Cross Country and Intergenerational Comparison of Income and Wealth using Luxembourg Income Study (LIS

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyse the income and wealth among the elderly (65-75 years old) and people in their prime age (35-45 years old) in a cross-country comparison. Which group is more likely to be at risk of poverty? The novelty of this paper is that includes not only the disposable income (defined as the sum of total revenues from earnings, capital income, private transfers, public transfer net of taxes, social security contributions and other obligations such as alimony) but also a proxy for the net wealth including the net value of the dwelling in the analysis. Within each age group, we will identify the subgroup most at risk of poverty (based on gender, citizenship status, education level). We selected the countries that have information on wealth from the last wave of LIS, centered around the year 2010: Colombia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, South Africa and Japan (with available data from 2008). The paper will contribute to the existing literature through a cross-countries comparative analysis of income and wealth from an intergenerational perspective.