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Microsimulation as a modelling tool in social sciences has increased in importance over the last few decades. Once restricted to a handful of universities and government departments, as a scientific field it has achieved a new dynamism during the last decade. As computing power increases and data availability becomes more widespread, microsimulation models can be put to hitherto unprecedented uses. Edited by leading experts in the field, this book illustrates recent advances, methodologies and uses of socioeconomic microsimulation in social sciences around the world. It does so by analysing.

Le gouvernement fédéral belge a mis en place une « prime de retraite », c'est-à-direune allocation supplémentaire pour ceux, âgés d'au moins 62 ans, qui retardentleur départ à la retraite. Dans cet article, on simule l'effet de cette prime de retraiteen employant un modèle de pensions micro-économiques (MEP). Une premièreconclusion est que le système de primes de retraite (ou « bonus de pension ») vaeffectivement faire baisser la taxe implicite sur l'allongement du travail et inciter,selon toute vraisemblance, les salariés à retarder leur départ retraite et à rester pluslongtemps sur le marché du travail. En outre, il semblerait que ce système soit conçude telle manière que la prime bénéficierait en particulier aux titulaires des pensionsles plus basses : les femmes et les anciens salariés au bas de l'échelle hiérarchique.Finalement, l'article montre que l'effet marginal d'une allocation supplémentairefixe est décroissant. Une augmentation de la prime avec l'âge pourraitcontrebalancer cet effet et même favoriser davantage le maintien des salariés âgéssur le marché du travail.

PurposeThis paper aims to present a multi‐dimensional measure of poverty. The proposed method has been applied to the Panel Set of Belgian Households dataset for Belgium for the years between 1994 and 2000.Design/methodology/approachFirst, a common model is decided upon by exploratory factor analysis, and applied by confirmatory factor analysis. Cluster analysis (CA) is then used to separate the multi‐dimensional poor. Finally, the possible causes of multi‐dimensional poverty are surfaced by estimating a discrete duration model.FindingsThe proposed method reveals three dimensions of poverty: "material deprivation", "social deprivation" and "psychological health". Between 9 and 11 per cent of the representative sample of Belgian individuals are poor. The paper also identifies causes of poverty, including not having a job, not having the Belgian nationality, having a poor health or a disability, being lower educated, experiencing financial poverty, being divorced or widowed, living in the Walloon or Brussels regions, and having a bad psychological health.Research limitations/implicationsResearch implications include the use of polychoric and tetrachoric correlations as a starting point of factor analysis, as well as the combination of factor analysis and CA.Originality/valueThe paper proposes an alternative multi‐dimensional measure of poverty. It argues that previous measures may suffer from categorisation errors and suggests a solution to this problem. The advantages of the proposed method are that all information is used to disentangle the poor from the non‐poor and that dimensions of poverty are defined using the correlations between deprivations. Finally, the paper identifies "psychological health" as one of the dimensions of poverty.

This paper proposes an alternative way of measuring multidimensional poverty. Based upon a definition of poverty, it reviews how multidimensional poverty is measured today. Next, an alternative method is proposed and discussed. This method is then applied to the Belgian PSBH-data of 1998. In a first step, principal component analysis is used to surface three dimensions of poverty. These dimensions are roughly defined as "weak economic integration", "material poverty" and "low socio-psychological well-being". For each household, component scores are calculated. In the second step, households are grouped on the basis of these scores. This is done by cluster analysis. About 8% of the 1998-sample of households can be considered poon The characteristics of these poor households are considered next, and a comparison with low-income households is made.

Conventional techniques for assessing income poverty fall short in grasping simultaneously incidence, intensity and inequality of poverty. TIP-curves, by contrast, constitute a convenient tool for representing these three dimensions in one diagram. In this article we provide TIP-curves for households with varying gender and age composition by means of data from the Belgian and Dutch samples of the ECHP. In the case of Belgium, gender in particular and old age to a lesser degree tend to lead to increased poverty incidence and intensity. The Belgian findings contrast with the Dutch ones both in the sense that the younger people run a higher risk of poverty in the Netherlands and in the sense that differences in poverty risk are almost nonexistent among Dutch elderly. The observed differences are linked to variations in the national pension systems. In contrast to the Netherlands, the combination of Bismarckian benefits and little generous minimum allowances in Belgium leads to a precarious situation for elderly women.

Informal care is often accompanied by a reduction or abandonment of professional activity by the caregiver. Therefore, caregiving may be associated with a lower pension for the former caregiver than for people without care obligations. There is a large gender difference in informal care responsibilities, and this may contribute to the gender pension gap. As the impact of care-related labour market decisions depends on the design of the pension system, we carry out a cross-country comparison, in which we analyse the impact of care obligations in countries with high (Luxembourg), middle (Liechtenstein, Belgium, Portugal) and low (Slovenia) gender pension gaps. Using typical-case simulation models, we examine how the impact of care-related events is mediated by pension rules, given women's labour market decisions. To what extent does working part time or interrupting one's career at the age of 30 or 54 reduce the later pension benefit? How are these losses mitigated by pension credits that are conditional on caregiving? We find that the mitigating effects are generally strongest in Belgium, followed by Luxembourg and Slovenia. Such credits hardly exist in Portugal, while in Liechtenstein they have only a small impact. However, the consequences of either working part time or interrupting work can also be mitigated via general rules in the system that are unrelated to caregiving (such as in Portugal and Liechtenstein). They can, on the other hand, be aggravated by the existence of higher accrual rates for individuals who extend their careers, as in Luxembourg and Slovenia.

This article explores how the Gender Pension Gap (GPG) - the relative difference in average pension received by men and women - might evolve in the future in various European countries, given past, current, and projected future labour market behaviour and earnings of women and men, and current pension regulations. The GPG reflects career inequalities between women and men, though these are partly mitigated by the redistributive impact of the public retirement pensions. They are further mitigated by survivor benefits. This study aims to document both mechanisms in the projections of the GPG. As the GPG varies widely across European countries, we analyse countries with a high (Luxembourg), high and low middle (Belgium and Switzerland Portugal), and low (Slovenia) GPG. We find that the GPG will fall significantly in all five countries over the coming decades. The fundamental drivers behind this development are discussed. In addition to the base scenario, we simulate two variants to show the impact of the Gender Pension Coverage Gap and of survivor pensions. Additionally, we project the GPG if current labour market gender gaps were to remain at their present level, and, conversely, if these were to disappear overnight. These alternative scenarios, one of which also serves as a robustness test, suggest that the future decline of the GPG is largely the result of labour market developments that have already happened during the past decades.

The Ageing Working Group (AWG) assesses the long-term sustainability of public finances by presenting a set of public expenditure projections for all Member States, including projections on pensions. These projections are based on demographic forecasts and agreed assumptions on key economic variables. The adequacy and sustainability of pensions are, however, two sides of the same coin and a full assessment of pensions therefore requires integration. This paper applies the dynamic micro-simulation model MIDAS to assess the consequences of the AWG projections and assumptions on the future adequacy of public pensions in Belgium, Germany and Italy. A comparison of the simulation results suggests that the impact of the parametric pension reform in Belgium and Germany and the systemic reform in Italy on (re) distribution and the risk of low-income go in the same direction, but that the magnitudes differ. Indeed, the impact is stronger in Italy than in Belgium and Germany. In the latter especially, important changes safeguarding the sustainability of the pension system seem to have had a relatively small impact on the risk of low-income among pension benefit recipients in particular.