Suchergebnisse

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.

This article presents an analysis of the process of commensuration in the field of pension policy. It looks at the consequences of reducing disparate and variable characteristics of pension systems to a limited set of standardized policy indicators. Although techniques of scoring complex systems through common indicators are applied today in fields as diverse as scientific research, human resources management and international development, this article is the first to examine the process of commensuration in the field of pensions. The empirical analysis looks at three cases where international institutions use standardized pension indicators to score and rank the performance of national pension systems. The first case examines the use of replacement rates in the international benchmarking of pension systems. We then focus on how rankings diverge considerably depending upon which function of the pension system is under assessment. Finally, we discuss how the public–private mix of a pension system affects the ranking of pension adequacy due to the way in which second and third pillar pensions are measured. The cases illustrate some of the problems associated with scoring and ranking the outcomes of unique and complex pension systems by means of internationally standardized indicators.

In comparative European surveys it is common practice to exclude elderly people living in collective households from the sampling frame. This article examines the implications of this practice for the validity and international comparability of indicators in the Open Method of Coordination on Pensions (Pensions OMC). Analyses using data from the Belgian Datawarehouse Labour Market and Social Protection show that the resulting bias is negligible for average equivalent pension income, but that poverty among pensioners is underestimated by 9%. In subgroups such as the oldest pensioners the underestimation is even larger. Due to the major international differences in the percentage of elderly in collective households, this bias also jeopardizes the international comparability of poverty indicators in the Pensions OMC. This renders the identification of best practices in the Pensions OMC unreliable. Furthermore, it may nourish an unconstructive politics of indicators which in the longer term undermines the credibility and effectiveness of the Pensions OMC.

This article investigates the impact of socio-demographic life course variables on pension incomes of divorced women who received a pension for the first time in 2005. It uses administrative population-level data from the Belgian Pension and National Register, which have been linked in the Datawarehouse Labour Market and Social Protection. Our regression analyses show that women who were married for a longer time receive lower first pillar pensions and have access to second pillar pensions less often. Among divorced women with children, both having more than two children and caring for young children outside the marriage lead to lower first pillar pensions and to lower chances of a second pillar pension. Even though the explanatory power of these socio-demographic variables remains limited as compared to other variables such as the scheme in which pension rights have been built, it does contribute to a better understanding of the variation of pension income within schemes and within this cohort of divorced women.