Incomes, incentives and the growth of means-testing in Hungary

The purpose of this paper is to examine the reform of family benefits and the growth of means-testing in Hungary. From 1996, many family benefits were means-tested for the first time. A new microsimulation model for Hungary, running on recent survey microdata, is used to simulate the impact of the 1996 reforms on government expenditures, the distribution of incomes, the targeting of benefits and effective marginal tax rates. These reforms are found to be largely benign and even progressive, but they also appear to be paving the way for the further extension of means-testing. The model is used to investigate such an extension by simulating the impact of a UK-style system of means-tested family benefits in Hungary. This system achieves some expenditure savings and better targeting of benefits, but also greatly increases effective marginal tax rates on low-income households with children. The paper argues that resulting poverty traps may increase child poverty in Hungary in the longer term and cautions against the overextension of means-testing.

Uncertain impacts: Trends in public expenditure on children and child outcomes in Australia since the 1980s

The final publication is available at Springer via: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12187-012-9151-9One of the purposes of social indicators is to inform policy, so that policymakers can respond to emerging trends and changing needs. Many policy responses are resource-based – that is, they involve changes in expenditure, and the size and purpose of public expenditure is an important indicator of policy effort. This article shows that between the 1980s and the mid-2000s, successive Australian governments increased expenditure on children to a greater extent than they did on elderly Australians. They also increasingly focused public expenditure on younger children, and on poorer children. Since the mid-2000s, while the focus of public expenditure on younger and poorer children appears to continue, the size of the public expenditure budget for children is no longer increasing greatly, suggesting that policy prioritisation of children overall may have come to an end. Yet even while public expenditure on children was increasing, a review of available indicators suggests that trends in Australian children’s outcomes were not uniformly positive. In particular there is little substantive evidence that disparities in outcomes between children from lower and higher socio-economic backgrounds fell substantially. This raises questions of how the efficacy of public expenditure should be measured, and how the child indicators movement can rise to this challenge

Children in Large Families: Disadvantaged or Just Different?

In an age when there is considerable focus on the needs and rights of children, it is perhaps a little surprising that parental income still mostly determines the standard of living that children enjoy. This has important implications, not just in terms of overall levels of welfare for children, but also in terms of equity between children. This paper looks at the issue of equity between children in Western industrial societies in just one of its many dimensions: to what extent are children in large families more likely to be in poverty than children in smaller families? Aggregate and survey microdata from around 1990 are used to examine welfare state provisions and outcomes for children in families of different size in seven Western countries. The analysis finds, not surprisingly, that children in large families are more likely to be in poverty than children in small families. However, the analysis also finds that in those countries which give higher per-child family allowances to larger families, the probability of children being in poverty does not increase with family size once parents' employment status is taken into account. The paper concludes by suggesting that there is a difference between help for families and help for children that has been largely overlooked in policy debates, and a focus on policies for children is required if greater equity between children is to be realized

To Their Fullest Potential? Conceptualising the Adequacy of Children's Living Standards for their Development

This author accepted manuscript (post print) is made available in accordance with publisher copyright policyIn this paper a framework is proposed for conceptualising ‘fullest potential’ towards which, according to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), children’s education should be directed (Article 29). Children’s development to their fullest potential is linked explicitly to their right to a standard of living adequate for their development (Article 27). The paper argues that focus on ‘fullest potential’ as a human rights issue exposes a tension between the rights of children, the obligations of parents to their children, and the obligations of the state to support all children’s development

Children's perspectives on economic adversity: a review of the literature

This paper reviews nine analyses, all published since 1998, and all of them involving in-depth interviews or groupwork with children aged between 5 and 17. The case studies cover issues including exclusion from activities and peer groups at school and in the community; perceptions of \u27poor\u27 and \u27affluent\u27 children; and aspirations for future careers and lives. This paper reviews some of the recent qualitative literature on children\u27s perspectives on economic disadvantage. The idea of asking people who experience disadvantage about their own situations is still a relatively new one in the social sciences, and the idea of asking children about their own perceptions of economic and social disadvantage is even more recent. Nine analyses, all published since 1998, and all of them involving in- depth interviews or groupwork with children aged between 5 and 17, are examined in detail. Most of these studies develop frameworks based on the \u27new sociology of childhood\u27, which emphasises the social construction of childhood and children’s agency in the context of child-adult relations. The nine studies cover a number of issues related to economic disadvantage, including exclusion from activities and peer groups at school and in the community; perceptions of ‘poor’ and ‘affluent’ children; participation in organised activities outside of school hours; methods of coping with financial hardship; support for parents in coping and in seeking and keeping employment, and aspirations for future careers and lives. The analysis is organised under two themes - social exclusion and agency. Both are important from a child’s perspective. The research examined here shows that what concerns children is not lack of resources per se, but exclusion from activities that other children appear to take for granted, and embarrassment and shame at not being able to participate on equal terms with other children. The research also shows the extent to which children’s agency matters, first for themselves, to make sense of their situation and to interpret it positively or otherwise; second, for their parents and families, to help them cope with financial and other pressures through engaging in domestic work and caring, not making demands on parents, and protecting them from further pressure where they are able; and third, for policy: initiatives to reduce children’s exclusion must take account of children’s own perspectives on their situation. On the basis of the nine papers analysed, the review argues that economic disadvantage can lead to exclusion in a number of critical areas, including schooling, access to out of school activities, and interaction with peers. But the review also finds that children use their agency creatively to reduce the impact of economic adversity on them and their families. However, they can also turn it inwards, leading to them lowering their own aspirations, excluding themselves from a range of activities, or engaging in activities that attract social disapproval. The review concludes with a discussion of the ethical and practical challenges associated with conducting research with children, and with a summary of issues that still remain under-researched

Could a universal family payment improve gender equity and reduce child poverty in Australia? A microsimulation analysis

The Australian income tax and transfer system has undergone considerable reform since the mid 1980s. As a number of commentators have pointed out, one impact of reforms to cash transfers for families, as well as of some reforms to direct taxes, has been the evolution of a defacto system of family taxation, with negative consequences, in terms of incentives to earn (and consequent deadweight loss), for parents, and especially for secondary earners in couple families with children. In this paper, we use a new Australian microsimulation model, ATM, built on the EUROMOD platform to examine the extent to which policies to support families with children through the tax and transfer system have been achieved at the expense of gender equity, and how the system could be better designed to achieve child poverty reduction with gender equity. Our analysis suggests that the institution of a universal family payment that would both improve incentives and reduce child poverty is potentially affordable, even before reduction of deadweight loss under the current system is taken in to account. However, such reforms as are modelled here would be politically difficult, since the main gainers would be families with children in the top half of the income distribution, and the main losers would be taxpayers who do not have dependent children

Children’s perspectives on economic adversity: A review of the literature

This paper reviews some of the recent qualitative literature on children’s perspectives on economic disadvantage. The idea of asking people who experience disadvantage about their own situations is still a relatively new one in the social sciences, and the idea of asking children about their own perceptions of economic and social disadvantage is even more recent. Nine analyses, all published since 1998, and all of them involving in-depth interviews or groupwork with children aged between 5 and 17, are examined in detail. Most of these studies develop frameworks based on the ‘new sociology of childhood’, which emphasises the social construction of childhood and children’s agency in the context of child-adult relations. The nine studies cover a number of issues related to economic disadvantage, including exclusion from activities and peer groups at school and in the community; perceptions of ‘poor’ and ‘affluent’ children; participation in organised activities outside of school hours; methods of coping with financial hardship; support for parents in coping and in seeking and keeping employment, and aspirations for future careers and lives

How has the relationship between parental education and child outcomes changed in Australia since the 1980s?

Published version of the paper reproduced here with permission from the publisherThis paper examines how the relationship between parents’ educational achievement (a marker of their socio‑economic status) and children’s early developmental outcomes has evolved in Australia since the early 1980s. The specific focus of this paper is whether the gradient in children’s early developmental outcomes by parents’ education has changed since the 1980s. A comparative analysis of two surveys is undertaken that follows Australian cohorts of children through their early years – the Australian Temperament Project (following children born in Victoria in the early 1980s) and the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (following a representative sample of children born in Australia in 1999). The analysis shows that the relationship between parental education and children’s early developmental outcomes does not in general appear to have changed greatly over the years. The gradient associated with behaviour difficulties, persistence in behaviour difficulties over time, and in reading skills has either remained the same or strengthened somewhat, while the gradient associated with social skills has weakened. The paper concludes with a discussion of issues that might explain these trends

Material deprivation and capability deprivation in the midst of affluence: The case of young people in Australia

© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This author accepted manuscript is made available following 24 month embargo from date of publication (January 2017) in accordance with the publisher’s archiving policyThis paper presents Australian young people's perspectives on deprivation that they experience in the space of food and clothing. Amartya Sen's Capability Approach is used to characterise this as absolute capability deprivation. Lack of adequate food and clothing denies young people the capability to avoid shame and severely inhibits the intrinsically important capabilities of social participation and engagement in education. We use data obtained from groupwork and in-depth interviews with 193 young people to explore young Australians' experience of severe deprivation in food and clothing. Their stories are integrated with data on severe deprivation collected in a nationally representative survey of 9–14 year olds (N = 5440). The survey data show that food and clothing deprivation is notable among young people who are marginalised in other respects, for example, young people with disability, young carers and Indigenous young people. The analysis shows that the experience of severe deprivation in the space of food and clothing is associated with feelings of shame, exclusion from participation, and low levels of engagement with education. We consider how neoliberal constructions of poverty exacerbate young people's experience of deprivation, while at the same time undermining the contemporary political agenda of maximising human capital development