Counteracting material deprivation: The role of social assistance in Europe
In: Journal of European social policy, Band 22, Heft 2, S. 148-164
ISSN: 0958-9287
In: Journal of European social policy, Band 22, Heft 2, S. 148-164
ISSN: 0958-9287
In: Journal of European social policy, Band 22, Heft 2, S. 148-163
ISSN: 1461-7269
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.
In: Journal of European social policy, Band 14, Heft 4, S. 371-390
ISSN: 1461-7269
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.
In: Journal of European social policy, Band 14, Heft 4, S. 371-390
ISSN: 0958-9287
In: Journal of European social policy, Band 31, Heft 3, S. 352-362
ISSN: 1461-7269
The conceptualisation and measurement of benefit coverage is muddled with considerable confusion. In this forum contribution, we propose a new consolidated framework for the analysis of benefit coverage. Three sequential steps in measurement are suggested, involving the calculation of coverage rates, eligibility rates and take-up rates in social protection. Each step of the analysis focuses on particular aspects of programme legislation and implementation, and together the new framework will substantially improve the possibilities of research to inform policymaking. We provide an empirical illustration of our approach based on Swedish data, and highlight how our new consolidated framework for analysing benefit coverage provides a reorientation of the research agenda on benefit coverage.
In: Journal of European social policy, Band 23, Heft 1, S. 102-116
ISSN: 1461-7269
In this paper the hypotheses on differences among welfare state sectors with regard to decline and convergence are subject to comparative empirical tests focusing on healthcare. A diachronical cross-national analysis of healthcare services is performed, comparing developments with that of cash benefits. Contrary to previous claims we find that European healthcare systems are not particularly hit by retrenchment and that convergence is absent in key healthcare dimensions, namely coverage and provision. Convergence appears mainly in terms of the increased reliance on private healthcare financing. Our examination is based on Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Health Data and institutional data on entitlement levels of major cash benefit programmes, providing both a descriptive analysis and multi-level regressions.
In: Journal of European social policy, Band 23, Heft 1, S. 102-116
ISSN: 0958-9287
In: Journal of European social policy, Band 13, Heft 1, S. 21-33
ISSN: 0958-9287
In: Journal of European social policy, Band 13, Heft 1, S. 21-33
ISSN: 1461-7269
Welfare state regimes vary in their strategies of redistribution. Some welfare states have extensive taxable social insurance schemes, while others rely more on non-taxable means-tested benefits. In order to assess the distributive effects of different programme types, it is necessary to analyse social insurance after taxes, something rarely practised in comparative research. In this paper, we evaluate distributive effects of social insurance after taking taxes into account in 10 welfare states. The main question is to what extent income taxes affect the contribution of social insurance to income inequality. The conclusion is that taxation may have important consequences for both inter- and intra-country comparisons of income redistribution, especially if countries with similar social policy systems are compared. The analyses are based on micro-level income data from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS).
In: European Sociological Review, Band 39, Heft 1, S. 104-117
Housing benefits differ substantially across countries. In this paper, we apply power resource theory, developed primarily in relation to the emergence and subsequent expansion of social citizenship, to housing policy. The purpose is to analyse the political determinants of housing benefits, and particularly the role of left parties and the partisan mobilization of labour. The empirical analyses are based on new housing benefit data for 31 affluent democracies from the period 2001-2018. The results of a series of fixed effects pooled time-series regressions show that the strength of left government is positively associated with the size of housing benefits. However, the positive influence of left cabinets is conditional on the relative size of rental housing and the fractionalization of the party system. Our findings highlight the need to combine actor-oriented explanations of the welfare state with theories about the corporatist power structures of society.
In: Journal of European public policy, Band 20, Heft 9, S. 1251-1266
ISSN: 1466-4429
In: Journal of European public policy, Band 20, Heft 9, S. 1251-1266
ISSN: 1350-1763
In: Journal of European public policy, Band 20, Heft 9, S. 1229-1298
ISSN: 1350-1763
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