Gornick Janet C, Sierminska Eva, Smeeding Timothy M
The Graduate Center of the City University of New York and the Luxembourg Income Study, New York, NY 10016-4309, USA.
J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci. 2009 May;64(3):402-14. doi: 10.1093/geronb/gbn045. Epub 2009 Feb 10.
We assess the income and wealth packages of older women's (age 65+ years) households and the extent to which low income is paired with low wealth, across a group of six high-income countries.
We use data on income and net worth from the Luxembourg Wealth Study, a new cross-national microdatabase. We define income poverty as having household income less than 50% of the national median and asset poverty as holding financial assets equivalent to less than 6 months of income at the poverty threshold.
Older women typically have less income than do members of younger households at the national median, but their wealth holdings are generally much higher than their country's median wealth holdings. Older women's households in the United States report the highest net worth across these countries, in part because older American women have comparatively high rates of homeownership. However, American older women are also substantially more likely to be income poor. They also report high levels of asset poverty, as do women across all our comparison countries, with Sweden as a partial exception.
Further research is needed to identify the most vulnerable subgroups, to integrate analyses of necessary expenditures, and to assess policy implications.
我们评估了六个高收入国家中65岁及以上老年女性家庭的收入和财富状况，以及低收入与低财富并存的程度。
我们使用了卢森堡财富研究中的收入和净值数据，这是一个新的跨国微观数据库。我们将收入贫困定义为家庭收入低于国家中位数的50%，将资产贫困定义为持有相当于贫困线以下6个月收入的金融资产。
在全国中位数水平上，老年女性的收入通常比年轻家庭的成员少，但她们的财富持有量通常远高于国家的中位数财富持有量。在这些国家中，美国老年女性家庭的净资产最高，部分原因是美国老年女性的住房拥有率相对较高。然而，美国老年女性也更有可能陷入收入贫困。她们还报告了高水平的资产贫困，我们所有比较国家的女性都是如此，瑞典有部分例外。
需要进一步研究以确定最脆弱的亚群体，整合必要支出的分析，并评估政策影响。
