Introduction
The Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) provides two distinct sets of Key Figures based on the microdata included in the LIS databases. Generated by the LIS staff, these are national-level weighted indicators for specific population groups.
The LIS Inequality and Poverty Key Figures
For several years, LIS has provided national-level inequality and poverty indicators. These include a variety of inequality measures (Gini coefficients, Atkinson coefficients and percentile ratios), relative poverty rates for various demographic groups, and equivalized median and mean disposable household income. These Key Figures are constructed for all datasets included in the LIS database.
The LIS Gender Key Figures
As of 2009, LIS also provides a set of national-level indicators that highlight women’s economic outcomes and gender inequality in poverty and employment. Currently, these Key Figures exist only for LIS Wave V.
This initial set of Gender Key Figures was created with support from the World Bank, specifically the Gender Team of the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management unit. Elena Bardasi, at the World Bank, provided invaluable guidance.
Access to Key Figures
Search Engines
The LIS Key Figures Search Engines will allow any individual (registered user or not) to create a subset of the two sets of LIS Key Figures. A subset of countries and/or columns may be selected to narrow the scope of the analysis.
Key Figures in Excel
Each set of Key Figures is included in a downloadable workbook. Also included, in the Gender Key Figures workbook, are two additional worksheets that provide the weighted and unweighted sample counts for Table 1.
Documentation
A key principle underlying the Key Figures is that LIS provides either the programming routines or information about variable content. As a result:
- All users have access to the methodological decisions that we have made
- All microdata users can duplicate these indicators. For the LIS Inequality and Poverty Key Figures, we provide the original programming and, for the LIS Gender Key Figures, we provide detailed information on variable recoding
- All microdata users have the option of altering the programming and/or variable recoding in order to adjust or expand the indicators to fit the needs of individual research projects
Citation Requirement
The LIS Key Figures are available for public use, but we ask that they always be cited properly. As specified on our in our guidelines, (Luxembourg Income Study Working Papers: Policies and Practices), the Key Figures should be cited as follows:
Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) Key Figures, http://www.lisproject.org/keyfigures.htm ({include the date during with the website was visited and/or the Key Figures were downloaded})
User Support
For questions on the Key Figures, please contact LIS User Support
When you send a query to LIS User Support, please include your name, title, affiliation, and a brief comment about your research project.
Please address all queries about the use and content of the LIS data to usersupport@lisproject.org, rather than to individual LIS staff members. That allows the LIS staff to maintain a coordinated record of all queries.