Documents Van Mechelen, Natascha 8 results

"Why is it that, in almost three decades and despite growth of income, employment and high levels of social spending, even the most developed welfare states in the world failed to improve minimum income protection for families with children? To what extent the erosion of minimum income protection for the working age population compared to median household incomes has been occasioned by exogenous changes either in median household incomes or in gross low wages? Or, has the erosion been associated with deliberate cutbacks of benefit levels? We focus on a limited set of vulnerable households with children, viz. working-aged couples and single parents who either are jobless or live on one low wage and use survey data (ECHP 1994-2001 and SILC 2005-2008 and 2012) and standard simulations of disposable incomes of typical households in order to address these questions. We find that in all EU's most developed welfare states minimum income protection for work-poor households with children fall short compared to the poverty threshold (defined as 60% of equivalised median household income). Typically, in the decades before the crisis this shortfall has become increasingly bigger. In most countries with available data this was not associated with deliberate cuts in benefit levels for the poor: in general, net disposable incomes of families on social assistance evolved at a similar pace as the net income packages of corresponding families on low wages. Rather, the erosion of the minimum social floor appears to have been related to sinking gross low wages compared to median household incomes. This points at severe and increasing structural difficulties to reduce poverty."

"This paper assesses the current variation in activation strategies directed towards able-bodied persons of working age who rely on a minimum income guarantee in 20 EU Member states. First, we argue that the Active Inclusion notion developed by the European Commission in its 2008 Recommendation on the active inclusion of persons on a large distance of the labour market provides a useful device to categorize current activation strategies towards minimum income protection (MIP) recipients. Next we use this active inclusion concept in a fuzzy set ideal type analysis of purpose-collected institutional data to investigate to what extent current activation strategies reflect the Commission's concept of active inclusion. We find that there are few countries where the activation discourse has remained a dead letter. Most countries have implemented policy measures that aim to discourage benefit dependency among MIP recipients. Nevertheless, behind the realities of activation strategies towards minimum income recipients seldom lies the notion of active inclusion as defined by the European Commission. Particularly, many countries adopt predominantly negative incentives to increase labour market participation rates, rather than enabling measures. The majority of countries relies heavily on financial and non-financial incentives such as strong reasonable job definitions or severe sanctions for non-compliance with job availability requirements to encourage employment."

"The present paper argues that we are witnessing an increase of the tensions between the three main goals of social security systems (poverty alleviation, securing living standards and prevention) and that, as a consequence, the poverty-reducing capacity of social transfers has come under pressure. The paper focuses on the working age population in 25 EU countries and on the good years before the crisis. Three different data sources are used: ECHP, its successor EU-SILC and the German SOEP. The paper augments the traditional pre-post approach by considering more direct policy indicators such as spending levels, observed average benefit levels and theoretical tax benefit packages and by focussing on the distinction between work-poor and work-rich households. We find that in many countries the relative decline in poverty reduction has primarily affected work-poor households. This observation is confirmed by more direct policy indicators. It may support the hypothesis that in many countries the poverty alleviation function of social protection has come under pressure as a consequence of a shift of attention towards preventing benefit dependency by recommodification on the one hand and ‘securing living standards' for working families on the other hand."

"This paper aims to contribute to the debate on whether or not European welfare states converge by assessing trends and patterns of convergence and divergence of European minimum income schemes in the period 1992/2001-2012. We expand on previous studies on convergence of social assistance schemes in at least three ways. First, this paper provides a recent and detailed overview of social assistance benefit trends – detailed, that is, country-by-country. The focus is on cross-country variations rather than on the variation among groups of countries that are deemed to represent different welfare regimes. In addition, our analyses are based on original data drawn from a large network of country experts comprising all EU Member States except for Croatia, Cyprus and Malta. The country-focus as well as the involvement of national informants allows to contextualize our findings with regard to convergence and to clarify the underlying policy measures. Finally this paper covers a long time series, starting in the early 1990s up to 2012. We find that despite a marked increase in the spread of minimum income schemes, cross-country variation in the level of minimum income benefits has remained markedly stable. This stability however hides starkly different country experiences, with some laggard countries showing marked increases, whereas others continue to fall short. Some of these pre-crisis gains have evaporated in recent years. In addition, a substantial number of countries have allowed a further erosion of their benefit levels, especially in the 1990s, but still evident in the 2000s."

"This article aims to provide an overview of the main mechanisms underlying non-take-up by bringing together insights from existing theoretical models and the large body of empirical evidence. We draw on studies based on the traditional model of economic rationality as well as on behavioural economics. The first strand of literature is based on the assumption that individuals are perfectly rational and therefore perfectly able to optimize the trade-off between costs and benefits. The second, and more recent perspective, focuses on important deviations from the traditional assumptions of rationality by pointing to the role of cognitive biases and behavioural barriers. An important focus of attention in this article is the way policy design and administrations can affect the uptake of public provisions. While the traditional approach tends to pay little attention to the design of public provisions and the role of administrations in improving participation rates, behavioural economics has shed light on the question of how to nudge and prime people into participating in public programmes without fundamentally changing their economic incentives (e.g. simply by changing the default settings in administrative procedures). In this literature review, we bring both strands in the literature together and develop a theoretical framework which lists and links the various mechanisms at play. At the same time, we summarise the most important empirical findings, and identify gaps in the literature. Finally, we pay attention to lessons from the literature regarding how policies could be redesigned to reduce non-takeup."

"Should the EU be involved in the governance of minimum income protection, and if it should, in which role precisely? This question raises a complex policy conundrum. In this CSB Working Paper, Frank Vandenbroucke et al. focus on a proposal by the European Anti-Poverty Network (EAPN) for an EU Framework Directive on Minimum Income Protection, in order to examine three aspects of that policy conundrum: (1) the instrumental relevance of minimum income protection; (2) the unequal burden of the redistributive effort that would be required across the EU if the Union were to impose hic et nunc a minimum income guarantee of 60% or 40% of the median national income in all Member States; and (3) the impact on dependency traps, under the same hypothesis.

The authors illustrate each of these observations empirically, using cross-nationally comparable data on income and living conditions (EU-SILC) and minimum income protection levels (CSB-MIPI). Since a harmonised minimum income scheme requires a significantly greater budgetary effort on behalf of some of the poorer Member States in Eastern and Southern Europe, it raises a complex question about the meaning of solidarity within the EU. Enhanced solidarity within Member States cannot be decoupled from enhanced solidarity among Member States – and vice versa. Simultaneously, the EU should put positive pressure on poorer and richer Member States to gradually improve the overall quality and efficiency of their welfare regimes. The authors conclude that in this context, the prospect of gradually and flexibly introducing a more binding EU framework on minimum income protection may become realistic."

"The present economic crisis comes against the background of decades of policy changes that have generally weakened the capacity of social safety nets to offer citizens with adequate resources for financial survival when labour markets fail to do so. Building on data for 24 European Union countries, this paper asks whether EU governments implemented additional measures during the first phase of the crisis to improve safety nets. Our data, drawn from a large network of national experts, show that many countries introduced supportive measures, in particular in the form of additional increases in gross minimum income benefits. More generous child benefits have also helped to increase net disposable incomes of families on minimum income. Behavioral requirements imposed on minimum income recipients have been neither tightened nor relaxed. In a limited number of countries, activation efforts aimed at minimum income recipients have been intensified. Despite some improvements, social safety nets in Europe remain far below widely accepted poverty thresholds, including the EU's own official measure."