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Annual income data are typically provided with a time lag. This article reviews several ways of dealing with this time lag in the construction of annual household-based income measures for individual economic well-being. It also proposes an alternative method that yields better estimates for equivalized household income, especially in the case of household composition change. Next, the two most commonly applied income measures are compared to this alternative measure with empirical income data from the European Community Household Panel. This comparison reveals that ignoring the time lag and household changes leads to substantial bias in income and poverty estimates and to erroneous conclusions about the determinants of poverty entry. The evidence in this article will be useful to researchers who want to make a well-informed choice between different annual income measures. Copyright 2008 The Authors.

This article presents an analysis of the process of commensuration in the field of pension policy. It looks at the consequences of reducing disparate and variable characteristics of pension systems to a limited set of standardized policy indicators. Although techniques of scoring complex systems through common indicators are applied today in fields as diverse as scientific research, human resources management and international development, this article is the first to examine the process of commensuration in the field of pensions. The empirical analysis looks at three cases where international institutions use standardized pension indicators to score and rank the performance of national pension systems. The first case examines the use of replacement rates in the international benchmarking of pension systems. We then focus on how rankings diverge considerably depending upon which function of the pension system is under assessment. Finally, we discuss how the public–private mix of a pension system affects the ranking of pension adequacy due to the way in which second and third pillar pensions are measured. The cases illustrate some of the problems associated with scoring and ranking the outcomes of unique and complex pension systems by means of internationally standardized indicators.

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In the debate on 'flexicurity', relatively little attention has been paid to how responsive traditional areas of social security have been to increasing flexibility in the labour market. This article tries to fill this gap by focusing on the Belgian pension system. In particular, it asks to what extent pension regulation in the three pillars has been adapted to the proliferation of atypical forms of employment. It does so by examining whether there are significant differences between old age protection of standard and non-standard workers. The article pursues a double research strategy: an analysis of Belgian legislation and relevant collective labour agreements is complemented with a statistical analysis of the Panel Study of Belgian Households (PSBH). The results show that part-time employment results in a lower first-pillar pension, while other forms of temporal flexibility such as career interruptions and temporary unemployment do not. In the second pillar, our findings suggest that workers with contractual flexibility and job mobility are discriminated against. Finally, non-standard workers do not appear to compensate for lower pension protection through increased participation in the third pension pillar. Our findings suggest the need for a re-assessment of the system of 'assimilated' periods. To conclude, we point to some implications for the design of flexicurity policies.