RELATIVE TO WHAT?: CROSS-NATIONAL PICTURE OF EUROPEAN POVERTY MEASURED BY REGIONAL, NATIONAL AND EUROPEAN STANDARDS

In this paper three methods of relativizations are used: (1) we apply the conventional poverty approach: the poor are those whose income remains below 60 percent of the national equivalent disposable income, (2) we collapse nations together into one data pool and calculate a poverty line for the EU, and (3) we decompose nation states into smaller units representing the poorest and richest areas. Within-nation differences seem to be more pronounced than differences between nations. In the Nordic countries incomes between regions as well as between individuals are more evenly distributed and, consequently, the national means are more representative for the whole countries. Moreover, the Nordic cluster, together with central Europe, is robust against the method of comparison. The method affects the Mediterranean countries. The use of the European poverty line leads to poverty rates two to three times higher than analyses based on national data. The regional variation in these countries is the widest...