The name is absent

Comparable Indicators of Inequality Across Countries

EU-SILC includes several measures of employee earnings, offering alternative approaches to the measurement
of low pay (see Brandolini, Rosolia and Torrai, 2010; Maitre, Nolan and Whelan, 2011), but some turn out to be
problematic in practice. Current gross monthly earnings and usual hours of work are only reported for a minority of
countries, so current gross hourly earnings cannot be derived for a majority. However, most of the countries have
provided information on total employee income for the previous year. Those in employment all year can also be
distinguished, so annual earnings of full-year employees unaffected by time away from work can also be studied.¹⁷

Some comparative studies have employed national micro-datasets for a small number of countries, harmonis-
ing the measure of earnings and coverage of workers to the extent that those sources allow. An example is the
recent in-depth set of studies of low pay in five advanced countries sponsored by the Russell Sage Foundation,
summarised in Gautié and Schmitt eds, (2009).

17 This is best done using responses to a question about how many months the respondent worked in the previous year. EU-SILC also
includes a full calendar of labour market activities each month, allowing the proportion of the year spent in work to be derived, but for
some countries this has not been filled out.

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