Suchergebnisse

We evaluate the efficiency of social expenditure (SE) to reduce poverty in the European Union (EU) between 2007 and 2015. The data are programs provided by the EU‐SILC and the ESSPROS. Incorporating efficiency analysis improves the results of the analysis of that complex relationship. We found that the correlation between SE and the levels of poverty (and the correlation between SE and the capacity to reduce poverty) is not strong. In addition, the correlation between SE and the levels of poverty before SE (and the correlation between SE and the levels of inequality before SE) is not significant. Our analysis of the efficiency identifies four groups of countries. The first group has a correspondence with the Continental and Nordic Welfare models (Esping‐Andersen, 1990). They have a great level of SE, and their efficiency is above the EU‐28 average. The second group presents the highest efficiency values. The third group is formed by the Mediterranean welfare states, which present a moderate level of expenditure but have low efficiency. A fourth group composed of non‐EU‐15 countries presents a low SE with under/on average efficiency. We also observe that SEs in family/children, housing, and sickness/healthcare are significantly and positively correlated with efficiency measures. Likewise, in the EU‐15, social exclusion expense exhibits a great positive relationship with the efficiency in poverty reduction.

We investigate under which conditions it is possible to infer the
evolution of poverty at the individual level from the knowledge of
poverty among households. Poverty measurement is approached by
the poverty orderings introduced by Foster and Shorrocks (1988). The
analysis is based on a reduced form of household bargaining (Peluso
and Trannoy, 2007) and provides results in terms of preservation of
poverty orderings. We point out the main analogies and differences
between inequality and poverty assessment, expressing them in terms
of empirically testable conditions. In particular, knowing the change
in poverty at the household level is not sufficient to deduce a similar
change in poverty at the individual level. We need to know the change
in the household income distributions far beyond their poverty line.
The focus axiom does not hold in this context.

Comparative research on poverty, income inequality and the effectiveness of income transfer systems has flourished during the last two decades, largely owing to the contribution of the Luxembourg Income Study. So far, however, the majority of comparative analyses have been based on a single year. In this paper, we have analysed cross-national patterns of poverty and income inequality with special emphasis on their stability. We examine trends in poverty and income inequality between 1980 and 1995 in nine countries representing three different ideal types of social policy.The differences in poverty among the countries studied correspond with the respective models of social policy more clearly in the mid-1990s than they did 15 years earlier. Generally speaking, the poverty rate is slightly under 5 per cent in the Nordic countries, around 7.5 per cent in Central Europe, 10 per cent in Canada, 12.5 per cent in the UK, and as high as 17.5 per cent in the USA.In all countries included in the analysis, the primary distribution – based on market income – has become less equal than before. In each country, the proportion of the population able to achieve subsistence from the market alone has decreased continuously. This trend is more significant than the change in actual poverty, which means that the absolute poverty-alleviating impact of income redistribution systems became stronger in these countries during the period 1980–1995.The analysis of income inequality produced a similar picture. In comparison to poverty, however, the change is rather less extensive. The Nordic countries, in particular, have been able to respond to the rise in market income differences so that the income inequality for disposable incomes has hardly increased at all. Canada shows a parallel trend. The USA and, in particular, the UK reflect a movement in the opposite direction.Trends in poverty in various population groups are analysed. By 1995 poverty had turned into a risk for young adults in all the countries studied. The poverty rate increased for the 18–30 age-group in all countries, while an opposite trend was observed among the elderly, in particular those aged over 65. The poverty rate among the elderly is now below the average population rate in all the countries studied.

AbstractThis article considers the relationship between poverty in Rangoon and the ways in which both an imperial and a post-imperial urbanism helped 'improve', develop, and reclaim Rangoon's urban environment. Examining the actions of the Rangoon Development Trust before and after the Second World War in the context of actions taken by the Bombay Improvement Trust, Bombay Development Directorate, Singapore Improvement Trust, and Hong Kong Housing Authority, it both analyses measures taken in Rangoon and constructs a connective history of urban development in relation to other Asian port cities. Incorporating documents released only in 2014 by the National Archives of Myanmar, this analysis for the first time considers interventions made in Rangoon's post-war built environment of poverty, connecting these actions to policies constructed over the preceding decades.

Basic income has garnered a great deal of attention in recent years. This surge in interest stems from growing income disparities, the failures of existing minimum income programmes, shifts in labour market dynamics and numerous global basic income pilot initiatives. Yet realising the successful implementation of a basic income requires a sustained and comprehensive effort. This research contributes to this imperative by presenting an unprecedented microsimulation analysis of the economic viability of introducing a basic income in the Basque Country. The study introduces two economically sustainable and coherent basic income models that not only effectively eliminate poverty but also generate redistributive effects. These outcomes would position the Basque Country as a region with lower income inequality than any European Union (EU) member state. This article underscores the transformative potential of basic income in the Basque Country and offers valuable insights for policy makers contemplating similar initiatives in other regions or nations.

Although there is now a large body of literature on poverty in the countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, there remains a dearth of comparative analysis of child poverty and wellbeing. This article uses household survey microdata for the period 2001–2003 to compare absolute poverty, relative poverty, material deprivation and participation in schooling among children in five countries: Albania, Bulgaria, Moldova, Russia and Tajikistan. The analysis shows that low absolute levels of household consumption are associated with other deprivation indicators and with children's participation in schooling. The article also highlights the usefulness of relative poverty measures that effectively identify children at risk of exclusion in even the poorest countries in the region. The article concludes by arguing that household consumption is a good indicator of child poverty and deprivation in the region, and that relative poverty measures should be more widely used in monitoring global targets for poverty reduction.

To rationalize federal cutbacks in spending for public welfare, President Reagan charged that public welfare programs are responsible for leading to a "national tragedy involving family breakdown, teen‐age illegitimacy and worsening poverty." Yet analysis of 1980 and 1982 census data for the 50 states suggests that if this is so, it is because of low, not high, spending for public welfare. While low state spending for public welfare is predictive of high teen illegitimacy rates and directly linked to high state poverty and divorce rates, higher state spending for public welfare is predictive of lower teen birth rates, and linked to lower rates of family breakup and poverty. Despite limitations inherent in the analysis, the findings challenge the contention that spending for public welfare contributes to family breakup, teen illegitimacy and poverty.

It is not only immigration and the incorporation of immigrants into society that serve as challenges for post-industrialised countries, but also rising inequality and poverty. This article focuses on both issues and proposes a new theoretical perspective on the determinants of immigrant poverty. Building on comparative welfare state research and international migration literature, I argue that immigrants' social rights – here understood as their access to paid employment and welfare benefits – condition the impact which both the labour market and welfare system have on immigrants' poverty. The empirical analysis is based on a newly collected dataset on immigrants' social rights in 19 advanced industrialised countries. The findings confirm the hypotheses: more regulated minimum wage setting institutions and generous traditional family programmes reduce immigrants' poverty more strongly in countries where they are granted easier access to paid employment and social benefits.