This study uses the 1987 ESRI Survey of Income Distribution, Poverty and
Use of State Services and the 1994 Living in Ireland Survey to examine two issues of
immediate relevance to Irish tax and social welfare policy. The first is how the living
standards of different household types have been evolving in recent years. The second
is the relationship between the “needs” of one household type versus another - for
example a single adult versus a couple, or a couple with no children versus a couple
with four children. Both issues are critical for the Inter-Departmental Working Group
set up in 1998 to examine the treatment of married, cohabiting and one-parent
households under the tax and social welfare codes. This study was undertaken in the
first instance as a contribution to the work of that group, and is being published in
order to inform the wider debate of these issues. In this introductory chapter we
outline the issues to be addressed, and then look at how household composition has
been changing over the period to provide the background for the remainder of the
study
