Suchergebnisse

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.

The current economic crisis has presented itself as a formidable challenge to the welfare states of Europe. The issue of minimum income protection has now become more important than ever and whether or note these schemes adequately protect citizens when they are unemployed, retired or having children. Drawing on in-depth and up-to-date institutional data from across Europe and the US, this volume details the reality of minimum income protection policies over time. Including contributions from leading scholars in the field, each chapter provides a systematic cross-national analysis of minimum income protection policies, developing concrete policy guidance on an issue at the heart of the European debate.

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 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.

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).

A New Dawn for Minimum Income Protection?-- I.Marx & K.Nelson Struggle for Life: Social Assistance Benefits, 1992-2009-- N.Van Mechelen & S.Marchal Mind the Gap: Net Incomes of Minimum Wage Workers in the EU and the US-- I.Marx, S.Marchal & B.Nolan Child Poverty as a Government Priority: Child Benefit Packages for Working Families, 1992-2009-- N.Van Mechelen & J.Bradshaw Minimum Income Protection for Europe's Elderly. What and How Much has been Guaranteed During the 2000s?-- T.Goedeme From Universalism to Selectivity: Old Wine in New Bottles for Child Benefits in Europe and Other Countries-- T.Ferrarini, K.Nelson & H.Hoog Categorical Differentiation in the Light of Deservingness Perceptions: Institutional Structures of Minimum Income Protection for Immigrants and for the Disabled-- V.Hubl & M.Pfeifer Origin and Genesis of Activation Policies in 'Old' Europe: Toward a Balanced Approach?-- J.T.Weishaupt Social Assistance Governance in Europe. Towards a Multi-level Perspective-- Y.Kazepov & E.Barberis Minimum Social Protection in the CEE/CIS Countries. The Failure of a Model-- J.Bradshaw, E.Mayhew & G.Alexander The EU and Minimum Income Protection: Clarifying the Policy Conundrum-- F.Vandenbroucke, B.Cantillon, N.Van Mechelen, T.Goedeme & A.Van Lancker

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.

This groundbreaking book brings together perspectives from political philosophy and comparative social policy to discuss generational justice. Contributing new insights about the preconditions for designing sustainable, inclusive policies for all of society, the authors expose the possibilities of supporting egalitarian principles in an aging society through balanced generational welfare contracts.