Pub Date : 2023-04-13DOI: 10.1177/09589287231164341
Olivier Jacques
While the drivers of preferences about tax progressivity and redistribution are well identified, the study of willingness to pay taxes remains underdeveloped. This article uses the 2016 ISSP on the Role of Government and the 2018 OECD Risks that Matter surveys to identify which groups of voters are more likely to be willing to pay taxes. It shows that ideology mediates the correlations between education or income and willingness to pay. Among the left, income and education tend to have a positive association with willingness to pay taxes, whereas both variables are negatively associated with willingness to pay among the right. Thus, the core constituencies of left-wing parties composed of socio-cultural professionals and of production and service workers have different tax policy preferences. Socio-cultural professionals, with their higher education and income, are significantly more willing to pay taxes than production and service workers, who share lower education and income.
{"title":"Explaining willingness to pay taxes: The role of income, education, ideology","authors":"Olivier Jacques","doi":"10.1177/09589287231164341","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09589287231164341","url":null,"abstract":"While the drivers of preferences about tax progressivity and redistribution are well identified, the study of willingness to pay taxes remains underdeveloped. This article uses the 2016 ISSP on the Role of Government and the 2018 OECD Risks that Matter surveys to identify which groups of voters are more likely to be willing to pay taxes. It shows that ideology mediates the correlations between education or income and willingness to pay. Among the left, income and education tend to have a positive association with willingness to pay taxes, whereas both variables are negatively associated with willingness to pay among the right. Thus, the core constituencies of left-wing parties composed of socio-cultural professionals and of production and service workers have different tax policy preferences. Socio-cultural professionals, with their higher education and income, are significantly more willing to pay taxes than production and service workers, who share lower education and income.","PeriodicalId":47919,"journal":{"name":"Journal of European Social Policy","volume":"33 1","pages":"267 - 284"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43524206","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-04-06DOI: 10.1177/09589287231164343
Olaf Simonse, M. Knoef, Lotte F. van Dillen, Wilco W. van Dijk, Eric van Dijk
We empirically test an integral model for healthcare and child support benefits take-up using a probability sample of the Dutch population (N = 905). To examine how different psychological factors, in conjunction, explain take-up, we apply model averaging with Akaike’s Information Criterion (AICC). For both types of benefits, people’s perceptions of eligibility best explain take-up. For healthcare benefits, take-up also relates to perceptions of need. Exploratory analyses suggest that for healthcare benefits but not for child support benefits, executive functions, self-efficacy, fear of reclaims, financial stress, and welfare stigma explain perceived eligibility. We find no support for knowledge, support, and administrative burden as explanatory factors in take-up. We discuss the results in relation to the Capability Opportunity Motivation Behaviour (COM-B) model for developing behavioural change interventions.
{"title":"Psychological barriers to take-up of healthcare and child support benefits in the Netherlands","authors":"Olaf Simonse, M. Knoef, Lotte F. van Dillen, Wilco W. van Dijk, Eric van Dijk","doi":"10.1177/09589287231164343","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09589287231164343","url":null,"abstract":"We empirically test an integral model for healthcare and child support benefits take-up using a probability sample of the Dutch population (N = 905). To examine how different psychological factors, in conjunction, explain take-up, we apply model averaging with Akaike’s Information Criterion (AICC). For both types of benefits, people’s perceptions of eligibility best explain take-up. For healthcare benefits, take-up also relates to perceptions of need. Exploratory analyses suggest that for healthcare benefits but not for child support benefits, executive functions, self-efficacy, fear of reclaims, financial stress, and welfare stigma explain perceived eligibility. We find no support for knowledge, support, and administrative burden as explanatory factors in take-up. We discuss the results in relation to the Capability Opportunity Motivation Behaviour (COM-B) model for developing behavioural change interventions.","PeriodicalId":47919,"journal":{"name":"Journal of European Social Policy","volume":"33 1","pages":"353 - 372"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48699753","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-03-25DOI: 10.1177/09589287231159492
Michael Christl, Silvia De Poli, Viginta Ivaškaitė-Tamošiūnė
We analyse the different fiscal treatment of married and cohabiting couples across all EU Member States using microsimulation methods. Our article highlights important differences across EU countries’ tax–benefit systems, where seven countries show substantial bonuses for married couples and four exhibit marriage penalties. On a micro level, we find that these marriage bonuses/penalties differ substantially across household types and income. From a policy point of view, our results suggest that the abolishment of marriage-related tax–benefit components in countries with marriage bonuses would leave some households financially worse off but would increase governments revenues that could be spent to targeted support of specific groups. From both an equity and efficiency point of view, this abolishment would be desirable.
{"title":"Does it pay to say ‘I do’? Marriage bonuses and penalties across the EU","authors":"Michael Christl, Silvia De Poli, Viginta Ivaškaitė-Tamošiūnė","doi":"10.1177/09589287231159492","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09589287231159492","url":null,"abstract":"We analyse the different fiscal treatment of married and cohabiting couples across all EU Member States using microsimulation methods. Our article highlights important differences across EU countries’ tax–benefit systems, where seven countries show substantial bonuses for married couples and four exhibit marriage penalties. On a micro level, we find that these marriage bonuses/penalties differ substantially across household types and income. From a policy point of view, our results suggest that the abolishment of marriage-related tax–benefit components in countries with marriage bonuses would leave some households financially worse off but would increase governments revenues that could be spent to targeted support of specific groups. From both an equity and efficiency point of view, this abolishment would be desirable.","PeriodicalId":47919,"journal":{"name":"Journal of European Social Policy","volume":"33 1","pages":"317 - 336"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43571520","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-03-10DOI: 10.1177/09589287231158019
D. Bell, M. Valenta, Zan Strabac
Welfare chauvinism is largely understood as the view that the benefits of the welfare state should primarily be given to the native population, and not shared with the immigrant populations. Using a multilevel approach, we analyse welfare chauvinism in Europe and test to see how different contextual and macro-economic conditions may influence welfare chauvinistic attitudes in Europe, with a particular focus on different nuances of unemployment. We also test how individuals’ subjective perceptions of the economic development in their society may influence welfare chauvinism in Europe. The analysis finds that welfare chauvinistic attitudes have increased in strength in Central-Eastern European welfare states, whereas the most exclusionary form of welfare chauvinism is near non-existent in the Nordic welfare regimes. We further find that it is the subjective perceptions of the macro-economic conditions and the strength of far-right populism, rather than the actual objective reality of a society’s economic situation that drives welfare chauvinistic attitudes in Europe.
{"title":"Perceptions and realities: Explaining welfare chauvinism in Europe","authors":"D. Bell, M. Valenta, Zan Strabac","doi":"10.1177/09589287231158019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09589287231158019","url":null,"abstract":"Welfare chauvinism is largely understood as the view that the benefits of the welfare state should primarily be given to the native population, and not shared with the immigrant populations. Using a multilevel approach, we analyse welfare chauvinism in Europe and test to see how different contextual and macro-economic conditions may influence welfare chauvinistic attitudes in Europe, with a particular focus on different nuances of unemployment. We also test how individuals’ subjective perceptions of the economic development in their society may influence welfare chauvinism in Europe. The analysis finds that welfare chauvinistic attitudes have increased in strength in Central-Eastern European welfare states, whereas the most exclusionary form of welfare chauvinism is near non-existent in the Nordic welfare regimes. We further find that it is the subjective perceptions of the macro-economic conditions and the strength of far-right populism, rather than the actual objective reality of a society’s economic situation that drives welfare chauvinistic attitudes in Europe.","PeriodicalId":47919,"journal":{"name":"Journal of European Social Policy","volume":"33 1","pages":"301 - 316"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45051098","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-02-01DOI: 10.1177/09589287221115672
Giovanni Gallo, Michele Raitano
Using a static microsimulation model based on a link between survey and administrative data, this article investigates the effects of the pandemic on income distribution in Italy in 2020. The analysis focuses on both individuals and households by simulating through nowcasting techniques changes in labour income and in equivalized income, respectively. For both units of observations, we compare changes before and after social policy interventions, that is, automatic stabilizers and benefits introduced by the government to address the effects of the COVID-19 emergency. We find that the pandemic has led to a relatively greater drop in labour income for those lying in the poorest quantiles, which, however, benefited more from the income support benefits. As a result, compared with the 'No-COVID scenario', income poverty and inequality indices grow considerably when these benefits are not considered, whereas the poverty increase greatly narrows and inequality slightly decreases once social policy interventions are taken into account. This evidence signals the crucial role played by cash social transfers to contrast with the most serious economic consequences of the pandemic.
{"title":"SOS incomes: simulated effects of COVID-19 and emergency benefits on individual and household income distribution in Italy.","authors":"Giovanni Gallo, Michele Raitano","doi":"10.1177/09589287221115672","DOIUrl":"10.1177/09589287221115672","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Using a static microsimulation model based on a link between survey and administrative data, this article investigates the effects of the pandemic on income distribution in Italy in 2020. The analysis focuses on both individuals and households by simulating through nowcasting techniques changes in labour income and in equivalized income, respectively. For both units of observations, we compare changes before and after social policy interventions, that is, automatic stabilizers and benefits introduced by the government to address the effects of the COVID-19 emergency. We find that the pandemic has led to a relatively greater drop in labour income for those lying in the poorest quantiles, which, however, benefited more from the income support benefits. As a result, compared with the 'No-COVID scenario', income poverty and inequality indices grow considerably when these benefits are not considered, whereas the poverty increase greatly narrows and inequality slightly decreases once social policy interventions are taken into account. This evidence signals the crucial role played by cash social transfers to contrast with the most serious economic consequences of the pandemic.</p>","PeriodicalId":47919,"journal":{"name":"Journal of European Social Policy","volume":"33 1","pages":"101-116"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9353314/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47859556","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-31DOI: 10.1177/09589287221150182
Cecilia Bruzelius, Nora Ratzmann, L. Reiss
Most research on the social policy–migration control link focuses on indirect control, that is, denying access to welfare. This article instead draws attention to how welfare institutions are made directly involved in migration control through duties to report certain categories of migrants to migration authorities. We ask how these obligations are put into practice and how local governments shape this process. In so doing, we place special emphasis on local organisational fields – that is, the close horizontal connection between public and non-public actors involved in basic needs provision. The article builds on exploratory research across four German cities, drawing on 61 interviews conducted in 2019–2020 with welfare actors catering to basic needs (housing/shelter, healthcare, social assistance, social counselling) and document research. Based on this, we, first, explore patterns of reporting practices and provide a typology of different responses, ranging from elaborate circumvention strategies to over-compliance. Second, we analyse the domino effects of reporting obligations, namely how welfare actors that are exempted from reporting adopt their practices too, with consequences both for migrants' welfare access and for other authorities' ability to report. Finally, we discuss how local governments can shape reporting practices, demonstrating how some cities actively sanction circumvention strategies. The last part identifies venues for further research.
{"title":"Delegating migration control to local welfare actors: Reporting obligations in practice","authors":"Cecilia Bruzelius, Nora Ratzmann, L. Reiss","doi":"10.1177/09589287221150182","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09589287221150182","url":null,"abstract":"Most research on the social policy–migration control link focuses on indirect control, that is, denying access to welfare. This article instead draws attention to how welfare institutions are made directly involved in migration control through duties to report certain categories of migrants to migration authorities. We ask how these obligations are put into practice and how local governments shape this process. In so doing, we place special emphasis on local organisational fields – that is, the close horizontal connection between public and non-public actors involved in basic needs provision. The article builds on exploratory research across four German cities, drawing on 61 interviews conducted in 2019–2020 with welfare actors catering to basic needs (housing/shelter, healthcare, social assistance, social counselling) and document research. Based on this, we, first, explore patterns of reporting practices and provide a typology of different responses, ranging from elaborate circumvention strategies to over-compliance. Second, we analyse the domino effects of reporting obligations, namely how welfare actors that are exempted from reporting adopt their practices too, with consequences both for migrants' welfare access and for other authorities' ability to report. Finally, we discuss how local governments can shape reporting practices, demonstrating how some cities actively sanction circumvention strategies. The last part identifies venues for further research.","PeriodicalId":47919,"journal":{"name":"Journal of European Social Policy","volume":"33 1","pages":"233 - 247"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49340975","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-19DOI: 10.1177/09589287221148916
Hyojin Seo
Studies have shown positive impact of family policies on women’s labour market participation over the last decades. How, then, does it influence the types of jobs women obtain when they (re-)enter the labour market? Using multi-level modelling, this study examines how different work–family balance policies (that is, leave policies, childcare services) shape gendered labour market patterns and whether or not it mitigates women’s overrepresentation among the labour market Outsiders across Europe. I use European Working Conditions Survey 2015 data and cover 30 European countries. Specifically focusing on women’s relative likelihood of being labour market Outsiders compared to men, I find that certain policies help women avoid being Outsiders, while the others may reinforce the existing gender inequality in the labour market. This resonates with the welfare state paradox and family policy trade-off literature that the policies that do not disrupt the gender norms may in turn maintain or enhance them.
{"title":"Gendered labour market patterns across Europe: Does family policy mitigate feminization of outsiders?","authors":"Hyojin Seo","doi":"10.1177/09589287221148916","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09589287221148916","url":null,"abstract":"Studies have shown positive impact of family policies on women’s labour market participation over the last decades. How, then, does it influence the types of jobs women obtain when they (re-)enter the labour market? Using multi-level modelling, this study examines how different work–family balance policies (that is, leave policies, childcare services) shape gendered labour market patterns and whether or not it mitigates women’s overrepresentation among the labour market Outsiders across Europe. I use European Working Conditions Survey 2015 data and cover 30 European countries. Specifically focusing on women’s relative likelihood of being labour market Outsiders compared to men, I find that certain policies help women avoid being Outsiders, while the others may reinforce the existing gender inequality in the labour market. This resonates with the welfare state paradox and family policy trade-off literature that the policies that do not disrupt the gender norms may in turn maintain or enhance them.","PeriodicalId":47919,"journal":{"name":"Journal of European Social Policy","volume":"33 1","pages":"3 - 16"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46179402","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-19DOI: 10.1177/09589287221148336
Helen Kowalewska
An accepted framework for ‘gendering’ the analysis of welfare regimes compares countries by degrees of ‘defamilialization’ or how far their family policies support or undermine women’s employment participation. This article develops an alternative framework that explicitly spotlights women’s labour market outcomes rather than policies. Using hierarchical clustering on principal components, it groups 24 industrialized countries by their simultaneous performance across multiple gendered employment outcomes spanning segregation and inequalities in employment participation, intensity, and pay, with further differences by class. The three core ‘worlds’ of welfare (social-democratic, corporatist, liberal) each displays a distinctive pattern of gendered employment outcomes. Only France diverges from expectations, as large gender pay gaps across the educational divide – likely due to fragmented wage-bargaining – place it with Anglophone countries. Nevertheless, the outcome-based clustering fails to support the idea of a homogeneous Mediterranean grouping or a singular Eastern European cluster. Furthermore, results underscore the complexity and idiosyncrasy of gender inequality: while certain groups of countries are ‘better’ overall performers, all have their flaws. Even the Nordics fall behind on some measures of segregation, despite narrow participatory and pay gaps for lower- and high-skilled groups. Accordingly, separately monitoring multiple measures of gender inequality, rather than relying on ‘headline’ indicators or gender equality indices, matters.
{"title":"Gendered employment patterns: Women’s labour market outcomes across 24 countries","authors":"Helen Kowalewska","doi":"10.1177/09589287221148336","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09589287221148336","url":null,"abstract":"An accepted framework for ‘gendering’ the analysis of welfare regimes compares countries by degrees of ‘defamilialization’ or how far their family policies support or undermine women’s employment participation. This article develops an alternative framework that explicitly spotlights women’s labour market outcomes rather than policies. Using hierarchical clustering on principal components, it groups 24 industrialized countries by their simultaneous performance across multiple gendered employment outcomes spanning segregation and inequalities in employment participation, intensity, and pay, with further differences by class. The three core ‘worlds’ of welfare (social-democratic, corporatist, liberal) each displays a distinctive pattern of gendered employment outcomes. Only France diverges from expectations, as large gender pay gaps across the educational divide – likely due to fragmented wage-bargaining – place it with Anglophone countries. Nevertheless, the outcome-based clustering fails to support the idea of a homogeneous Mediterranean grouping or a singular Eastern European cluster. Furthermore, results underscore the complexity and idiosyncrasy of gender inequality: while certain groups of countries are ‘better’ overall performers, all have their flaws. Even the Nordics fall behind on some measures of segregation, despite narrow participatory and pay gaps for lower- and high-skilled groups. Accordingly, separately monitoring multiple measures of gender inequality, rather than relying on ‘headline’ indicators or gender equality indices, matters.","PeriodicalId":47919,"journal":{"name":"Journal of European Social Policy","volume":"33 1","pages":"151 - 168"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45772127","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-21DOI: 10.1177/09589287221141365
Dorottya Szikra, K. Öktem
Mainstream western-centric welfare state research has mostly confined itself to studying social policy in consolidated democracies and tends to assume a synergy between democracy and the welfare state. This article shifts the focus to welfare states in countries with declining democratic institutions and rising right-wing populist rule to explore a complex relationship between (de)democratization and welfare state reforms. We conduct a comparative case study of two extreme cases of democratic decline, Turkey and Hungary. We employ a sequential mixed method approach. First, we assess welfare efforts in the two countries to understand which policy areas were prioritized and whether autocratizing governments retrenched or expanded their welfare states. In the second stage, we explore the trajectory of welfare reforms in Hungary and Turkey, focusing on three analytically distinguishable dimensions of social policy change: policy content, policy procedures (including timing, parliamentary procedures, veto players); and the discourses accompanying reforms. We find that democratic decline facilitates rapid welfare state change but it does not necessarily mean retrenchment. Instead we observe ambivalent processes of welfare state restructuring. Common themes emerging in both countries are the rise of flagship programmes that ensure electoral support, a transition towards top-down decision-making and the salient role of discourse in welfare governance. Overall, similarities are stronger in procedures and discourse than in the direction of reforms. Differences in spending levels and policy content do not suggest that the two cases constitute a coherent illiberal welfare state regime. Instead, we see the emergence of authoritarian features that modify their original welfare models.
{"title":"An illiberal welfare state emerging? Welfare efforts and trajectories under democratic backsliding in Hungary and Turkey","authors":"Dorottya Szikra, K. Öktem","doi":"10.1177/09589287221141365","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09589287221141365","url":null,"abstract":"Mainstream western-centric welfare state research has mostly confined itself to studying social policy in consolidated democracies and tends to assume a synergy between democracy and the welfare state. This article shifts the focus to welfare states in countries with declining democratic institutions and rising right-wing populist rule to explore a complex relationship between (de)democratization and welfare state reforms. We conduct a comparative case study of two extreme cases of democratic decline, Turkey and Hungary. We employ a sequential mixed method approach. First, we assess welfare efforts in the two countries to understand which policy areas were prioritized and whether autocratizing governments retrenched or expanded their welfare states. In the second stage, we explore the trajectory of welfare reforms in Hungary and Turkey, focusing on three analytically distinguishable dimensions of social policy change: policy content, policy procedures (including timing, parliamentary procedures, veto players); and the discourses accompanying reforms. We find that democratic decline facilitates rapid welfare state change but it does not necessarily mean retrenchment. Instead we observe ambivalent processes of welfare state restructuring. Common themes emerging in both countries are the rise of flagship programmes that ensure electoral support, a transition towards top-down decision-making and the salient role of discourse in welfare governance. Overall, similarities are stronger in procedures and discourse than in the direction of reforms. Differences in spending levels and policy content do not suggest that the two cases constitute a coherent illiberal welfare state regime. Instead, we see the emergence of authoritarian features that modify their original welfare models.","PeriodicalId":47919,"journal":{"name":"Journal of European Social Policy","volume":"52 6","pages":"201 - 215"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41306270","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-20DOI: 10.1177/09589287221144233
Teresa Backhaus, Kai-Uwe Müller
Minimum wages are increasingly discussed as an instrument against (in-work) poverty and income inequality in Europe. Just recently the German government opted for a substantial ad-hoc increase of the minimum-wage level to €12 per hour mentioning poverty prevention as an explicit goal. We use the introduction of the federal minimum wage in Germany in 2015 to study its redistributive impact on disposable household incomes. Based on the German Socio-Economic Panel we analyse changes in poverty and income inequality investigating different mechanisms of the transmission from individual gross wage-rates to disposable household incomes. We find that the minimum wage is an inadequate tool for income redistribution because it does not target poor households. Individuals affected by the minimum wage are not primarily in households at the bottom of the income distribution but are spread across it. Consequently, welfare dependence decreases only marginally. The withdrawal of transfers or employment effects cannot explain the limited effect on poverty. Complementary simulations show that neither full compliance nor a markedly higher level of €12 per hour can render the minimum wage more effective in reducing poverty.
{"title":"Can a federal minimum wage alleviate poverty and income inequality? Ex-post and simulation evidence from Germany","authors":"Teresa Backhaus, Kai-Uwe Müller","doi":"10.1177/09589287221144233","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09589287221144233","url":null,"abstract":"Minimum wages are increasingly discussed as an instrument against (in-work) poverty and income inequality in Europe. Just recently the German government opted for a substantial ad-hoc increase of the minimum-wage level to €12 per hour mentioning poverty prevention as an explicit goal. We use the introduction of the federal minimum wage in Germany in 2015 to study its redistributive impact on disposable household incomes. Based on the German Socio-Economic Panel we analyse changes in poverty and income inequality investigating different mechanisms of the transmission from individual gross wage-rates to disposable household incomes. We find that the minimum wage is an inadequate tool for income redistribution because it does not target poor households. Individuals affected by the minimum wage are not primarily in households at the bottom of the income distribution but are spread across it. Consequently, welfare dependence decreases only marginally. The withdrawal of transfers or employment effects cannot explain the limited effect on poverty. Complementary simulations show that neither full compliance nor a markedly higher level of €12 per hour can render the minimum wage more effective in reducing poverty.","PeriodicalId":47919,"journal":{"name":"Journal of European Social Policy","volume":"33 1","pages":"216 - 232"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43417289","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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