IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lis/liswps/355.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Social Transfers and Income Inequality in Old-age: A Multi-national Perspective?

Author

Listed:
  • Robert Brown
  • Steven Prus

Abstract

This paper examines variation in old-age income inequality between industrialized nations with modern welfare systems. The analysis of income inequality across countries with different retirement income systems provides a perspective on public pension policy choices and designs and their distributional implications. Because of the progressive nature of public pension programs, we hypothesize that there is an inverse relationship between the quality of public pension benefits and old-age income inequality -- that is, countries with comprehensive, universal, and generous public pension systems will exhibit more equal distributions of income in old age. Luxembourg Income Study data indeed show that cross-national variation in old-age income inequality is partly explained by differences in the percentage of seniors total income derived from public pension transfers. Sweden, for example, has the highest the level of government transfers and the lowest level of old-age income inequality, while Israel and the U.S. have the lowest levels of dependency on government transfers and the highest levels of income inequality. A notable exception is Canada where public transfers represent only a moderate portion of elderly income, yet old-age income inequality is relatively low. This suggests that other factors besides quality of public pension benefits play a role in differences in old-age income inequality across countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert Brown & Steven Prus, 2003. "Social Transfers and Income Inequality in Old-age: A Multi-national Perspective?," LIS Working papers 355, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
  • Handle: RePEc:lis:liswps:355
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.lisdatacenter.org/wps/liswps/355.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert Brown, 1998. "Social Security," North American Actuarial Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 2(2), pages 1-23.
    2. Timothy Smeeding & James Williamson, 2001. "Income Maintenance in Old Age: What Can be Learned from Cross-National Comparisons," LIS Working papers 263, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Scherger, Simone & Hagemann, Steffen & Hokema, Anna & Lux, Thomas, 2012. "Between privilege and burden: Work past retirement age in Germany and the UK," Working papers of the ZeS 04/2012, University of Bremen, Centre for Social Policy Research (ZeS).
    2. Maria Evandrou & Jane Falkingham & Tom Sefton, 2009. "The relationship between women’s work histories and incomes in later life in the UK, US and West Germany," CASE Papers case137, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE.
    3. Canback, Staffan & D'Agnese, Frank, 2007. "Where in the world is the market? : The income distribution approach to understanding consumer demand in emerging countries," MPRA Paper 13854, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Evandrou, Maria & Falkingham, Jane & Sefton, Tom, 2009. "The relationship between women’s work histories and incomes in later life in the UK, US and West Germany," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 43863, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Evandrou, Maria & Falkingham, Jane & Sefton, Tom, 2009. "The relationship between women's work histories and incomes in later life in the UK, US and West Germany," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 28243, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Maria Evandrou & Jane Falkingham & Tom Sefton, 2009. "Women’s family histories and incomes in later life in the UK, US and West Germany," CASE Papers case138, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE.
    2. Kee-Lee Chou & Siu-Yau Lee, 2018. "Superimpose Material Deprivation Study on Poverty Old Age People in Hong Kong Study," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 139(3), pages 1015-1036, October.
    3. James Williamson & Timothy Smeeding, 2004. "Sliding into Poverty? Cross-National Patterns of Income Source Change and Income Decay in Old Age," LIS Working papers 388, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    4. Disney, Richard & Whitehouse, Edward, 2002. "The economic well-being of older people in international perspective: a critical review," MPRA Paper 10398, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Unnikrishnan, Vidhya & Imai, Katsushi S., 2020. "Does the old-age pension scheme improve household welfare? Evidence from India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    6. Daniel Beland, 2004. "Pension Reform and Financial Investment in the United States and Canada," Social and Economic Dimensions of an Aging Population Research Papers 120, McMaster University.
    7. repec:ces:ifodic:v:10:y:2012:i:4:p:19074538 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Evandrou, Maria & Falkingham, Jane & Sefton, Tom, 2009. "Women's family histories and incomes in later life in the UK, US and West Germany," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 28242, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    9. repec:dau:papers:123456789/11143 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Burman, Leonard E. & Coe, Norma B. & Gale, William G., 1999. "Lump Sum Distributions from Pension Plans: Recent Evidence and Issues for Policy and Research," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 52(n. 3), pages 553-62, September.
    11. Philippe Jacques & Marie-Louise Leroux & Dalibor Stevanovic, 2021. "Poverty among the elderly: the role of public pension systems," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 28(1), pages 24-67, February.
    12. Syam Prasad, 2011. "Deprevation and vulnerability among elderly in India," Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai Working Papers 2011-013, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India.
    13. Van Vliet, Olaf & Been, Jim & Caminada, Koen & Goudswaard, Kees, 2011. "Pension reform and income inequality among the elderly in 15 European countries," MPRA Paper 32940, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Evandrou, Maria & Falkingham, Jane & Sefton, Tom, 2009. "The relationship between women’s work histories and incomes in later life in the UK, US and West Germany," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 43863, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    15. Sherry A. Glied, 2008. "Health Care Financing, Efficiency, and Equity," NBER Working Papers 13881, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Maria Evandrou & Jane Falkingham & Tom Sefton, 2009. "The relationship between women’s work histories and incomes in later life in the UK, US and West Germany," CASE Papers case137, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE.
    17. Kees Goudswaard & Olaf van Vliet & Jim Been & Koen Caminada, 2012. "Pensions and Income Inequality in Old Age," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 10(4), pages 21-26, December.
    18. Siu-Yau Lee & Kee-Lee Chou, 2016. "Trends in Elderly Poverty in Hong Kong: A Decomposition Analysis," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 129(2), pages 551-564, November.
    19. Evandrou, Maria & Falkingham, Jane & Sefton, Tom, 2009. "The relationship between women's work histories and incomes in later life in the UK, US and West Germany," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 28243, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    20. Burman, Leonard E. & Coe, Norma B. & Gale, William G., 1999. "Lump Sum Distributions From Pension Plans: Recent Evidence and Issues for Policy and Research," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 52(3), pages 553-562, September.
    21. Kees Goudswaard & Olaf van Vliet & Jim Been & Koen Caminada, 2012. "Pensions and Income Inequality in Old Age," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 10(04), pages 21-26, December.
    22. Evandrou, Maria & Falkingham, Jane & Sefton, Tom, 2009. "Women's family histories and incomes in later life in the UK, US and West Germany," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 43864, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:lis:liswps:355. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Piotr Paradowski (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lisprlu.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.