For a number of reasons, incomes vary strongly with age. The nature of this variation is of interest for a wide range of policy purposes. Since age structures differ across countries, knowledge about the incomes earned by different age groups is also necessary for understanding and interpreting international comparisons of overall inequality. This paper quantifies the economic well-being of different age groups and the extent to which they rely on incomes from public and private sources. The analysis aims at establishing how social benefits, and the taxes needed to finance them, affect income levels and income disparities across different age groups. Results are compared across nine OECD countries.
