Social Policy in Settled and Transitional Countries: A Comparison of Institutions and their Consequences

In all societies people seek shelter against such risk where their livelihood is for some reason endangered. Childhood, sickness, accidents, and old age are classical examples of social risks that a society somehow must encounter. A society that does not take care of its vulnerable members is not a sustainable one. Therefore, some kind of collective risk pooling and collective safety nets are necessary for a society to sustain itself. The structure of our study is as follows: Firstly, we describe the data used in this study. Secondly, in order to set the study of social policy in a wider frame of references it is fruitful to inspect economic development in post- socialist countries and in western nations. Thereafter follows a section on institutional arrangements guaranteeing social protection in case of old-age, sickness, childbirth, and unemployment. Fourthly, in addition to institutional set ups we are interested in analyzing the effectivity of those institutions. Effectivity will be measured by using some standard methods in this field of study: income distribution and poverty. Moreover, we will study the effectivity of social transfer systems to alleviate poverty in various countries. Fourthly, and lastly, we are interested in the costs of social security. What are the total costs and how is the burden divided between different sources of financing? What is the proportion of the insured, employers, and the public sector in the financing of social security in different countries

For Better or for Worse: Economic Positions of the Rich and the Poor: 1985-1995

In the first section of the study, we analyze the cross-sectional relationship between poverty rates and the income level of the poor. Thereafter, we take a close look at changes in time: how poverty and 'richness' rates and changes in the income of the poor and the rich are related to each other. The second part of the paper illustrates how the economic tide has improved the lot of the middle-income earners, the worse-off and the best-off. Have the rich taken all the money and run? Is there anything left for the poor? The last section of the paper discusses the fairness of income distribution and presents some tasks for future research on the topics

Distributive Justice and Social Policy

The article adapts the Rawlsian idea of decision-making behind the veil of ignorance in the realm of income transfer systems. As rational decision-makers we would plan a society where the incidence of poverty is low, differences in the level of living between life cycles are small, income differences between the rich and poor are modest, income mobility from poverty to non-poverty is high, and where the living standard of the poor is decent. The results show that income mobility is not greater in those countries which have wide income differences, nor is the situation of the poor any better in countries with huge income disparities than that of the poor in other countries. Cross-national comparisons indicate that high poverty rates are not associated with more rapid income mobility and higher standards for the poor

Sustainable and Inclusive Welfare States: Employment and Poverty Among Immigrants and People with Disabilities in Different Welfare State Regimes

In this article, we ask to what extent immigrants and people with disabilities are excluded from labor markets and to what extent they are exposed to poverty in different European welfare state regimes. Our starting points lie in the United Nation’s and European Union’s agendas for sustainable development, in research on welfare regimes, and in the social investment paradigm. We utilize the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) to run multilevel random effect models to measure the extent to which there are regime-specific differences in risk of poverty and months out of work. Our results show that within-regime dif-ferences are often larger than between-regime differences. The implementation of the social in-vestment paradigm, emphasizing the role of a decent level of income transfers combined with extensive public services, fortifies the fiscal and social sustainability of the welfare state

Does Social Policy Matter? Poverty Cycles in OECD Countries

The purpose of this paper is twofold, partly exploratory; to determine the degree to which Rowntree's poverty cycles are still apparent among the most advanced industrial nations, and partly analytical; to examine how successful different sociopolitical strategies have been in eliminating poverty over the life-cycle. The paper seeks to make a contribution in relation to earlier studies by both examining changes within singular countries and by comparing trends cross-nationally provisions

Relative to what? Cross-national picture of European poverty measured by regional, national and European standards

The starting point in the paper is the relative concept of poverty. We will study how our picture of poverty will change if we accept a very relative concept of poverty. The first problem we encountered was the selection of the benchmark. A couple of alternative ways to conduct relativizations were selected. First, we applied the conventional poverty approach. The poor were those whose income remained below 60% of the national equivalent disposable income. Second, we collapsed European nations together into one data pool and calculated a common poverty line for the EU. This EU line was then applied in subsequent analyses. Thirdly, we decomposed nation states into smaller units representing the poorest and richest areas in respective countries. Data were compiled from the Luxembourg Income Study. If we apply the conventional nation-based ways of operationalizing poverty (poverty line 60% of median income) the poverty rate varies from 7,1% in Sweden to 20,5% in Italy. The shift to the common European poverty line will expand that gap. The variation is from 0,7% in Luxembourg to 43,1% in Spain. Numerically and methodologically the most interesting issues are revealed when we compare regional, national and EU level relativizations. Our exercise indicates that within-nation differences are sometimes more pronounced than differences between nations. Therefore, very often national means tend to obscure more than they reveal. The seriousness of the problem varies between groups of countries. In the egalitarian Nordic countries incomes between regions as well as between individuals are more evenly distributed and consequently, the national means are more representative for these countries. Moreover, the Scandinavian cluster is more or less robust against the mode of comparison. The low poverty rates in the Nordic countries do not essentially change even if we change from national to regional or cross-national poverty lines. The change in the method of relativization does not alter our understanding of Scandinavian poverty but it has a substantial impact upon our picture of the Mediterranean countries. The use of the European poverty line leads to two to three times higher poverty rates than analyses based on purely national data. Also, the regional variation in these countries is the widest. Therefore, conclusions based on national means may in some cases be severely misleading. The results also have some bearing for our use of purchasing power parities. In societies with large socio-economic and regional variation in income, and consequently in consumption capacities, purchasing power parities implicitly assuming homogenous consumption patterns over society may give a distorted picture of the price levels in a country in question. When it comes to the Central European countries, to some extent the same story as was told in the Scandinavian case is valid. The countries are not that sensitive to changes in the calibration of the measurement instruments. Also the results for the UK are pretty robust but the main difference between the UK and Central-Europe is that the poverty rate is about 10 percentage points higher in the former

Social Policy or Structure? Income Transfers, Socio-demographic Factors and Poverty in the Nordic Countries and in France

The paper compares poverty in Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and France. We answer whether it is justifiable to talk about a unified Nordic model in terms of poverty and poverty alleviation. We have (1) descriptive/analytical and (2) methodological goals. (1) We pool the four Nordic countries into a single data set and compare France with this 'Scandinavia'. The results give strong evidence to the existence of the homogenous Scandinavian model in terms of incidence of poverty, poverty profiles, and the effectiveness of social policy. (2) The methodological objective is to change the world and simulate what would happen if France had the Scandinavian social structure - but its own social policy - and vice versa. Our re-weighting simulations show that the 'Scandinavization' of France would almost eradicate poverty in France. The 'Francofication' of Scandinavia would cause dramatic results in Scandinavia: the number of persons totally dependent on social transfers would increase, the effectiveness of transfer systems would decrease, and the poverty rate would rise near to the actual French figures. In sum, the huge differences in the French and Scandinavian poverty rates are not mainly explained by income transfer programs but differences in the family structure and in labor market behavior. But it is important to remember that these patterns are greatly affected by the institutional set-ups of the welfare states

Pohjoismaat - maailman paras kolkka?

Teema: pohjoismainen hyvinvointivaltio. Artikkeli perustuu alustukseen, joka pidettiin 28.1.2008 Suomalaisen Tiedeakatemian juhlaseminaarissa "Pohjoismaat: malli vai umpikuja?"

Poikkeukselliset ajat avaavat poikkeuksellisia mahdollisuuksia

Yhteiskunnallisilla instituutioilla on oma jatkuvuutensa. Kun järjestelmä on luotu, sillä on taipumus omaleimaisesti jatkaa olemassaoloaan ja ehdollistaa myöhempiä poliittisia valintoja. Instituutiot muokkaavat yhteiskunnallisten toimijoiden havaintoja, näkemyksiä ja toimintalinjoja. Poikkeuksellisessa tilanteessa institutionaalinen jäykkyys sulaa, järjestelmää voidaan muokata, antaa sille uusi suunta, jopa kumota se ja rakentaa uutta tilalle. Tilanteita, jotka mahdollistavat uusia ratkaisuja, ovat esimerkiksi sodat, suuret lamat, luonnonkatastrofit ja pandemiat. Poikkeukselliset olot avaavat mahdollisuuksien ikkunoita suurille muutoksille. Tässä historiallisessa katsauksessa tarkastellaan, miten poikkeukselliset olot ovat vaikuttaneet sosiaalipolitiikan kehitykseen niin Suomessa kuin muuallakin maailmassa. Esitys lähtee liikkeelle katsauksella sotien vaikutuksiin. Sodat ovat kylväneet tuhoa mutta ne ovat myös pakottaneet kehittämään sosiaalipolitiikkaa. Seuraavassa jaksossa pohditaan talouskriisien vaikutuksia ja "luovaa tuhoa". Myös pandemian mittasuhteisiin kasvaneet kulkutaudit luovat pohjaa muutoksille. Ne paljastavat yhteiskunnan murtumakohtia ja sosiaaliturvan aukkopaikkoja. Toiseksi viimeinen jakso hahmottaa yhteiskunnallisia muutostrendejä ja muutosten mahdollisia sosiaalipoliittisia haasteita. Viimeisessä jaksossa käsitellään eri asteisten uudistusten mahdollisuutta sosiaaliturvauudistuksessa