Suchergebnisse

This report provides a qualitative overview of changes in social investment in housing in eight RE-InVEST EU-jurisdictions: Belgium, England and Scotland (in Great Britain), Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Romania and the Netherlands. Each country study analyses existing market regulations in relation to the human rights and capabilities in the basic service sector, which is the focus in this report: housing services. Whether the recent developments impacting on housing services as capability can be considered a social (dis)investment in capabilities and human rights is of key concern. Human rights are considered as a cluster of rights; the right to decent housing implying the right to sufficient quality housing: including the following dimensions: decent technical and comfort, decent access to local services and work, decent legal dimension. Each cluster of rights will be associated with a different price/rent. Holding household income constant, implies different impacts on housing affordability. EU-SILC data show that population that is living in at-market-price rental housing, or whose income is lower than the at-risk-of-poverty line, or is (severely) materially deprived, scores worse on diverse housing indicators, such as indicators of housing affordability. Furthermore, those at risk of poverty are relatively more likely to be tenants than owner-occupiers. Their share on average is larger in 2016 than in 2008. Furthermore, housing costs push a larger share of the population into the at-risk-of-poverty group based on income after housing costs. Last, but not least, a larger share of young adults (25-34) are living with their parents in 2016 than in 2008. Given these access indicators, marketisation trends, such as a rising market share of private renting, are likely to produce worse equity outcomes in the future, ceteris paribus. If these private housing options offer less secure in tenure than those in other tenures, this will add an extra socio-psychological layer to the deprivation that the occupiers are ...

The once clear demarcation of funding and roles of the social and market rental sectors seems to have become blurred in a number of European countries. Social renting is no longer provided only by non-profit organizations. This title conveys who provides what in rental housing, relevant government policies and outcomes achieved.

The once clear demarcation of funding and roles of the social and market rental sectors seems to have become blurred in a number of European countries. Social renting is no longer provided only by non-profit organizations. This title conveys who provides what in rental housing, relevant government policies and outcomes achieved.

This report examines trends in social investment in Italy following the financial crisis of 2007/8. The first section considers social investment in relation to four policy areas: early childhood education and care, housing, financial services and water. The second part of the report provides an overview of social investment and disinvestment trends in the healthcare system in Italy since the 1990s. This section includes a detailed account of service users' and professionals' experiences of the impact of liberalisation and austerity measures on health service delivery drawing on qualitative data collection. Throughout the report we identify policy recommendations to address the effects and impacts of emergent trends towards social disinvestment and liberalisation of public services. This study is part of the wider pan-European RE-InVEST project to investigate the impact of the EU Social Investment package on marginalised groups since the 2007 crisis.

The Dutch recessions of 2009, 2012 and 2013 kicked off a series of spending cuts, which were, among others, achieved by reforms of the social security system, as well as the long-term health care system. The Nether­lands placed an increasing emphasis on incentives for people to find employment, whilst access to care facilities was made more difficult, in part by making access require­ments more stringent or making access more expensive. As a result, both the number of social assistance benefit recipients and the numbers of citizens having difficulties with making ends meet rose. This RE-InVEST Work Package 6 country report analyses existing market regulations in the Netherlands reflecting social (dis)investment in relation to human rights and capabilities in five basic service sectors using two approaches. The first ‑ a macro ‑ approach articulates how the recent reforms in four service sector (early childhood education and care, health care, financial services and drinking water services) impacted on the Dutch population. The analyses are mostly based on a literature study, which was kicked off by our RE-InVEST sector experts and completed by the authors of this report. The approach involved analysing the experiences of seven of Rotterdam's residents, most of whom found themselves in a financially vulnerable position at the start of this project in the fourth quarter of 2015. For this report, they shared their experiences in the spring of 2017 in two group sessions. In the second group session employees from social landlords and the municipality, as well as members of a political party joined in the discussion. As framework of analysis, this participative study draws on the concept of capabilities which refer to the opportunities or freedom of persons to opt for certain beings or doings defining a person's well-being (Sen, 1999). The latter will be influenced by available resources and skills and prevailing norms and institutions, including human rights, which embody the universal values for well-being and a ...

This report examines trends in social investment in England following the financial crisis of 2007/8. The first section considers social investment in relation to four policy arenas: housing, financial services, early childhood education and care, and water. The second part of the report provides an overview of social investment and disinvestment trends in the healthcare system in England since the 1990s with a particular focus on mental health services. This section includes a detailed account of service users' and professionals' experiences of the impact of liberalisation and austerity measures on mental health service delivery drawing on qualitative data collection. Throughout the report we identify policy recommendations to address the effects and impacts of emergent trends towards social disinvestment and liberalisation of public services. This study is part of the wider pan-European RE-InVEST project to investigate the impact of the EU Social Investment package on marginalised groups since the 2007 crisis.

Is Belgium (and Flanders in particular) a 'social investment state'? Belgium is a solid welfare state, with moderate income inequality and generous social expenditure. Never­theless, due to the 'conservative-corporatist' tradition, many services of general interest are actually provided either by local authorities, or by private (mainly not-for-profit) stakeholders, with government subsidies. This has probably led to a better match between the quality of services and the needs of consumers, but also to cream-skimming (e.g. in childcare), exclusion of households that are unable to pay (e.g. in financial services or water provision), shortages (e.g. in housing), and Matthew effects (mainly in housing, but actually in nearly all services). Government intervention has definitely ironed out the worst inequalities (e.g. in water provision or health care) but has never been very proactive in guaranteeing citizens' rights (e.g. through social minimum standards) by law. In the past decades, the redistributive capacity of social protection has come under serious strain since the 1980s: social security benefits have been lagging behind the general welfare trend, resulting in an increasing gap between working and non-working households. Furthermore, since the crisis of 2008, cut­backs have been imposed in nearly all sectors of public expenditure (including the five sectors examined in this report). As one of the most prosperous regions of Europe - and one of the least affected by the crisis, Flanders has been able to continue investing in the last decade (e.g. in water purification, extension of child­care provision and to some extent also social housing). However, the emphasis was put on economic motives (for childcare) and environmental sustainability (housing and water) rather than equity, as the investments went hand in hand with price increases and cutbacks in social tariffs. In addition to the reduced volume of social investment, the latest (right-wing) government is also sys­tematically re-introducing (quasi-)market ...