Does a farm household income problem still exist in the European Union?

This paper compares income condition of farm and non-farm households using a single, harmonized database, the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), a survey collecting information on income and well-being of a representative sample of all European households. We adopt approaches that are currently used in the literature on income analysis outside the specific field of agriculture and rooted within the family of the quasi- experimental methods. Starting from a simple comparison of income levels, we move to Regression Adjusted (RA) methods and to Covariate Matching (CM) techniques that are based on a "counterfactual" logic. The analysis produces two main results. The first shows that on average, considering the whole European Union, a negative differential between farming and non-farming households exists. The gap is estimated after controlling for differences between farm and nonfarm households in family size, age, marital status, education, health, rural residence and country belonging. The result is robust to different empirical approaches and, in our opinion, represents a policy relevant outcome of the study. The second main achievement of the study refers to the heterogeneityof income differentials across countries and household groups. Within the group of self-employed households, the farming ones earn on average a lower income, but they show an income level above the average of the total populationin the Western Continental country.