Suchergebnisse

Op basis van het Belgisch sociaal economisch panel, uitgevoerd in 1985 en 1988 door het Centrum voor Sociaal Beleid te Antwerpen, kan voor de eerste maal in België de duur en de dynamiek van de bestaansonzekerheid bestudeerd worden, wat het gebruikelijke beleid op enkele punten ingrijpend wijzigt. Het aantal langdurig bestaansonzekeren is veel geringer en bedraagt ongeveer de helft van het aantal geteld op één bepaald ogenblik. Het profiel van de langdurige armoede is globaal genomen, vrij vergelijkbaar met dit van de cross-sectionele armoede. Het longitudinaal perspectief benadrukt vooral de ernst van de situatie bij de werkloze gezinshoofden en de alleenstaande ouders en relativeert de hypothese van verjonging van de armoede. Verder blijken de gevolgen van negatieve transities in de tewerkstellingssituatie van het gezinshoofd groter te zijn dan de negatieve gezinstransities. Tenslotte worden deze resultaten in een ruimer Europees perspectief geplaatst. België neemt in vergelijking met de andere Europese landen, en zelfs in vergelijking met haar Benelux-partners, een gunstige positie in met een relatief klein aantal armen, een geringere graad van inkomensongelijkheid en een minder omvangrijke langdurige armoede.

Over the course of the past 20 years, welfare states are said to have evolved towards a 'social investment' model of welfare – characterized by a focus on equality of opportunity and upward social mobility along with a greater emphasis on individual responsibility. In view of these policy changes, it is necessary to assess whether traditional stratification cleavages (still) affect the occurrence of 'social risks'. Using data from the 2005 EU-SILC intergenerational module, we consider the impact of social class (of origin) on a relevant selection of risks: unemployment, ill-health, living in a jobless household, single parenthood and low-paid employment. The results provide clear evidence of a substantial influence of social class. On this basis, we argue that social investment strategies need to take stock of the persistence of traditional stratification cleavages. Otherwise, a one-sided approach may create new forms of exclusion and give way to 'Matthew effects'.

How can poverty reduction be improved and at what cost? Available evidence suggests that social investment strategies and employment policies are important but not sufficient. In order to reduce the number of people below the relative at-risk-of-poverty threshold of the EU, countries must develop not only effective employment policies but also ensure adequate social protection. This implies increasing social transfers for working and nonworking households, while protecting work incentives. In this paper we show that this is not a cheap option. We calculate the hypothetical cost of closing the poverty gap while maintaining the existing average labour market participation incentives at the bottom of the income distribution. We do it in three of the most developed welfares states of the EU, representing different welfare regimes, namely Belgium, Denmark and the United Kingdom. Results show that this would require around two times the budget needed to just lift all disposable household incomes to the poverty threshold. The cost would obviously be lower in countries with smaller poverty gaps and with weaker participation incentives. Furthermore, the results suggest that for anti-poverty strategies to be effective other factors should be considered more carefully, including the drivers of rising inequalities in market incomes, and especially the downward pressures on low wages, as well as the most appropriate magnitude of financial work incentives.

In Europe, reference budgets are increasingly recognised as a helpful tool for policy making and monitoring. If developed in a cross-country comparable way, reference budgets could, in addition, prove to be useful for cross-national learning and contextualising the EU social indicators. However, current reference budgets are not comparable across countries. In this article we report on the first results of a concerted effort to construct comparable reference budgets for adequate social participation in Antwerp, Athens, Barcelona, Budapest, Helsinki and Milan. We start from a single theoretical and methodological framework and carefully track differences in institutional settings, climate, culture, and the availability and prices of goods and services that justify crosscountry variations in the contents and levels of reference budgets. Results indicate that adequate social participation requires access to different goods and services in the six cities, but that, at the same time, the needs to be fulfilled are rather similar, such that the variation in the level of reference budgets is less than what would be expected on the basis of differences in median household incomes. Results also show that constructing comparable reference budgets requires substantial and intensive coordination. We suggest directions in which our approach to their construction could be improved.

Objective: Two field studies assessed the effects of critical thinking instruction on training and transfer of a complex decision-making skill. Background: Critical thinking instruction is based on studies of how experienced decision makers approach complex problems. Method: Participants conducted scenario-based exercises in both simplified (Study 1) and high-fidelity (Study 2) training environments. In both studies, half of the participants received instruction in critical thinking. The other half conducted the same exercises but without critical thinking instruction. After the training, test scenarios were administered to both groups. Results: The first study showed that critical thinking instruction enhanced decision outcomes during both training and the test. In the second study, critical thinking instruction benefited both decision outcomes and processes, specifically on the transfer to untrained problems. Conclusion:The results suggest that critical thinking instruction improves decision strategy and enhances understanding of the general principles of the domain. Application: The results of this study warrant the implementation of critical thinking instruction in training programs for professional decision makers that have to operate in complex and highly interactive, dynamic environments.

OBJECTIVE: Two field studies assessed the effects of critical thinking instruction on training and transfer of a complex decision-making skill. BACKGROUND: Critical thinking instruction is based on studies of how experienced decision makers approach complex problems. METHOD: Participants conducted scenario-based exercises in both simplified (Study I) and high-fidelity (Study 2) training environments. In both studies, half of the participants received instruction in critical thinking. The other half conducted the same exercises but without critical thinking instruction. After the training, test scenarios were administered to both groups. RESULTS: The first study showed that critical thinking instruction enhanced decision outcomes during both training and the test. In the second study, critical thinking instruction benefited both decision outcomes and processes, specifically on the transfer to untrained problems. CONCLUSION: The results suggest that critical thinking instruction improves decision strategy and enhances understanding of the general principles of the domain. APPLICATION: The results of this study warrant the implementation of critical thinking instruction in training programs for professional decision makers that have to operate in complex and highly interactive, dynamic environments.

Informal care is often accompanied by a reduction or abandonment of professional activity by the caregiver. Therefore, caregiving may be associated with a lower pension for the former caregiver than for people without care obligations. There is a large gender difference in informal care responsibilities, and this may contribute to the gender pension gap. As the impact of care-related labour market decisions depends on the design of the pension system, we carry out a cross-country comparison, in which we analyse the impact of care obligations in countries with high (Luxembourg), middle (Liechtenstein, Belgium, Portugal) and low (Slovenia) gender pension gaps. Using typical-case simulation models, we examine how the impact of care-related events is mediated by pension rules, given women's labour market decisions. To what extent does working part time or interrupting one's career at the age of 30 or 54 reduce the later pension benefit? How are these losses mitigated by pension credits that are conditional on caregiving? We find that the mitigating effects are generally strongest in Belgium, followed by Luxembourg and Slovenia. Such credits hardly exist in Portugal, while in Liechtenstein they have only a small impact. However, the consequences of either working part time or interrupting work can also be mitigated via general rules in the system that are unrelated to caregiving (such as in Portugal and Liechtenstein). They can, on the other hand, be aggravated by the existence of higher accrual rates for individuals who extend their careers, as in Luxembourg and Slovenia.

This article explores how the Gender Pension Gap (GPG)—the relative difference in average pension received by men and women—might evolve in the future in various European countries, given past, current, and projected future labour market behaviour and earnings of women and men, and current pension regulations. The GPG reflects career inequalities between women and men, though these are partly mitigated by the redistributive impact of the public retirement pensions. They are further mitigated by survivor benefits. This study aims to document both mechanisms in the projections of the GPG. As the GPG varies widely across European countries, we analyse countries with a high (Luxembourg), high and low middle (Belgium and Switzerland Portugal), and low (Slovenia) GPG. We find that the GPG will fall significantly in all five countries over the coming decades. The fundamental drivers behind this development are discussed. In addition to the base scenario, we simulate two variants to show the impact of the Gender Pension Coverage Gap and of survivor pensions. Additionally, we project the GPG if current labour market gender gaps were to remain at their present level, and, conversely, if these were to disappear overnight. These alternative scenarios, one of which also serves as a robustness test, suggest that the future decline of the GPG is largely the result of labour market developments that have already happened during the past decades.