Gender, leeftijd en armoede: een vergelijkende analyse van TIP-curves in België en Nederland

Abstract

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.