Household Composition, Living Standards, and “Needs”. ESRI Working Paper No. 106, 1999

Conniffe, Denis and Nolan, Brian and Whelan, Christopher T. (1999) Household Composition, Living Standards, and “Needs”. ESRI Working Paper No. 106, 1999. [Working Paper]

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Abstract

This study uses the 1987 ESRI Survey of Income Distribution, Poverty and Use of State Services and the 1994 Living in Ireland Survey to examine two issues of immediate relevance to Irish tax and social welfare policy. The first is how the living standards of different household types have been evolving in recent years. The second is the relationship between the “needs” of one household type versus another - for example a single adult versus a couple, or a couple with no children versus a couple with four children. Both issues are critical for the Inter-Departmental Working Group set up in 1998 to examine the treatment of married, cohabiting and one-parent households under the tax and social welfare codes. This study was undertaken in the first instance as a contribution to the work of that group, and is being published in order to inform the wider debate of these issues. In this introductory chapter we outline the issues to be addressed, and then look at how household composition has been changing over the period to provide the background for the remainder of the study.

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