Henk-Jan Dirven

The evolution of income poverty in the Netherlands: Results from the Dutch socio‐economic panel survey

Abstract This contribution gives a description of the evolution of income poverty in The Netherlands during the late 1980s. The results show that 9.2% of the population lived below the legal poverty line in 1988 and 14.7% below the Subjective Poverty Line. Income poverty appeared to be strongly related to the socio‐economic group of the head of household and the main source of income in the household. Reflecting the increase in income inequality in The Netherlands during the late 1980s, an overall increase in the incidence of income poverty was observed during the 1986–1988 period. An analysis of longitudinal patterns of income poverty shows that, although 15–20% of the population (depending on the poverty definition used) lived below the income poverty line in at least one year during the 1986–1988 period, a minority of this group was poor the entire period. Mobility rates out of income poverty thus appear to be rather high.