Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the main determinants of the probability of a household being poor, middle class, or rich . Design/methodology/approach – A new and integrated approach to the measurement of inequality in income distribution, poverty, and richness was...

With data for Portugal we propose an index of housing comfort based on the Household Budget Survey. This index covers housing and durable goods grouped in two dimensions: basic comfort and complementary comfort. Taking this index as starting point we make two contributions. First we quantify the...