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"This paper develops a simulation approach to study the effects of income transfers on material deprivation. The method is applied to pre-recession and post-austerity EU-SILC data for Germany, Greece, Poland and the United Kingdom. The results show that income transfers can not only reduce income poverty but they can also substantially reduce the extent and depth of material deprivation. Changes in social transfers have therefore a two-fold effect on the Europe 2020 poverty reduction target."
"This paper develops a simulation approach to study the effects of income transfers on material deprivation. The method is applied to pre-recession and post-austerity EU-SILC data for Germany, Greece, Poland and the United Kingdom. The results show that income transfers can not only reduce income poverty but they can also substantially reduce the extent and depth of material deprivation. Changes in social transfers have therefore a two-fold ...

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"This report examines how place-based socially innovative policies and actions can be better integrated into the broader European Union (EU) social agenda. On the basis of previous work and a roundtable taking place in the context of the Improve project, it a) identifies some main challenges for upscaling and consolidating place-based social innovation throughout the European multi-level governance system; b) analyses whether social innovation dovetails with the broader European policy goals of territorial cohesion and public participation, and c) proposes some cautious policy recommendations with regard to how EU resources can be used to better support socially innovative practices. Three main conclusions can be drawn from our analysis. Firstly, the EU supports social innovation both directly (by providing different kinds of resources for local socially innovative projects, not limited to financial resources) and indirectly, by supporting European umbrella organisations operating in the field of poverty and social inclusion. Yet, the degree of innovativeness of EU supported projects differs. Secondly, although EU support for place-based social innovation is significant, it is not consistent throughout the whole life cycle of social innovation. EU support is particularly effective in the early stages of socially innovative projects (conception and start-up). Institutionalisation of those projects depends on domestic circumstances (including welfare regimes' peculiarities) and, what is more surprising given the emphasis at the EU level, EU resources are no used for up-scaling local socially innovative practices. Thirdly, an important challenge is to adapt the increasingly top-down approach in the support of socially innovative projects, with scarce attention being paid to the involvement and empowerment of socially excluded groups."
"This report examines how place-based socially innovative policies and actions can be better integrated into the broader European Union (EU) social agenda. On the basis of previous work and a roundtable taking place in the context of the Improve project, it a) identifies some main challenges for upscaling and consolidating place-based social innovation throughout the European multi-level governance system; b) analyses whether social innovation ...

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Antwerp

"An aspect that has only recently received attention in the study of policy measures aimed at supporting families with young children in their work-family life balance is its distributive impact. Are these measures used by poor and rich families alike, or is there a ‘Matthew effect' at play, in the sense that poor families are underrepresented in using such measures? In order to perform such an evaluation one needs to have a measure of both cash and in-kind benefits related to policies that help families cope with the care of young children and job expectations. In-kind benefits are offered mainly in the form of subsidized early childhood education and care (ECEC), for which an appropriate cash equivalent has to be derived. As the value of in-kind benefits from publicly provided services is not included in the EU-SILC data, we derive them for this paper in line with earlier studies (e.g. Matsaganis and Verbist, 2009; Vaalavuo, 2011; Förster and Verbist, 2012; Van Lancker, 2014; Van Lancker and Ghysels, 2014). In comparison to these earlier studies, however, our analysis is much more fine-grained as we use the microsimulation model EUROMOD to include more precise estimates of parental fees and related tax-benefit policies; thus, we will have a better estimate of the net in-kind benefit households derive from ECEC services. We focus on policy measures going to children under compulsory schooling age for a selection of seven EU-countries. These improved estimates allow us to analyze the work-family polices from three perspectives: 1) how do the distributive characteristics of cash and in-kind benefits compare to one another in this domain?; 2) how do countries compare to one another in their policy perspective in terms of supporting outsourcing or home-based care for young children?; 3) what is the balance between private and public efforts for outsourced childcare across countries? Our results show that including net fees in the analysis attenuates the Matthew effect, in the sense that net fees are relatively more heavy for richer households than for the poor. There is, however, considerable cross-country variation."
"An aspect that has only recently received attention in the study of policy measures aimed at supporting families with young children in their work-family life balance is its distributive impact. Are these measures used by poor and rich families alike, or is there a ‘Matthew effect' at play, in the sense that poor families are underrepresented in using such measures? In order to perform such an evaluation one needs to have a measure of both cash ...

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"This paper argues that the sharp growth of educational attainment has won Tinbergen's race as the qualification structure of employment lags increasingly behind, with a large and increasing underutilisation of individual attainment on the job as a result. With its strong gender dimension this has fostered the demise of the single-earner model of society to the advantage of dual-earner households. That shift has gone together with a strong expansion of part-time employment, albeit at different speeds internationally. In several countries this part-time growth is stimulated also by the combination of employment participation with the rapidly growing educational participation that underlies the growth in educational attainment. Taken together this has resulted in a steep uphill battle for the less educated when they try to secure jobs that allow making a living and sustaining a career in the labour market. This group faces strong competition from better-educated additional earners who are a member of dual-earner households, which often have an income found higher up the household income distribution. This institutes a selfreinforcing mechanism of income and labour-market inequalities. High-income households compete with low-income households for the same low-skill and low-paid jobs, and they do so frequently on a part-time basis that contributes to the fragmentation of those jobs. This process has established a job's working time as an increasingly important vector of labour-market inequalities. In the paper the argument is first developed for the Netherlands because the country offers a special statistical classification of occupations (1960-2010) that directly links the occupational levels to levels of educational attainment. This case study is complemented with an international comparison using the ELFS and extending to incomes and earnings with the help of SILC. It shows the presence of similar effects found for the Netherlands for Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and the UK."
"This paper argues that the sharp growth of educational attainment has won Tinbergen's race as the qualification structure of employment lags increasingly behind, with a large and increasing underutilisation of individual attainment on the job as a result. With its strong gender dimension this has fostered the demise of the single-earner model of society to the advantage of dual-earner households. That shift has gone together with a strong ...

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"Over the last few decades, the European Union (EU) has made available a number of resources for promoting and supporting social innovation in the field of poverty and social exclusion (cf. Sabato et al. 2015). These resources include, most obviously, funding but also networking opportunities, cognitive resources, visibility and reputational resources. This paper investigates a) how resources provided by the European Union (EU) have been used in socially innovative initiatives implemented at the local level, b) what has been their added value and c) which difficulties local actors have encountered when accessing and using these resources. Our study is based on the analysis of sixteen socially innovative initiatives implemented in five Member States (Austria, Belgium, Italy, Sweden and the UK) and concerning three policy areas: Roma inclusion (notably, education-related initiatives), homelessness and housing exclusion (Housing First), and labour market activation. A number of conclusions can be drawn from our analysis. First, the EU level appears as a key layer of multi-scalar social innovation systems, often able to directly sustain local projects, bypassing the national level. Indeed, EU resources – especially financial and cognitive resources – have been used in most of our case studies and have often been deemed essential for the implementation of those projects. Second, in a number of cases EU resources have been strategically used by local actors in order to implement initiatives at odds with established domestic policy legacies, i.e. for experimenting with either new policy approaches or new instruments/methods within established approaches. We call this the leverage effect of EU resources. Third, the various welfare regimes are characterised by different social innovation patterns, especially in relation to institutionalization and up-scaling dynamics: welfare regime-related peculiarities can be identified, also when it comes to using EU resources for such purposes. While countries belonging to Universalistic and (in part) Corporatist welfare regimes appear particularly able in using EU resources to experiment with innovative initiatives, then mainstreaming successful projects into public policies once the EU co-funding period expires, this capacity appears much more limited in countries belonging to Familistic and Liberal welfare regimes. Fourth, EU resources have, remarkably enough, not been used for up-scaling socially innovative initiatives in any of our cases, even though the EU emphasizes that resources are also intended to be used for this. Finally, a number of shortcomings which make access to EU resources and their management difficult have been identified, including complex and time-consuming procedures related to EU funds and the inadequacy of the support provided by public bodies. These shortcomings often limit small organisations' ability to exploit EU resources, thus contributing to the creation of a ‘frozen' situation where big and well-established organisations – which have developed expertise and experience in dealing with EU resources – enjoy a sort of incumbents' advantage."
"Over the last few decades, the European Union (EU) has made available a number of resources for promoting and supporting social innovation in the field of poverty and social exclusion (cf. Sabato et al. 2015). These resources include, most obviously, funding but also networking opportunities, cognitive resources, visibility and reputational resources. This paper investigates a) how resources provided by the European Union (EU) have been used in ...

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"This paper investigates the relationship between material deprivation and relative income poverty. We apply the method suggested by Nolan and Whelan (2011a,b) to measure consistent poverty in the European Union. We are interested in the cross-country variation in those at risk of consistent poverty, as well as in the main household-level factors associated with this status. Using EU-SILC data from 2012, we first perform a correlation analysis to investigate the relationship between different poverty concepts and their measures. Second, we analyse the poverty identification patterns of the population by country and country group, according to the four possible combinations of income poverty and severe material deprivation status: not at risk at all, at risk of income poverty only, severely materially deprived only, at risk of consistent poverty. Third, multivariate regression analysis is performed to identify the main individual and household-level factors predicting consistent poverty status.According to our results, consistent poverty is present in all Member States, although its extent displays fairly large cross-country differences. The share of those living in consistent poverty is highest in the New Member States and the Southern countries. A higher rate of being generally at risk of poverty is associated with higher rates of consistent poverty across the countries. Living in consistent poverty (compared to not being at risk at all) is associated with several household characteristics not only in the EU as a whole, but also across country groups. Household structure, attained level of education of the household head, and work intensity of the household show the strongest correlation with consistent poverty status. Those living in consistent poverty are more likely than those in severe material deprivation or income poverty to live in bigger families, to have lower levels of education, and to have weak or non-existent links to the labour market. In addition, they evaluate their financial circumstances as being worse, ceteris paribus."
"This paper investigates the relationship between material deprivation and relative income poverty. We apply the method suggested by Nolan and Whelan (2011a,b) to measure consistent poverty in the European Union. We are interested in the cross-country variation in those at risk of consistent poverty, as well as in the main household-level factors associated with this status. Using EU-SILC data from 2012, we first perform a correlation analysis ...

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"The aim of this paper is to identify and provide a preliminary assessment of the resources that the EU has made available to promote social innovation over the period 2006-2014, with special focus on poverty and social exclusion policies. Such a focus is relevant insofar as the establishment of a quantitative target concerning poverty and social exclusion has been one of the major novelties introduced by the Europe 2020 Strategy: social innovation has been presented as a key area for facilitating its achievement. In order to identify European Union (EU) resources relevant for social innovation, we have adopted a diachronic approach taking into account two sub-periods: 2006-2010 (the period of the revised Lisbon Strategy) and 2010-2014 (the first stage of the new Europe 2020 Strategy). This has allowed us to shed light on both the varying importance of the issue over time and the evolution of the relevant instruments and processes implemented by the EU. Our analysis also provides insights into the complex and multi-layered European policy architecture for underpinning social innovation.(for more see paper)"
"The aim of this paper is to identify and provide a preliminary assessment of the resources that the EU has made available to promote social innovation over the period 2006-2014, with special focus on poverty and social exclusion policies. Such a focus is relevant insofar as the establishment of a quantitative target concerning poverty and social exclusion has been one of the major novelties introduced by the Europe 2020 Strategy: social ...

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"Social Europe is under lingering construction. Not only does the EU indirectly (and increasingly) impact on national social policies, the Union itself is slowly evolving towards more social governance as has become apparent with the inclusion of social indicators in the European Semester. This notwithstanding, apart from the coordination of social security rights for mobile workers, anti-discrimination legislation, and health and safety standards at work, social policy remains an exclusive national competence. Moreover, it is guaranteed to remain so through the legal subsidiarity principle. As a consequence, EU social policy has to a large extent been limited to soft governance initiatives that aim to influence national policies in order to achieve commonly agreed social goals. These goals are defined as social outcomes, rather than the means through which they are achieved, a governance model known as “second order output governance” (Vandenbroucke, Cantillon, Van Mechelen, Goedemé, & Van Lancker, 2013). However, over the past decades, despite the ambitious Lisbon and EU2020 social targets, many EU Member States have failed to make progress in fighting poverty. Since the crisis the picture has become truly negative, not in the least due to strong diverging trends within the Union. Meanwhile, the indirect influence of the EU on national social policies has increased. This begs the question whether a more performant EU level involvement in the field of social policy is conceivable, within the constraints set by the European Treaties. In this paper, we argue that European minimum standards are the place to start. Thereby, a broad approach should be taken, including principles for minimum social security and minimum wages. To this end we believe that time has come for a modest shift to “second order input governance”. More in particular, we propose to include policy indicators regarding minimum income protection sensu lato, in the recently revised EU monitoring process of the European Semester. We assess the current (im)balances in national minimum income packages, and discuss in depth the potential value of including the indicators in a structured EU monitoring, as well as their main drawbacks and limitations."
"Social Europe is under lingering construction. Not only does the EU indirectly (and increasingly) impact on national social policies, the Union itself is slowly evolving towards more social governance as has become apparent with the inclusion of social indicators in the European Semester. This notwithstanding, apart from the coordination of social security rights for mobile workers, anti-discrimination legislation, and health and safety ...

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"This paper aims to shed light on the relative importance of the discourse on social investment and social innovation in Austrian social policy by examining their role in academic and civil society discussions and presenting some evidence of current empirical developments. It is shown that the idea of social innovation is increasingly being promoted by industry, the media and civil society. In terms of social investment, the perspective has only recently been taken up by some researchers and interest groups. Depending on its very definition, however, empirical data on social investment expenditures suggest – also in comparison with other conservative welfare states – increasing or decreasing trends of this type of social security expenditures in Austria."
"This paper aims to shed light on the relative importance of the discourse on social investment and social innovation in Austrian social policy by examining their role in academic and civil society discussions and presenting some evidence of current empirical developments. It is shown that the idea of social innovation is increasingly being promoted by industry, the media and civil society. In terms of social investment, the perspective has only ...

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"Governments across the EU have been striving to get more people into work while at the same time acknowledging that more needs to be done to ‘make work pay'. Yet this drive comes at a time when structural economic shifts are putting pressure on wages, especially of less skilled workers. This article focuses on trends in minimum wages, income taxes, and work-related benefits within a selection of 16 EU countries, for the period 2001-2012, with three US states included as reference cases. We find evidence for eroding relative minimum wages in various EU countries, yet combined with catch-up growth in the new Member States. We also find that governments counteracted eroding minimum wages through direct income support measures, especially for lone parents. Most prevalent among these were substantial declines in income tax liabilities. More generally we see a trend unfolding towards a fiscalization of income support policies."
"Governments across the EU have been striving to get more people into work while at the same time acknowledging that more needs to be done to ‘make work pay'. Yet this drive comes at a time when structural economic shifts are putting pressure on wages, especially of less skilled workers. This article focuses on trends in minimum wages, income taxes, and work-related benefits within a selection of 16 EU countries, for the period 2001-2012, with ...

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