The SocialWelfare Pensions in Ireland: Pensioner Poverty and Gender

This paper examines changes to value of the state pensions and poverty rates for older men and women during the two terms of the Fianna Fáil — Progressive Democrat coalition government in Ireland between 1997 and 2007. It is shown that despite consistent increases in the value of the state pensions relative to earnings, poverty increased during the initial years of the period only to fall dramatically thereafter. While the increase in poverty at the 50 per cent median income rate between 1997 and 2001 was experienced disproportionately by women, there has also been an important gender dimension to the reduction in poverty amongst the over 65s since 2001. Since 2003, women have been no more likely than men to fall below the 50 per cent of median income poverty line or to fall below the 60 per cent line since 2004. However, analysis of data from the 2006 Irish release of the EU Survey of Income and Living Conditions shows that older women remained more likely than men to experience poverty as measured at 70 per cent of median income. A logistic regression model is used to identify underlying differences in poverty rates between men and women after adjusting for other independent variables. The results show that after adjusting for differences in occupation, household composition, geography and health status, the odds of a woman falling below the 70 per cent median income line remained 1.25 times that of a man.

The coupling of disadvantages: material poverty and multiple deprivation in Europe before and after the Great Recession

This paper examines the impact of the Great Recession on material poverty and multiple deprivation in Europe. Applying as its conceptual framework Poverty as Capability Deprivation (Hick 2014), which is one specification of Amartya Sen's capability approach, and employing the Alkire-Foster adjusted headcount measure, the paper draws on data from the EU Survey of Income and Living Conditions to present a multidimensional poverty analysis of 24 EU Member States at four time points: 2005, 2008, 2011 and 2013. The analysis shows that the pre-crisis period was associated with substantial reductions in multidimensional poverty in Europe, with the largest reductions occurring in the poorest Member States. However, the Southern European countries largely failed to benefit from these pre-crisis poverty reductions and, when the crisis hit, experienced the largest increases in multidimensional poverty in Europe. These patterns reflect a changing geography of poverty within the European Union, increasingly concentrated away from the East, and towards the South

Enter the Troika: The politics of social security during Ireland's bailout

This paper examines the influence of the Troika on the retrenchment and reform of social security in Ireland during its bailout between 2010 and 2013. To do this, it draws on data from in-depth interviews with senior civil servants and civil society organisation staff who met with the Troika as part of their quarterly missions to Ireland during this period. The key themes which emerged from these interviews include the largely domestic origins of social security retrenchment and reform; the surprising, and distinctive, positions adopted by the European Commission and the IMF; the extent of the Irish government’s room for manoeuver in this area, and the ways in which the Irish government defended social security against proposals for additional cuts put forward by the Troika. The paper concludes by arguing that the scope for domestic decision-making was heavily constrained, yet non-trivial, and that the Troika’s influence comprised not only ‘powering’ but also ‘persuasion’

The Troika gave Ireland more autonomy over social security cuts than is commonly recognised

The so called ‘Troika’ of the European Commission, European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund was frequently criticised during the Eurozone crisis on the basis that it had imposed austerity on countries requiring a bailout. But how accurate was this picture in reality? Drawing on new research in Ireland, Rod Hick writes that the nature of Troika supervision was quite different from the popular image: while the deficit reduction targets put Ireland in a fiscal straight-jacket, they allowed room for manoeuvre in terms of the precise tax rises and spending cuts that would be imposed to reduce the deficit

Moving in and out of in-work poverty in the UK: an analysis of transitions, trajectories and trigger events

There is growing concern about the problem of in-work poverty in the UK. Despite this, the literature on in-work poverty remains small in comparison with that on low pay and, in particular, we know relatively little about how people move in and out of in-work poverty. This paper presents an analysis of in-work poverty transitions in the UK, and extends the literature in this field in a number of identified ways. The paper finds that that in-work poverty is more transitory than poverty amongst working-age adults more generally, and that the number of workers in the household is a particularly strong predictor of in-work poverty transitions. For most, in-work poverty is a temporary phenomenon, and most exits are by exiting poverty while remaining in work. However, our study finds that respondents who experience in-work poverty were three times more likely than non-poor workers to become workless, while one-quarter of respondents in workless, poor families who gained work entered in-work poverty. These findings demonstrate the limits to which work provides a route out of poverty, and points to the importance of trying to support positive transitions while minimising negative shocks faced by working poor families

Inequality and the capability approach

Inequality has acquired a newfound prominence in academic and political debate. While scholars working with the capability approach have succeeded in influencing the nature of debate about the conceptualisation and measurement of poverty, which is increasingly understood in multidimensional terms, the recent literature on inequality focusses overwhelmingly on economic forms of inequality, and especially on inequalities in income and wealth. In this paper we outline how and why the capability approach might be employed to provide a richer understanding of inequality, and of ‘advantage’ in particular. We also discuss three issues that arise when seeking to apply the capability approach to examine inequality rather than the more traditional concern with poverty. Addressing these issues is central to unlocking the potential that the capability approach has to enrich the understanding of inequality

Inequality, disadvantage and the capability approach: Bridging conceptual framework and empirical analysis

In this paper, I will discuss some of the challenges that arise when seeking to apply the capability to empirically examine poverty, inequality and welfare state change. I will begin by outlining the key concepts of the approach and its claims of distinctiveness vis-à-vis alternative approaches. Debates about how to apply the approach empirically have loomed large in the capability literature and I will discuss the challenges which emerge when trying to apply the approach in order to analyse poverty, and will point to some of the key conclusions that emerge from such studies. I will then argue that trying to apply the capability approach to study inequality, and not just poverty, poses even greater challenges, drawing on joint work with Tania Burchardt recently published in the Journal of Human Development and Capabilities. The final section will consider what adopting a capability perspective might imply in terms of understanding welfare state change. I will suggest that, despite the unorthodox nomenclature, the capability approach provides the basis for considering the impact of reforms on the quality of life, thus considering the impact of policies on both economic and non-economic dimensions of well-being

From Celtic Tiger to crisis: progress, problems and prospects for social security in Ireland

This article provides an assessment of the impact of changes to social security in Ireland during both the Celtic Tiger and crisis periods, comparing change in social security rates relative to prices and to median equivalized net income. It is argued that, contrary to some commentary, there was progress in terms of social welfare generosity during the Celtic Tiger years, despite Ireland adopting a low-tax economic model. However, in the latter years of the Celtic Tiger period, this progress was increasingly leveraged against precarious property-related taxes. Following the collapse of the housing bubble, the bank guarantee and the bailout, there has been substantial retrenchment of social security, both in terms of cuts to some of the primary social welfare payments, tightening of scheme rules as well as more direct cuts to less visible schemes. The article provides an assessment of these changes, ending on a cautionary note in arguing that the prospects for the future do not augur well given Ireland's continued commitment to a low-tax economic model

Poverty as capability deprivation: conceptualising and measuring poverty in contemporary Europe

Poverty analysis is in the midst of a multidimensional “turn” due, in part, to the growing awareness of the limitations of relative income measures of poverty. In this paper, we argue that the conceptualisation of poverty remains a neglected aspect of this multidimensional turn to date, and demonstrate that the counter-intuitive results which flow from relative income analyses are not problems of measurement, but are entirely consistent with the conceptualisation of poverty under Peter Townsend’s dominant Poverty as Relative Deprivation framework. In response to these problems we articulate an alternative framework, Poverty as Capability Deprivation, drawing on Amartya Sen’s capability approach, and argue that this provides more persuasive explanations as to why some nations have greater poverty than others and why poverty remains a problem even in the richest nations

How do people exit in-work poverty and what prevents them from doing so?

Rod Hick examines the ways in which people move in and out of working poverty, as well as the impact that the UK's tax credit system has had on in-work poverty levels. He emphasises the need for researchers and policymakers to focus on the factors which prevent or enable people to exit working poverty, so that positive transitions can be supported