This report was prepared in the Social Security Department, under the general direction of Colin Gillion and Emmanuel Reynaud, by a team headed by Roger Beattie and comprising Clive Bailey, Wouter van Ginneken and Krzysztof Hagemejer, with the participation of Michael Cichon and David Dror. Krzysztof Hagemejer prepared the statistical annex with the assistance of Karuna Pal, José Tossa and Diane Vergnaud. Administrative and secretarial support was provided by Patricia Frenette and Heather Mitches. Advice on international labour standards was provided by Ursula Kulke and assistance with documenta­tion by Guy Bezou.

Parts of the report incorporated excerpts from papers prepared by Tony Atkinson, Armando Barrientos, Marc van Imschoot, Linda Luckhaus, Ann Shola Orloff, Bruno Palier, David Preston, Martin Rhodes, Adrian Sinfield and Koen Vleminckx. In addition material was incorporated from papers that were jointly authored by: Hillary Morris and Alison Tilley; Chris de Neubourg and Shawn Morris; Charles Normand, Peter Lloyd-Sherlock and Zsuzsa Varvasovszky; and Klaus Schömann, Stefanie Flechtner, Ralf Mytzek and Isabelle Schömann. Special calculations were carried out on the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) database by Koen Vleminckx and Lee Rainwater.

Background papers were prepared by various other specialists from outside the ILO including Jacques Audibert, Ana Guillén, Edwin Kaseke, Alain Letourmy, Richard Minns and John Myles.

A number of ILO staff members provided advice, comments and guidance. These included Rashid Amjad, Peter Auer, Paul Bailey, Sandrine Cazes-Chaigne, Alfredo Conte-Grand, Georges Coppée, Alexander Egorov, Sara Elder, David Freedman, Elaine Fultz, Ingeborg Heide, Ann Herbert, Rolph van der Hoeven, Lawrence Johnson, François Kientzler, Larry Kohler, Eddy Lee, Martha Loutfi, Jean Majeres, Warren McGillivray, Muneto Ozaki, Luis Reguera, Peter Richards, Gerry Rodgers, Janine Rodgers, Xenia Scheil-Adlung, Jean-Michel Servais, Guy Standing, Raymond Torres, Corinne Vargha, Patricia Weinert and John Woodall, as well as numerous members of the Social Security Department. Special assis­tance in preparing the statistical annex was received from Farhad Mehran and Messaoud Hammouya.

The English version of the report was edited by Geraldeen Fitzgerald.