The Lottery of Birth: Giving all Children an Equal Chance to Survive

Based on inaugural analysis of disaggregated data from 87 low and middle income countries around the world, this report reveals that in more than three quarters of these countries, inequalities in child survival rates are actually worsening, resulting in some groups of children making far slower progress than their better-off peers. In 78 percent of the countries covered in the report, at least one social or economic group has fallen behind and is therefore making slower progress in reducing child mortality, and in 16 percent of these countries, inequalities in child survival rates have increased across all social and economic groups. Save the Children's analysis suggests that, without a true step change in action, the lottery of birth will continue into the future, slowing progress towards the ultimate goal of ending preventable child deaths for generations to come. However, tackling this inequality is possible. Almost a fifth of the countries in the report, including Rwanda, Malawi, Mexico, and Bangladesh, have successfully combined rapid and inclusive reductions in child mortality, achieving faster progress than most countries, while at the same time ensuring that no groups of children are left behind.The agency calls for the international community to commit to ending preventable child deaths by 2030.The new development framework, which will replace the MDGs, will be agreed upon at the United Nations General Assembly in September 2015. This framework must set out ambitious child and maternal survival targets and commit to working towards universal health coverage

Means-testing or Universalism: what strategies best address poverty?

Means-testing or Universalism: what strategies best address poverty

Welfare solidarities in the age of mass migration: evidence from European Social Survey 2016

Welfare opinion research has traditionally viewed migration as a potential hazard for welfare solidarity. In this article, we argue that while increased presence of foreigners can indeed make some people less supportive of public welfare provision in general or trigger opposition to migrants’ social rights, the link between migration and solidarity is not universally a negative one. Instead, many people can combine support for migration with high preferences for comprehensive social protection; others can endorse migration while they are not particularly supportive of an all-encompassing welfare state. Based on this line of reasoning we construct a taxonomy of four ideal types of welfare solidarity that are present in contemporary European welfare states. To illustrate the usefulness of this heuristic tool, we apply Latent Class Factor Analysis to European Social Survey round 8 data. We find that the majority of Europeans (56%) combine strong support for both migration and the welfare state (extended solidarity). However, exclusive solidarity is also widely spread as over a quarter of respondents (28%) oppose migration while expressing strong support for the welfare state. People who oppose migration and have relatively low preference for the welfare state (diminished solidarity) represent a small minority (5%). A little more than a tenth (11%) of Europeans endorse migration, but express relatively low support for the welfare state, which we assume to be a reflection of cosmopolitan solidarity. Despite considerable variation in the incidence of the four solidarities across countries, the preference structure is the same for all. Further, we find that at the individual level, the propensity to hold one of these types of solidarities is influenced by social trust, citizenship and country of birth, financial situation, education, and residence type. However, the extent of migration and social spending do not appear to be related with the propensity of holding either type of solidarity as the liberal’s dilemma and the welfare chauvinism theories would predict

Twenty years after Korpi and Palme's "paradox of redistribution". What have we learned so far, and where should we take it from here?

Some 20 years ago, Korpi and Palme (1998) published one of the most influential papers in the history of social policy discipline, in which they put forward a “paradox of redistribution”: the more countries target welfare resources exclusively at the poor, the less redistribution is actually achieved and the less income inequality and poverty are reduced. The current paper provides a state-of-the-art review of empirical research into that paradox. More specifically, we break down the paradox into seven core assumptions, which together form a causal chain running from institutional design to redistributive outcomes. For each causal assumption, we offer a comprehensive and critical review of the relevant empirical literature, also including a broader range of studies that do not aim to address Korpi and Palme’s paradox per se, but are nevertheless informative about it. Our main contribution is that we move beyond a simple test of the “end product” (i.e., Are universal systems more effective in reducing poverty and income inequality?) to a much more sophisticated examination of the underlying, in-between mechanisms of the paradox of redistribution. In doing so, we respond to Korpi and Palme’s call to “open the black box of causal processes assumed to mediate the effects from institutions to redistributive outcomes” (1998:673). Our review shows that the only unequivocally supported assumption is that higher welfare spending is associated with lower levels of poverty and inequality, but even in this regard there is some indication that countries can compensate for lower spending by more-accurate targeting of low-income families. There is also ample evidence that the first stages of the causal chain – institutional structures of the welfare state influencing the formation of class coalitions and the latter affecting the size of the redistributive budget – are simply not correct, as class coalitions do not seem to differ between welfare regimes. Perhaps one of the main drawbacks of Korpi and Palme’s paradox of redistribution is thus that its very foundations were taken for granted based on theoretical reasoning instead of empirical material.status: Published onlin

Eco-Social Divides in Europe: Public Attitudes towards Welfare and Climate Change Policies

In the face of accelerating global warming and attendant natural disasters, it is clear that governments all over the world eventually have to take measures to mitigate the most adverse consequences of climate change. However, the costs of these measures are likely to force governments to reconsider some of their tax and spending priorities, of which social spending is the largest expenditure item in developed welfare states. Unless carried out in a way that is considered as fair by most citizens, such trade-off is likely to add a new, ecological dimension to the existing social cleavages in people’s preferences for public provision. Whether or not the possible tensions between the two sets of policies have already resulted in the emergence of a new, eco-social divide in Europe is an open question. In this paper, we hypothesise that there are four distinct attitude groups in relation to welfare and climate change policies, and that the probability of belonging to any of these groups is influenced by individuals’ socioeconomic and ideological characteristics, as well as the country context in which they live. We test our hypotheses using data from the eighth round of the European Social Survey conducted in 2016/17 in multinomial regression models. Results suggest that across Europe people are considerably divided in their support of public welfare and climate policies, but that support for both dimensions is highest in the Nordic countries. At the micro level, we find political ideology and trust in public institutions to be the most important drivers of a newly emerging eco-social divide.status: Published onlin

Twenty years after Korpi and Palme's "paradox of redistribution". What have we learned so far, and where should we take it from here?

status: publishe

Two decades after Korpi and Palme's "Paradox of Redistribution": What have we learnt so far and where do we take it from here?

status: accepte

ახალი მთავრობის სოციალური პროგრამა - ყველაზე მოწყვლადები ისევ ყურადღების მიღმა?

არჩევნებში გამარჯვებისთანავე საქართველოს ახალმა ხელისუფლებამ განაცხადა რამოდენიმე მნიშვნელოვანი ინიციატივის შესახებ, რომლებიც სოციალური დაცვის სისტემის გაძლიერებას ისახავენ მიზნად. ეს ინიციატივები მოიცავენ პენსიების ზრდას, მიზნობრივი სოციალური დახმარების გაორმაგებას, დაბალი შემოსავლის მქონე დასაქმებულთათვის საგადასახადო შეღავათების დაწესებას, შრომის კანონმდებლობის გაძლიერებასა და სამედიცინო დაზღვევის უნივერსალური საბაზისო პაკეტის შემოღებას. წინამდებარე დოკუმენტში საქსტატის მიერ ჩატარებული შინამეურნეობების ინტეგრირებული კვლევის მონაცემების გამოყენებით, ჩვენ ვახდენთ პროგნოზირებას იმისას, თუ რა ეფექტი ექნება გაზრდილ სოციალურ ტრანსფერებს. კვლევა აჩვენებს, რომ გაზრდილი სოციალური ტრანსფერები მნიშვნელოვნად შეამცირებენ სიღარიბეს, მაგრამ ღარიბი ოჯახების მესამედის მდგომარეობა არ შეიცვლება, რადგან ამჟამად ისინი სოციალური დაცვის სისტემის მიღმა არიან დარჩენილნი. ამ პრობლემის აღმოსაფხვრელად ჩვენ ვთავაზობთ კეთილდღეობის შეფასების ალტერნატიულ მეთოდს, რომლითაც ოჯახის მიერ დახმარების მიღებას განსაზღვრავს არა ხანგრძლივი მოხმარების ნივთების მიხედვით განსაზღვრული ჰიპოთეტური კეთილდღეობის ქულა, არამედ მისი საშემოსავლო პოტენციალი და არსებული საჭიროებები

Retrenched, but Still Desired? Perceptions Regarding the Social Legitimacy of the Welfare State in Russia Compared with EU Countries

© 2019, © 2019 University of Glasgow. This article explores how the retrenchment of the Russian welfare state has affected Russians’ attitudes towards it. Using European Social Survey data, we find that the retrenchment has not eroded Russians’ strong preference for a comprehensive system, despite their dissatisfaction with its outcomes. Further, we find that in Russia, some of the individual socioeconomic characteristics have a different effect on people's attitudes to social welfare compared to equivalent groups in EU countries. Overall, as in the EU, attitudes are multidimensional: a positive stance towards some aspects of the welfare state coexists with a critical approach towards others.status: publishe