How does attrition affect estimates of persistent poverty rates? The case of EU-SILC.

Stephen P. Jenkins, Philippe Van Kerm

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

Abstract

Over the last decade and through its Open Method of Coordination, the EU has agreed a set of common objectives for monitoring and measurement of social protection and social inclusion, together with a set of indicators to assess national and EU progress towards these goals. Among the primary indicators of social inclusion is the persistent at-risk-of-poverty rate, defined as the proportion of persons in a country who are at risk of income poverty in the current year and who were at risk of income poverty in at least 2 of the preceding 3 years. Evidence about poverty persistence is an important complement to information about poverty prevalence at a point in time: it is widely agreed that poverty is worse for an individual, the longer he or she experiences it. Eurostat derives estimates of persistent at-risk-of-poverty rates using samples from the longitudinal component of EU-SILC in which the fortunes of individuals are tracked over 4 consecutive years. Because not all of the individuals present in the first sample year provide 4 years of income data ? there is attrition ? estimates of persistent at-risk-of-poverty measures may not be reliable. In this chapter, we analyse the extent to which this is the case, and how the potential problems vary across EU Member States.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationMonitoring social inclusion in Europe
Place of PublicationLuxembourg
PublisherOffice of the European Union
Pages401-418
Number of pages0
ISBN (Print)978-92-79-43623-9
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2017

Keywords

  • EU-SILC
  • poverty
  • social inclusion

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