ABSTRACT

In this chapter, we analyse the dynamics of low income in 1990s Britain using data from the first four waves of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS).2 Our research provides a longitudinal complement to the Department of Social Security’s Households Below Average Income reports which are largely based on cross-section data. It also provides the first UK comparison with the pioneering work in the USA of Bane and Ellwood (1986), Huff Stevens (1994, 1995), Duncan et al. (1984, 1993a) using other national panel datasets, especially the PSID.