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The Greek economic crisis resulted in a decline in household disposable income by more than 40%. Even though all population groups lost income in absolute terms, some were substantially more severely hit by the crisis. The paper examines the effect of the crisis on the population shares, the mean incomes and the level of poverty of various population groups using SILC data for the period 2007-2016. The population is partitioned according to four criteria: socioeconomic group of the household head, presence of unemployed individuals in the household, age of the population member and household type. When “anchored” poverty lines and distribution-sensitive poverty indices are employed the level of poverty rises to incredibly high levels. When the poverty lines used are “relative”, the poverty rate does not change substantially but when distribution-sensitive indices are used the increase in poverty is very substantial. The most interesting results are related to the changes in the structure of poverty. The crisis was associated with a very substantial increase in unemployment. Unemployment protection in Greece was inadequate while there was no “benefit of last resort”. As a result, the relative position of households with unemployed members (and, especially, with unemployed heads) deteriorated sharply, while their contribution to aggregate poverty skyrocketed. Unlike what is often claimed in the Greek public discourse, the relative position of pensioner-headed households improved, although they also experienced a considerable decline in their living standards.

Supplemental material, Kittel_online_appendix_682 for The Transmission of Work Centrality within the Family in a Cross-Regional Perspective by Gerbert Kraaykamp, Zeynep Cemalcilar, Jale Tosun, Bernhard Kittel, Fabian Kalleitner and Panos Tsakloglou in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science

The Greek crisis was the deepest and longest ever recorded in an OECD country in the postwar period. The output declined by over a quarter, the disposable income by more than 40%, while the unemployment rate exceeded 27%. This paper explores the effects of the crisis on the level and the structure of aggregate inequality and poverty using the data of EU-SILC for the period 2007-2014. The results show that inequality rose but the magnitude of the change varies across indices. The recorded increases are larger when the indices used are relatively more sensitive to changes close to the bottom of the income distribution. Unlike claims often made in the public discourse, the elderly improved their relative position in the income distribution while there was substantial deterioration in the relative position of the enlarged group of the unemployed. The contribution of disparities between educational groups to aggregate inequality declined while that of disparities between socio-economic groups rose. All poverty indicators suggest that poverty increased substantially, especially when “anchored” poverty lines are used. Substantial changes are observed regarding the structure of poverty. Despite an increase in the population share of households headed by pensioners, their contribution to aggregate poverty declined considerably, with a corresponding increase in the contribution of households headed by unemployed persons. These changes are starker when distribution-sensitive poverty indices are utilised.

We analyze poverty dynamics in Europe for the periods 1994‐2001 and 2005‐2008 using, respectively, the data of the ECHP and the EU‐SILC. We focus on poverty profiles depicting poverty duration, recurrence and persistence and, then, on the trigger events (income, demographic, labour market) associated with movements into and out of poverty, using a modified version of the Bane and Ellwood (1986) framework of event analysis. Multivariate logit analysis is employed in order to identify the socioeconomic factors affecting transitions into and out of poverty. Cross‐country differences, as well as differences in poverty dynamic trends between the two periods, are examined. Poverty profiles show a consistency with the welfare regime typology during the period 1994‐2001, but the results are not entirely clear in the pre‐crisis period. The results differ significantly across countries when the events associated with poverty exits and entries are examined in detail, although five general patterns emerge: a) In both periods, income events and especially changes in head's labor earnings seem to be highly associated with poverty transitions in all countries, but more so in the Mediterranean countries, while demographic events seem to be relatively more important in Northern countries; b) Employment events are more important for ending a poverty spell than unemployment events for starting a poverty spell; c) The importance of second income earners (finding a job or increasing earnings) for bringing the household out of poverty was established in both periods; d) The demographic events have a stronger effect in the EU‐SILC than the ECHP for poverty entries and weaker for poverty exits; e) The socioeconomic characteristics of the household and the household head present a rather similar patterns across countries in both periods examined.

The paper examines the degree of overlap between people who experience chronic material deprivation and those who face long term income poverty (longitudinal poverty) in 22 EU countries for the period 2005-2008, using the longitudinal information of the EU-SILC. In order to approximate chronic material deprivation we use a three-step index of chronic cumulative disadvantage. In the first step, population members deprived in three domains of static material deprivation are identified. In the second step, the extent of cumulative disadvantage of these individuals is examined and, in the final step, persons suffering from chronic cumulative disadvantage over the period 2005-2008 are identified, by aggregating the information on static cumulative disadvantage in each year covered. Then, we examine the overlap between chronic material deprivation and (smoothed) longitudinal poverty. The results reveal considerable differences across EU countries regarding both the level and the structure of the population at high risk of chronic material deprivation and longitudinal poverty. Finally, each country's population is subdivided into mutually exhaustive and exclusive groups according to the characteristics of the population member, according to seven alternative criteria: Sex, age employment status and education level of the household's reference person, age and education of the individual and household type. The results of the analysis reveal a number of qualitative similarities and quantitative differences across EU member states. Nevertheless, in almost all countries under examination, lack of full employment by the individual or, especially, by the household's reference person, low educational qualifications, being a member of a lone parent household or living in a household headed by a woman or by a very young or, to a lesser extent, an elderly person, lead to high risks of chronic material deprivation as well as longitudinal poverty.

This paper examines the distributional effects of publicly provided education services in Greece during the tumultuous period of 2009-2013; that is before the crisis erupted and at its peak. We adopt two approaches in estimating the monetary value of public education transfers. The ‘objective’ distributional effects of public education are measured through static incidence analysis under the assumption that the value of public transfers to the beneficiaries is equal to the average cost of producing the corresponding public services. The ‘perceived’ distributional effects of public education are measured via demand analysis through which we derive a money metric of households’ willingness to pay for public education. The juxtaposition of the two approaches yields empirical results which are valuable to policy makers.

Imputed rental income of homeowners is tax exempt in most countries, despite the long-standing arguments recommending its inclusion in the tax base, on both equity and efficiency grounds. The current fiscal crisis revived interest towards this form of taxation. The paper investigates the fiscal and distributional consequences of including homeowners� imputed rent, net of mortgage interest and maintenance costs, in taxable income as any cash income source that extends consumption opportunities. Three scenarios are analysed in six European countries: in the first imputed rent is included in the taxable income of homeowners, while at the same time existing mortgage interest tax relief schemes and taxation of cadastral incomes are abolished. In two further revenue-neutral scenarios, the additional tax revenue raised through the taxation of imputed rent is redistributed to taxpayers, either through a proportional rebate or a lump-sum tax credit. Results show how including net imputed rent in the tax base might affect inequality in each of the countries considered. Housing taxation appears to be a promising avenue for raising additional revenues, or lightening taxation of labour, with no inequality-increasing side-effects.

The present paper examines the short-run distributional impact of public education in Greece using the micro-data of the 2004/5 Household Budget Survey. The aggregate distributional impact of public education is found to be progressive although the incidence varies according to the level of education under examination. In-kind transfers of public education services in the fields of primary and secondary education lead to a considerable decline in relative inequality, whereas transfers in the field of tertiary education appear to have a small distributional impact whose size and sign depend on the treatment of tertiary education students living away from the parental home. When absolute inequality indices are used instead of the relative ones, primary education transfers retain their progressivity, while secondary education transfers appear almost neutral and tertiary education transfers become quite regressive. Finally, we use the EUROMOD tax-benefit microsimulation model in order to estimate the first-round distributional effects of a graduate tax imposed on the current stock of graduates. The main policy implications of the findings are outlined in the concluding section.

Non-cash incomes from either private or public sources can have substantial effects on the distribution of economic welfare. However, standard approaches to inequality measurement either neglect them or take into account only selected non-monetary items. Using data for Greece in the mid 2000s we show that it is possible to incorporate a comprehensive list of non-monetary components into the analysis of income inequality. The results indicate that inequality declines sharply when we move from the distribution of disposable monetary income to the distribution of full income, that includes both cash and non-cash incomes. Both private and public non-cash incomes are far more equally distributed than monetary income, but the inequality-reducing effect of publicly provided in-kind services is stronger. The structure of inequality changes when non-cash incomes are included in the concept of resources, but the effects are not dramatic. Non-cash incomes appear to accrue more heavily to younger and older individuals, thus reducing differences across age groups.

The paper analyzes the effects of individual and household characteristics on current poverty status, while controlling for initial conditions, past poverty status and unobserved heterogeneity in 14 European Countries for the period 1994-2000, using the European Community Household Panel. The distinction between true state dependence and individual heterogeneity has very important policy implications, since if the former is the main cause of poverty it is of paramount importance to break the "vicious circle" of poverty using income-supporting social policies, whereas if it is the latter anti-poverty policies should focus primarily on education, training, development of personal skills and other labour market oriented policies. The empirical results are similar in qualitative but rather different in quantitative terms across EU countries. State dependence remains significant in all specifications, even after controlling for unobserved heterogeneity or when removing possible endogeneity bias.

The paper examines the mobility into and out of poverty and identifies the determinants of poverty spell beginnings and endings in 14 European Countries for the period 1994-2000, using the European Community Household Panel. The first part of the paper offers a snapshot of poverty mobility in Europe calculating the entry and exit poverty rates, along with the conditional, to the duration of spell, exit probabilities and re-entry rates to poverty. In the second part observed characteristics of the household and the household head are examined in order to identify the determinants of the transitions into and out of poverty, taking into account unobserved heterogeneity across individuals and duration dependence. Multivariate discrete hazard analysis is used and the duration dependence is captured with time dummies. In almost all the 14 EU Member-States examined, the probability of exiting (re-entering) poverty is inversely related to the duration of the poverty (non-poverty) spell. The effect is significant to the inclusion of variables capturing observed heterogeneity (socioeconomic characteristics of the household head and the household and particular employment and demographic events), as well as to the inclusion of a random effects factor capturing the unobserved heterogeneity across individuals. With regards to the socio-economic variables, in most countries, households headed by young or elderly individuals, as well as households with dependent children are in higher risk of staying longer in poverty. In many cases, event variables improve the model significantly and highlight the mechanisms that bring individuals into and out of poverty.