American children is likely the biggest negative effect of the continuing U.S. inequality boom in income, wealth, and consumption. The paper ends by outlining a series of policies that would help restore opportunity in America by intervening early in the life course.

This chapter explores the relationship between poverty and aging, in terms of its measurement and trends, as well as its alleviation, with particular attention to the most vulnerable individuals at each end of the age distribution. The measurement addresses both the definition of poverty and its aggregation over various age groups. The trends highlight a significant reduction in poverty among the elderly and a gradual increase in poverty among children and working age individuals, both in the United from dependence as a child to independence as a young adult, from being 50 years. Two important secular changes are also detected: a college spike and a retirement dip in poverty across the age distribution. The alleviation of poverty is then attributed to working in the labor market and to social expenditure and its associated policies, which have been especially effective for the elderly. A summary and a discussion follow that set forth an agenda for further research and policy.

This paper examines the degree of economic security experienced by the population aged 65 and over. Elderly people in the United States now enjoy an average degree of economic well being that is high relative to the younger population. Within that average there is variance, however. This analysis finds that elderly persons in the lower-middle income range—within 100 and 200 percent of the poverty line—are economically more vulnerable than either those of high income or those below the poverty threshold. Virtually all of the elderly benefit from social security retirement income (OASI) and Medicare. The poor receive in addition substantial means-tested cash and in-kind transfers, and the well-to-do receive enough additional subsidies and tax-free income to leave them better off after government intervention than before it. But those in between—the tweeners—are more likely to rent unsubsidized housing, are less likely to have non-Medicare health subsidies, and are more likely to rely on OASI as their primary source of income. When facing economic or health problems, the only way they can improve their well being is to spend themselves down to penury and thereby qualify for means-tested cash and in-kind transfers, in the form of Medicuid and Supplemental Security Income. Policy implications of these findings are discussed in closing.

OBJECTIVE: We estimated associations between experiencing a home foreclosure filing and experiencing a child protective services (CPS) investigation or substantiation. METHODS: We linked a large sample drawn from administrative data on foreclosure filings, CPS involvement, and participation in a host of other public programs for >60 000 Wisconsin households over a 4-year period from 2008 to 2011. Our empirical analyses used piecewise exponential survival models to estimate the risk of CPS involvement (investigation or substantiation) as a function of a home foreclosure filing and a set of individual and household characteristics. We fitted these models with and without the inclusion of propensity score weights. RESULTS: Households that experienced a foreclosure filing had a much higher probability of CPS involvement. This was true in the year before the filing as well as the year after the foreclosure filing. However, these associations were generally largest in the period before or shortly afterward. CONCLUSIONS: Experiencing a foreclosure filing is associated with increased CPS involvement. However, it is not clear that this association is driven by the foreclosure filing action itself. Rather, increased risk of CPS involvement is apparent during the process of moving toward the filing as well as the year or so after the filing, both of which are likely characterized by limited economic resources as well as by financial and other stress.

Previous studies find large crossnational differences in inequality amongst rich Western nations, due in large part to differences in the generosity of welfare state transfers. The United States is the least generous nation and the one having the most aftertax and transfer inequality. But these analyses are limited to the effects of cash and nearcash transfers and direct taxes on incomes, while on average, half of welfare state transfers in rich nations are inkind benefits—health insurance, education, and other services. Counting inkind benefits at government cost and accounting for the indirect taxes used to finance transfers substantially reduces crossnational differences in inequality at the bottom of the income distribution. The findings have implications for how we think about tradeoffs across welfare state domains that all nations face and we illustrate this with reference to the current U.S. debate about health insurance. © 2006 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management

The paper describes the Luxembourg Wealth Study (LWS), an international project launched in 2003 by the Luxembourg Income Study and by institutions from Canada, Cyprus, Finland, Germany, Italy, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The aim of the project is to assemble and to harmonise existing micro-data on household wealth, in order to provide a sounder basis for comparative research on household net worth, portfolio composition, and wealth distributions.

Volume 16, No. 3 Public Policy & Aging Report Page 23 Volume 16, No. 3 Public Policy & Aging Report Older Persons in Comparative Perspective Great strides have been made in reducing poverty and economic insecurity amongst individuals ages 65 and older in most rich countries over the past fifty years. Older persons are increasingly able to live long and relatively healthy lives, free of poverty and in reasonably secure situations, and are increasingly less likely to share accommodations with their adult children. Indeed, most resource transfers between generations now go from elders to children and not vice versa as was more or less the case in the United States before 1960 (Engelhardt and Gruber 2006; Engelhardt, Gruber, and Perry 2005; Clark, et al. 2004 ). But older persons’ income poverty has not been eradicated, especially in the English-speaking nations. And women’s poverty status in old age remains a major concern in most rich societies. In order to most effectively design a system to further reduce poverty and increase security in old age, we need to know more about how older persons live and what other sources of economic support they might have, over and above their annual incomes. A comparative cross-national perspective can offer important insights in such a process. In this brief paper, we extend prior cross-national analyses of older persons’ economic well-being by assessing the effects Timothy M. Smeeding James Williamson Eva Sierminska Janet Gormick Andrea Brandolini Income and Poverty in the United States in Comparative Perspective: The Role of Income and Wealth in Guaranteeing Economic Security in Old Age

Are American attitudes toward economic inequality different from those in other countries? One tradition in sociology suggests American “exceptionalism,” while another argues for convergence across nations in social norms, such as attitudes toward inequality. This article uses International Social Survey Program (ISSP) microdata to compare attitudes in different countries toward what individuals in specific occupations “do earn” and what they “should earn,” and to distinguish value preferences for more egalitarian outcomes from other confounding attitudes and perceptions. The authors suggest a method for summarizing individual preferences for the leveling of earnings and use kernel density estimates to describe and compare the distribution of individual preferences over time and cross-nationally. They find that subjective estimates of inequality in pay diverge substantially from actual data, and that although Americans do not, on the average, have different preferences for aggregate (in)equality, there is evidence for

A large body of research has documented comparative levels of inequality among nations and also the substantial change in inequality across and within nations. Political scientists, sociologists, and economists have used these databases to make a number of claims about changes in inequality and their interrelations with economic and political life, patterns of redistribution, social institutions, and social and individual wellbeing more generally.

This article breaks new ground in the debate on school finance and equality of per pupil school expenditures. We are able to merge school district data with the individual and family data of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). This allows us to examine both student and school district characteristics and to assess several measures of equality of expenditure across the income distribution of parents and by funding sources. Unlike studies that use district-level data, our study finds a surprising degree of equality in the actual amounts expended per child in low- versus high-income families. But after adjusting expenditures for student body composition to reach equivalent education expenditures, we find a greater inequality in per pupil spending across the income distribution. In addition, there are substantial racial inequalities in expenditures across the income spectrum. In closing we discuss policy implications for school finance and increased equality of educational opportunity. © 2006 American Education Finance Association

There are concerns that the unprecedented economic boom which Ireland experienced in the second half of the 1990s has raised only some living standards and has widened income gaps. This paper analyzes Ireland's income distribution in comparative perspective, to understand how Ireland's distribution changed and how it compares to other rich countries. We begin with OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) and the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) data to compare Ireland's degree of well-being and inequality with other advanced countries. We also look in some detail at alternative sources of Irish income and their implications for the trends in income inequality in Ireland from 1994 to 2000. For instance, we examine the top of the distribution using data from the administration of the income tax system. We conclude that the spectacular economic growth in the past decade has seen the gap in average income between Ireland and the richer OECD countries narrow dramatically. However, this growth has not greatly affected the Irish ranking in terms of income inequality. Ireland remains an outlier among rich European nations in its high degree of income inequality, though still falling well short of the level seen in the United States. In the end, we find that Ireland's new-found prosperity provides a “social dividend,” and choices about how it is used will fundamentally affect whether the current high level of income inequality persists into the future.

Objective. This article compares recent levels and trends in economic inequality in industrialized nations, largely those belonging to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. We also examine the effects of government policies and social spending efforts on inequality. Method. We use data from the Luxembourg Income Study and the U.S. Congressional Budget Office to measure disposable money income on an annual basis for 30 nations around the end of the 20th century. We also convert the incomes of a set of rich nations into real 2000 U.S. dollars, using a standard measure of purchasing power parity to examine absolute differences in income inequality. Results. The United States has the highest overall level of inequality of any rich OECD nation at the beginning of the 21st century. Moreover, increases in the dispersion of total household income in the United States have been as large as, or larger than, those experienced elsewhere between 1979 and 2002. Government policies and social spending have lesser effects in the United States than in any other rich nation, and both low spending and low wages have a great impact on the final income distribution, especially among the nonelderly. Conclusion. We speculate on the role policy plays in the final determination of income inequality. We argue that these differences cannot be explained by demography (single parents, immigrants, elders) but are more likely to be attributed to American institutions and lack of spending effort on behalf of low-income working families.

Our article utilizes variation across the 50 U.S. states to examine the relationship between public expenditures on children and child outcomes. We find that public expenditures on children are related to better child outcomes across a wide range of indicators including measures of child mortality, elementary school test scores, and adolescent behavioral outcomes. States that spend more on children have better child outcomes even after taking into account a number of potential confounding influences. Our results are robust to numerous variations in model specifications and to the inclusion of proxies for unobserved characteristics of states. Our sensitivity analyses suggest that the results we present may be conservative, yet our findings reveal a strong relationship between state generosity toward children and children's well-being.

The contributions in this Explorations section reveal differences across countries in the support systems of the elderly and shows that poverty among the elderly has not been eliminated, even in rich countries. Social insurance systems with an adequate minimum benefit do the best job of avoiding poverty among elderly women. Poverty rates among older women are much higher than for older men and much higher in the US compared to other nations in the Luxembourg Income Study. Most nonmarried elderly women in the US live alone and are heavily dependent on Social Security, while in the Republic of Korea the majority of elderly women live with children. Families provide most of the support for elderly in the Republic of Korea, including financial support and daily care when needed.

Trends in parental time invested in children since the 1960s are examined in 16 industrialized countries using time-use survey data. Despite the time pressures that confront today's families, parents appear to be devoting more time to children than they did 40 years ago. Results also suggest that mothers continue to devote more time to childcare than fathers, but the gender gap has been reduced. The consistency of these results across countries suggests a global trend toward an increase in parental time investment in children. Multivariate analysis of trends in parental time by type of activity was undertaken for Canada. It revealed a significant increase in parental time even after controlling for changes in the demographic composition of the population during the past few decades.

This article analyzes patterns of time use of older adults in the following nine countries: Austria, Canada, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Using time-use surveys carried out in these countries between 1987 and 1992, the article describes country-level variations in the aggregate patterns of time use of older adults and examines changes in the patterns of time use associated with aging. The results suggest that there are large cross-national differences in the patterns of time use of older adults but remarkable similarities in the age patterns of activities. Results also suggest that a large fraction of time freed up by retirement from the labor market is reallocated to passive activities.

In recent years, the big news in Social Security reform has been the program’s fiscal concerns. In light of concerns about both program costs and benefit adequacy, we propose an effective and relatively inexpensive targeted program to provide a minimally adequate floor to old-­age income through the Social Security system. This minimum benefit plan would provide a cost-­effective method for reducing elder poverty to very low levels. A key element is that the benefit would not count toward income eligibility thresholds for other social programs. Other aspects include an income-­tested benefit that would bring beneficiaries to 100 percent of the poverty threshold; application by filing of a 1040 income tax return; and setting of benefit levels and distribution through the Social Security Administration.

Sociologists and other social scientists in rich countries have long been concerned with economic and social deprivation. This entry addresses both the nature and causes of poverty from a sociological perspective and the way that sociologists and social scientists have measured poverty in national and cross-national contexts. Sociologists tend to focus on external (to the individual) explanations of poverty, such as those based on place, class, gender, economic power, and related contextual variables. Thus, poverty is almost always relative to place and context. Poverty measurement, social indicators, and other measures of deprivation are also discussed in some detail and the most recent relevant literature is cited.

Like the other chapters in this volume of the Handbook of Income Distribution (and its predecessor), the aim of this chapter is to provide a comprehensive review of a particular area of research. We examine the literature on post-1970 trends in poverty and income inequality, up to 2010 or 2011 in most countries. We provide measures of the levels and trends in each of these areas, as well as an integrated discussion of empirical choices made in the measurement of poverty, overall income inequality, and inequality among those with top incomes.

This article is a revision of the previous edition article by A.B. Atkinson, volume 11, pp. 7265–7271, © 2001, Elsevier Ltd.

In this article we examine gender gaps in poverty in the United States and seven other Western nations, asking how single motherhood, market earnings, and welfare states affect gender inequality in poverty. Our analyses speak to the theoretical literature emphasizing the gendered logic and effects of welfare states and labor markets. We find that single-mother families have higher poverty rates than other families in all nations except Sweden, though the degree of their poverty varies. Regarding welfare states, we find that the tax and transfer systems in Sweden and the Netherlands most effectively reduce gender inequality in poverty. Gender inequality in market earnings is worst in the Netherlands and Australia, though among full-time workers, Australia has the lowest gender gap. We conclude by discussing the policy issues raised by our findings.

Economic independence is an important indicator of the transition to adulthood. This article portrays the level of economic in dependence among young adults, ages eighteen to thirty-two, in seven industrialized countries. The cross-national variations the authors uncover help one understand how work, family, and comparative income packages affect economic self-sufficiency. In all countries, young women are less able than are young men to become economically independent through market work alone. The ability to support a family is affected more by government transfers than the ability to support oneself. The authors also find that family support through additional income, the provision of housing, and caring labor as well as decisions to have roommates are clearly important to the economic well-being of young adults. In closing, the authors suggest several avenues for future research.

Constantly increasing family social and economic inequality has a large tangible cost—that of diverging destinies for children as witnessed by trends toward lower social mobility and less equal life chances for children. In a society that prides itself on equality of opportunity, this is indeed an unfortunate development. In this commentary, I begin with a simple socioeconomic dichotomy of how babies are brought into the world depending on parents’ life course . I then discuss recent inequality-related trends that are producing different outcomes for families at the bottom and the top of the economic and social hierarchy, as well as what these patterns mean for intergenerational mobility (IGM). The commentary closes with some reflections on parenting, opportunity, mobility, policy, and diverging destinies.

By marrying a “top-down” national income-based approach with a “bottom-up” microdata approach, and a national income accounting perspective with a theoretical perspective, this article attempts to provide a unified framework for aggregating income types to create an income definition that enables researchers to make valid comparisons across nations. An examination of several national household income surveys shows that it is next to impossible to quantify all elements of any new definition in a way that makes international comparisons easy. The framework nonetheless illuminates the differences in current practice and allows researchers to assess the effect of those differences on income distribution measures.

A significant minority of poor families care for children with disabilities and chronic illnesses. This study is among the first to explore private costs resulting from children's disabilities among low-income families. We find that almost half of the sample of California AFDC families with special-needs children incurred some direct, out-of pocket expenses in the preceding month, and about 20% incurred total costs exceeding $100. We also estimate lost employment income among low-income mothers caring for children with disabilities. We conclude that both out-of pocket expenses and foregone earnings represent a substantial burden for many low-income families with special-needs children, and we discuss the policy implications of these findings. Key Words: child care, disability, handicap, poverty, welfare. Chronic mental or physical impairments in childhood can impose substantial private costs on families. The costs of special medical care, therapeutic and educational services, transportation, and other special-needs services can constitute a particularly heavy burden for poor families. In addition, the time required for the child's care and the limited availability and/or high cost of specialized child care may reduce parents' ability to sustain paid employment. The extent of these direct and indirect costs, their impact on families' economic well-being, and the role of public programs in offsetting them, are at the heart of current debates about reforms to joint federal-state welfare programs, including Medicaid, the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, and public assistance (formerly Aid to Families with Dependent Children or AFDC, now Temporary Assistance for Needy Families or TANF). Although information about the private costs of children's disabilities is relevant to current policy debates, we know relatively little about the economic impact of a special-needs child on a low-income family. This paper investigates the private costs of disability. Specifically, we look at economic costs experienced by current and recent welfare recipients in California who care for children with special needs. We examine the extent to which these families experience out-of-pocket costs and the factors that predict higher costs. We also examine indirect costs, in the form of maternal employment reductions. Finally, we consider the impact of costs on the extent and the depth of family poverty. BACKGROUND AND PRIOR RESEARCH Childhood Disabilities and Poverty Although estimates vary considerably, most research suggests that about 5 to 7% of children experience a condition that results in some impairment or limitation of their ability to engage in the usual activities of a child their age (Anon, Loprest, & Steuerle, 1996). Although disabilities are not confined to any race, class, or income level, children in low-income families are more likely to suffer chronic illnesses and disabilities than their more affluent counterparts (McNeil, 1993; Newacheck & McManus, 1988). Newacheck and McManus estimate that children in low-income families face a 40% higher risk of being disabled. The higher prevalence of disabilities among children who are poor is due in part to income-- related risk factors such as environmental compromises and inadequate health care. A child's disability or health problems might also increase the risk that a family will be poor. The economic impact of caring for children with disabilities and illnesses is typically calculated using a human capital approach. This model assumes that the care of exceptional children imposes on families both direct costs, in the form of medical and other rehabilitative or restorative services (including hospitalization, outpatient care, home health care, medications, and rehabilitative services and devices), and indirect costs resulting from the loss of productive output by the caregiver (e.g., the loss of earnings due to increases in the extent and intensity of caregiving responsibilities) (Hodgson & Meiners, 1982; Jacobs & McDermott, 1989). …

In recent years there has been increasing interest in the topic of income distribution in a cross-national context. A secular growth of income inequality has taken place over the past two decades affecting almost every rich nation, matched by the growth in comparable household income inequality data which makes these types of comparisons possible. While clear patterns of disposable income inequality differences are found in both level and trend, we are still a long way from explaining why these differences came about, whether they will continue to grow or stabilize, and what the social consequences of these changes might be.

Children in poor families are at heightened risk for disabilities and chronic health problems, and care for these children can impose substantial costs on families and public programs. Although the prevalence and costs of disabilities among poor children have important policy implications, they have been largely overlooked in research on poverty and welfare and on the costs of childhood disabilities. This article analyzes the prevalence of childhood disabilities and chronic illness among welfare recipient families in California and the probability families caring for these children experience higher out‐of‐pocket costs and material hardship than do other similar families.

Risks of involuntary job losses among male workers are examined with data spanning 1968 to 1992 from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. We find that the incidence of involuntary job losses among prime-age men with strong links to the labor market rose substantially over the period under investigation and about as much for college-educated and older workers as for less educated and less experienced workers. The only labor market group not sharing the burden of higher job-loss risks were government workers. Overall, involuntary job losses were distributed more evenly across skill groups during periods of macroeconomic expansion than during periods of contraction.

This article reviews the evidence on cross-national comparisons of earnings and income inequality in OECD countries. It begins with a series of stylized facts which are then examined and supported by recent studies in the field. Economic, demographic, institutional and policy-related influences on earnings and income distribution are reviewed. The paper concludes with a call for more work on empirically testable structural models of household income distribution.

We perform the first comprehensive fiscal incidence analyses in Brazil and the US, including direct cash and food transfers, targeted housing and heating subsidies, public spending on education and health, and personal income, payroll, corporate income, property, and expenditure taxes. In both countries, primary spending is close to 40 percent of GDP. The US achieves higher redistribution through direct taxes and transfers, primarily due to underutilization of the personal income tax in Brazil and the fact that Brazil’s highly progressive cash and food transfer programs are small while larger transfer programs are less progressive. However, when health and non-tertiary education spending are added to income using the government cost approach, the two countries achieve similar levels of redistribution. This result may be a reflection of better-off households in Brazil opting out of public services due to quality concerns rather than a result of government effort to make spending more equitable.

This paper uses longitudinal data to estimate cohort changes in the earnings trajectories of young adult males. Levels of earnings are uniformly lower for male workers turning 21 between 1980 and 1991 than in 1970–1979, although rates of earnings growth are roughly comparable. Among males turning 21 before 1980, six in 10 (60%) of all men and seven in 10 (71%) college-educated men attained earnings levels by age 30 that were at least twice the poverty level. Corresponding fractions for workers turning 21 between 1980 and 1991 were considerably lower (42% and 56%). Recent cohorts from all demographic subgroups appeared to have more difficulty than older cohorts in attaining middle-class earnings.

(1996). America’s Income Inequality: Where Do We Stand? Challenge: Vol. 39, No. 5, pp. 45-53.