Pensioners in Poverty: The Impact of Benefits-in-Kind on Pensioner Incomes and Poverty Measures in Australia, Ireland and the UK

Abstract

Cross-national studies of pensioner income and poverty have widened the definition of income to take account of factors such as taxation, home ownership and government services to produce comparative rankings of welfare generosity reflecting the reality of pensioners' experience. One area absent from current research is an exploration of the impact of benefits-in-kind on income and poverty measures. This article starts to address that gap. It explores the availability of benefits-in-kind across a sample of Western countries and examines in detail the impact of such benefits on measures of income, poverty and cross-national comparisons for two hypothetical pensioner households in the three countries (Australia, Ireland and the UK) which appear to make most use of such benefits. It suggests that including benefits-in-kind in measures of income will raise a proportion of pensioners in these countries above national poverty lines and in Ireland and Australia will assist in meeting adequacy standards. The impact on cross-national rankings is marginal although this calculation is fraught with difficulties. The article concludes by suggesting that further in-depth research on a larger number of countries involving a wider variety of households would be beneficial for cross-national comparisons and national policy-making.