Older Women

1
Older Womens Income and Wealth Packages The
Five-Legged Stool in Cross-National Perspective.

• Janet C. Gornick
• City University of New York and Luxembourg Income
  Study
• Eva Sierminska
• Luxembourg Income Study
• Timothy M. Smeeding
• Syracuse University and Luxembourg Income Study
• The Luxembourg Wealth Study
• Enhancing Comparative Research on Household
  Finance
• Banca dItalia, Roma, 5-7 July 2007

2
Data Used Luxembourg Wealth Study (LWS) surveys
five countries
Source LWS database.
3
Research Questions(first three to be discussed
in conference presentation)

• 1) How do older womens employment and retirement
  patterns vary across countries?
• 2) How do older womens income packages, and
  their wealth portfolios, vary across countries?
• 3) To what extent is low-income paired with
  limited wealth, and how does that vary across
  countries?
• 4) What do we know about the income and wealth
  holdings of poor older women, including both
  home-owners and renters?
• 5) How widespread is extreme hardship among older
  women in these countries, vis-à-vis both income
  and wealth?

4
Key methodological decisions

• Compare U.S. to Italy, Germany, Sweden, and U.K.
• Our core income measure is
• DPI earnings capital income private
  transfers (including occupational pensions)
  public transfers (social insurance and public
  assistance), net of taxes/contribs.
• Our core wealth measure is
• net wealth financial assets non-financial
  assets debt.
• Unit of analysis households including women age
  65.
• DPI and net wealth both adjusted for household
  size.
• Adjusted unadjusted / (square root of
  household size)
• Income poverty income lt 50 national median
  income.
• Asset poverty liquid assets lt 25 national
  median income (equivalent to six months at
  poverty level).

5
(No Transcript)
6
(No Transcript)
7
(No Transcript)
8
(No Transcript)
9
(No Transcript)
10
(No Transcript)
11
(No Transcript)
12
(No Transcript)
13
(No Transcript)