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Material deprivation is high on the political agenda in Europe and part of the agreed benchmarks in the EU social inclusion process. This study analyses the link between social assistance benefit levels and material deprivation in European countries. It is shown that the relationship between assistance and deprivation is negative, indicating that material deprivation is less extensive in countries with higher benefit levels. The influence of other relevant contextual effects does not change this relationship to any serious extent. There was no clear effect of public services or active labour market policy on material deprivation, factors essential in the EU discussion on poverty and social inclusion. The results demonstrate that the role of social assistance in combating material hardships should perhaps be strengthened in future EU policy frameworks. The empirical analyses are based on data from the EU-SILC and the SaMip dataset, covering 26 European countries.

Nelson K. Social assistance and minimum income benefits in old and new EU democraciesInt J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 367–378 © 2009 The Author, Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare.In this article, social assistance developments are analysed in a large number of European Union (EU) member states, including European transition countries and the new democracies of southern Europe. The empirical analysis is based on the unique and recently established SaMip Dataset, which provides social assistance benefit levels for 27 countries from 1990 to 2005. It is shown that social assistance benefits have had a less favourable development than that of unemployment provision. Hardly any of the investigated countries provide social assistance benefits above the EU near‐poverty threshold. Social assistance benefit levels have not converged in Europe. Instead, divergence can be observed, which is due mainly to lagging developments in eastern and southern Europe.

In this paper social assistance developments are analyzed in a large number of EU member states, including European transition countries and the new democracies of southern Europe. The empirical analysis is based on the unique and recently established SaMip Dataset, which provides social assistance benefit levels for 27 countries from 1990-2005. It is shown that social assistance benefits have had a less favorable development than that of unemployment provision. Hardly any of the investigated countries provide social assistance benefits above the EU near poverty threshold. Social assistance benefit levels have not converged in Europe. Instead, divergence can be observed, which is mainly due to lagging developments in eastern and southern Europe.

Minimum income protection and social assistance is the last-resort safety net of the welfare state, targeted to the most vulnerable groups in society. Poverty alleviation is thus one chief objective of such benefits. Whether this objective is fulfilled is continuously discussed and debated. This paper provide new evidence on this issue and offers an analysis of social assistance benefit levels in 16 industrialized welfare democracies over the period 1990-2000. It is shown that the period 1990-1995 was characterized primarily by stagnated benefit levels, while in the latter half of the 1990s benefits declined. In most countries, social assistance fails to provide income above the poverty threshold, something that makes it difficult to view these benefits as effective redistributive instruments.

In the Western countries poverty has increased along with the resurgence of low-income targeting and the increased conditionality of social assistance. This paper provides new evidence on the relationship between social minimums and income adequacy by examining the extent to which social benefits distribute income at levels necessary to escape poverty. The empirical analyzes combine macro-level institutional data and micro-level income data for 17 industrialized welfare democracies. It is shown that the period 1990-1995 is characterized primarily by stagnation, whereas social assistance adequacy declined in the latter half of the nineties. In most countries, social assistance fails to provide income above the poverty threshold, something that makes it difficult to conceive benefits as just redistributive instruments.

La stagnation et l'austérité des politiques sociales de ces dernières décennies suscitent un fort regain d'intérêt et de préoccupation pour la littérature relative à l'Etat providence. La présente étude se penche sur les différences dans l'évolution des prestations sous condition de ressources et des prestations d'assurance sociale. Elle aborde les questions liées à la mesure de l'austérité des politiques et à la vulnérabilité des prestations sociales. On distingue deux hypothèses contradictoires: l'une affirme que l'évolution des prestations sous condition de ressources ressemble à celle de l'assurance sociale; l'autre, plus récente, soutient que l'évolution des prestations sous condition de ressources épouse un profil singulier. Les analyses empiriques se fondent sur des données institutionnelles concernant le niveau des prestations sociales. l'étude montre que l'assurance sociale a plus de chances de survivre aux périodes d'austérité et que la vulnérabilité des prestations sous condition de ressources est liée à l'organisation des prestations d'assurance sociale.

Stagnation und Abbau sozialpolitischer Maβnahmen in den vergangenen Jahrzehnten erregten beträchtliches Interesse und Sorgen in der Fachliteratur über den Wohlfahrtsstaat. Die vorliegende Studie untersucht Unterschiede bei der Entwicklung von bedürftigkeitsabhängigen und Sozial‐versicherungsleistungen. Es werden Fragen zur Messung des Rückzugs der Politik und zur Abbauanfälligkeit der Sozialleistungen behandelt. Zwei rivalisierende Hypothesen zeichnen sich ab: Nach der einen ähnelt die Entwicklung von bedürftigkeitsabhängigen Leistungen derjenigen der Sozialversicherung; nach der anderen, neueren Hypothese folgt die Entwicklung bedürftigkeitsabhängiger Leistungen einem eigenen Muster. Die empirischen Analysen beruhen auf institutionellen Daten auf Ebene der Sozialleistungen. Es wird gezeigt, dass die Sozialversicherung Zeiten des Rückzugs leichter überstehen kann und dass die gröβere Abbauanfälligkeit von bedürftigkeitsabhängigen Leistungen mit der Organisation der Sozialversicherungsleistungen in Zusammenhang steht.

Las publicaciones sobre el Estado providente han manifestado un interés y una inquietud considerables por el estancamiento y la contracción de las políticas sociales en las últimas décadas. En el presente estudio analizaremos las diferencias entre la evolución de las prestaciones con comprobación de recursos y la evolución de las disposiciones del seguro social. También examinaremos cuestiones relacionadas con la evaluación de la contracción de las políticas y la vulnerabilidad de las prestaciones sociales y discerniremos dos hipótesis contradictorias. Según la primera, la evolución de las prestaciones con comprobación de recursos se asemeja a la del seguro social. La segunda hipótesis, más reciente, afirma que la evolución de las prestaciones con comprobación de recursos sigue su propio curso. Los análisis empíricos se basan en datos institucionales sobre el nivel de las prestaciones sociales. Por último, demostraremos que el seguro social tiene mayores probabilidades de sobrellevar los períodos de racionalización y que la mayor vulnerabilidad de las prestaciones con comprobación de recursos se relaciona con la organización de las disposiciones del seguro social.

Substantial cross-national differences in poverty alleviation are well documented. But the extent to which different parts of the social transfer system account for this variation is still relatively unexamined. This paper analyses the redistributive effects of specific social policy institutions in a comparative perspective. The main question is to what extent non-means-tested entitlements and means-tested benefits reduce relative economic poverty in different institutional settings. It is shown that the structure of non-means-tested benefits is more important than that of meanstested benefits in explaining differences in poverty alleviation across countries. The paper also presents a new method for estimating the anti-poverty effects of separate parts of the social transfer system. This method decomposes the anti-poverty effects of a set of social transfers into independent and combined effects, which produces more valid results than prevalent methods used to assess the impact of a particular transfer on poverty. The countries included in this study are Canada, Germany, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. The empirical analyses are based on data from the Social Citizenship Indicators Programme (SCIP) and Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) describing the situation in the mid-1990s.