Child poverty in high- and middle-income countries: lessons from the newly expanded Luxembourg income study

Janet C. Gornick, Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY)
Markus Jantti, Åbo Akademi University

This paper will use data from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) to assess variation in child poverty outcomes across 16 high- and middle-income countries. Our overall aim is to analyze the interplay between parents’ market income and the adjustments to that income that come from taxes and transfers. We will assess how children’s risk of being poor (both absolutely and relatively) – and the intensity of their poverty -- varies by family type (i.e., single-parent, two-parent, and other families) and by features of their parents’ labor market attachment. The paper will include 11 high-income countries from Europe and North America, and 5 middle-income countries in Latin America. This paper will be among the first to compare children’s economic wellbeing in Europe and the United States, relative to Latin America.