IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lis/liswps/511.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Social Assistance and Minimum Income Protection in the EU: Vulnerability, Adequacy, and Convergence

Author

Listed:
  • Kenneth Nelson

Abstract

In this paper social assistance developments are analyzed in a large number of EU member states, including European transition countries and the new democracies of southern Europe. The empirical analysis is based on the unique and recently established SaMip Dataset, which provides social assistance benefit levels for 27 countries from 1990-2005. It is shown that social assistance benefits have had a less favorable development than that of unemployment provision. Hardly any of the investigated countries provide social assistance benefits above the EU near poverty threshold. Social assistance benefit levels have not converged in Europe. Instead, divergence can be observed, which is mainly due to lagging developments in eastern and southern Europe.

Suggested Citation

  • Kenneth Nelson, 2009. "Social Assistance and Minimum Income Protection in the EU: Vulnerability, Adequacy, and Convergence," LIS Working papers 511, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    • Handle: RePEc:lis:liswps:511
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.lisdatacenter.org/wps/liswps/511.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hans-Werner Sinn, 2004. "EU Enlargement, Migration and the New Constitution," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 50(4), pages 685-707.
    2. Sinn, Hans-Werner, 2002. "EU Enlargement and the Future of the Welfare State," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 49(1), pages 104-115, February.
    3. Hans–Werner Sinn, 2002. "EU Enlargement and the Future of the Welfare State," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 49(1), pages 104-115, February.
    4. Dena Ringold & Leszek Kasek, 2007. "Social Assistance in the New EU Member States : Strengthening Performance and Labor Market Incentives," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 6744, December.
    5. Hans‐Werner Sinn & Wolfgang Ochel, 2003. "Social Union, Convergence and Migration," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(5), pages 869-896, December.
    6. Mr. Christian Keller & Mr. Peter S. Heller, 2001. "Social Sector Reform in Transition Countries," IMF Working Papers 2001/035, International Monetary Fund.
    7. De Giorgi, Giacomo & Pellizzari, Michele, 2006. "Welfare Migration in Europe and the Cost of a Harmonised Social Assistance," IZA Discussion Papers 2094, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Wolfgang Ochel, 2007. "The Free Movement of Inactive Citizens in the EU – A Challenge for the European Welfare State?," CESifo Working Paper Series 1930, CESifo.
    9. Hans-Werner Sinn & Martin Werding, 2001. "Immigration Following EU Eastern Enlargement," CESifo Forum, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 2(02), pages 40-47, October.
    10. Joakim Palme & Walter Korpi, 1998. "The Paradox of Redistribution and Strategies of Equality: Welfare State Institutions, Inequality and Poverty in the Western Countries," LIS Working papers 174, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    11. Michael Förster & Marco Mira d'Ercole, 2005. "Income Distribution and Poverty in OECD Countries in the Second Half of the 1990s," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 22, OECD Publishing.
    12. António Afonso & Ludger Schuknecht & Vito Tanzi, 2005. "Public sector efficiency: An international comparison," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 123(3), pages 321-347, June.
    13. Walter Korpi, 2000. "Faces of Inequality: Gender, Class and Patterns of Inequalities in Different Types of Welfare States," LIS Working papers 224, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hans-Werner Sinn, 2005. "Migration and Social Replacement Incomes: How to Protect Low-Income Workers in the Industrialized Countries Against the Forces of Globalization and Market Integration," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 12(4), pages 375-393, August.
    2. Stephen Drinkwater & John Eade & Michal Garapich, 2006. "Poles Apart? EU Enlargement and the Labour Market Outcomes of immigrants in the UK," School of Economics Discussion Papers 1706, School of Economics, University of Surrey.
    3. Koen Caminada & Kees Goudswaard & Olaf Van Vliet, 2010. "Patterns of Welfare State Indicators in the EU: Is there Convergence?," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(3), pages 529-556, June.
    4. Georges de Menil, 2004. "Enlargement: The Challenge of Migration from the New Member States," CESifo Forum, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 5(3), pages 36-41, September.
    5. Georges de Ménil, 2004. "EU-enlargement: Challenges from immigration from the new member states," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 57(14), pages 15-19, July.
    6. Karin Mayr, 2003. "Immigration and Majority Voting on Income Redistriubtion-Is there a Case for Opposition from Natives?," Economics working papers 2003-08, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    7. Stephen Drinkwater, 2003. "Go West? Assessing the willingness to move from Central and Eastern European Countries," School of Economics Discussion Papers 0503, School of Economics, University of Surrey.
    8. Hans-Werner Sinn, 2004. "Migration, Social Standards and Replacement Incomes: How to Protect Low-income Workers in the Industrialized Countries Against the Forces of Globalization and Market Integration," NBER Working Papers 10798, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Van Vliet, Olaf & Kaeding, Michael, 2007. "Globalisation, European Integration and Social Protection – Patterns of Change or Continuity?," MPRA Paper 20808, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Francois Nielsen & David Bradley & John D. Stephens & Evelyne Huber & Stephanie Moller, 2001. "The Welfare State and Gender Equality," LIS Working papers 279, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    11. repec:zbw:rwidps:0020 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Paetzold, Jörg, 2012. "The Convergence of Welfare State Indicators in Europe: Evidence from Panel Data," Working Papers in Economics 2012-4, University of Salzburg.
    13. Giuseppe Bertola & John Driffill & Harold James & Hans-Werner Sinn & Jan-Egbert Sturm & Ákos Valentinyi, 2015. "Chapter 4:Migration in the European Union: Too much of a goodthing?," EEAG Report on the European Economy, CESifo, vol. 0, pages 78-96, February.
    14. Krieger, Tim, 2005. "Renten und Zuwanderung: Ein Überblick über neue Ergebnisse der Forschung," Arbeitspapiere der Nordakademie 2005-04, Nordakademie - Hochschule der Wirtschaft.
    15. Ileana TACHE & Vlad Dumitrache, 2012. "New Welfare Regimes In Eastern Europe: The Cases Of Romania And Bulgaria," Review of Economic and Business Studies, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, issue 10, pages 59-84, December.
    16. Cecilia Bruzelius & Constantin Reinprecht & Martin Seeleib-Kaiser, 2017. "Stratified Social Rights Limiting EU Citizenship," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(6), pages 1239-1253, November.
    17. Koen Caminada & Chen Wang, 2011. "Disentangling Income Inequality and the Redistributive Effect of Social Transfers and Taxes in 36 LIS Countries," LIS Working papers 567, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    18. Sarah Marchal & Ive Marx, 2015. "Stemming the tide. What have EU countries done to support low-wage workers in an era of downward wage pressure?," ImPRovE Working Papers 15/18, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    19. Brännström, Lars & Vinnerljung, Bo & Hjern, Anders, 2015. "Risk factors for teenage childbirths among child welfare clients: Findings from Sweden," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 44-51.
    20. Georges de Menil, 2004. "Enlargement: The Challenge of Migration from the New Member States," CESifo Forum, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 5(03), pages 36-41, September.
    21. Kemmerling, Achim, 2006. "Diffusion und Interaktion in der Arbeitsmarktpolitik? Positive und negative Ansteckungseffekte am Beispiel zweier Reformdiskussionen," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Labor Market Policy and Employment SP I 2006-119, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    poverty; low income;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:lis:liswps:511. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Piotr Paradowski (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lisprlu.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.