This chapter makes use of the first effort to construct cross-country comparable reference budgets in Europe to show what the large cross-national differences in living standards imply in practice for the adequacy of incomes at the level of the at-risk-of-poverty threshold. The budgets show that, in the poorest EU Member States, even adequate food and housing are barely affordable at the level of the threshold, whereas a decent living standard is much more in reach for those living on the threshold in the richer EU Member States. The reference budgets also suggest that the poverty risk of some groups (for instance, children) is underestimated relative to that of other age groups, while the poverty risk of homeowners is probably relatively overestimated.

Girls tend to outperform boys in reading tests, while they usually lag behind boys in mathematics. However, the size of the gender gap varies to a great extent between countries. While the existing figliterature explains these differences as being mainly due to cultural factors, this paper explores whether this cross-country variation is related to educational policies like tracking, grade retention, and individualised teaching practices. The gender test score gap is analysed in mathematics, reading and science using the PISA 2012 dataset. Multilevel models are used in the estimation. The results suggest that the extent of the gender gap is indeed associated with certain characteristics of the various education systems. First, applying a difference-in-differences estimation method, it was found that early tracking has a direct effect on the gender gap in test scores, in favour of girls. Second, suggestive evidence shows that more student-oriented teaching practices also benefit girls relative to boys, both between and within countries, and within schools. Finally, grade retention is correlated with the gender gap, though there is further evidence suggesting that this correlation is very unlikely to represent a causal effect. ARTICLE HISTORY

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We analyze the effect of individual social capital on wage income in European countries. A number of studies have already tested the earnings effects of social ties but the majority of them have been limited to small samples and/or to certain occupations. The major contribution of the paper is its assessment of the earnings effects of social capital in a multi-country context using a large international dataset, the EU-SILC. We estimate individual level earnings regressions for a pooled sample and for individual countries as well. Three indicators are used to measure social capital: memberships in voluntary organizations, the frequency of contacts with friends and frequency of contacts with relatives. Results indicate a significant positive association between social capital and wage income both for the pooled sample and the majority of the countries individually. The effect of social capital is stronger for post-socialist countries than for other countries while it is almost missing in the Nordic countries. Comparing the effects of memberships in voluntary organizations, friendship and kinship ties provides some support for the strength of weak ties hypothesis.