IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ese/iserwp/2009-24.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Measuring the size and impact of public cash support for children in cross-national perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Figari, Francesco
  • Paulus, Alari
  • Sutherland, Holly

Abstract

We suggest a new comprehensive measure of support given through tax-benefit systems to families with children. Using microsimulation techniques, this accounts for all provisions contingent on the presence of children, while usually only gross child/family benefits are considered. We use EUROMOD, the European Union tax-benefit microsimulation model, to quantify the support for children and analyse its impact on household incomes and child poverty for 19 countries. We find that the conventional approach underestimates on average the total amount of support for children by about one fifth. Furthermore, the differences between two measures vary considerably across countries and are, therefore, critical for cross-national comparisons.

Suggested Citation

  • Figari, Francesco & Paulus, Alari & Sutherland, Holly, 2009. "Measuring the size and impact of public cash support for children in cross-national perspective," ISER Working Paper Series 2009-24, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:ese:iserwp:2009-24
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/files/working-papers/iser/2009-24.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Miles Corak & Christine Lietz & Holly Sutherland, 2005. "The Impact of Tax and Transfer Systems on Children in the European Union," Papers inwopa05/30, Innocenti Working Papers.
    2. Andrea Brandolini, 2006. "Measurement of Income Distribution in Supranational Entities: The Case of the European Union," LIS Working papers 452, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tine Hufkens & Gerlinde Verbist, 2016. "The distributive effects of work-family life policies in European welfare states," ImPRovE Working Papers 16/09, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    2. Verbist, Gerlinde & Goedemé, Tim & Van den Bosch, Karel & Salanauskaite, Lina, 2013. "Testing the statistical significance of microsimulation results: often easier than you think. A technical note," EUROMOD Working Papers EM18/13, EUROMOD at the Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    3. Michael Förster & Gerlinde Verbist, 2012. "Money or Kindergarten? Distributive Effects of Cash Versus In-Kind Family Transfers for Young Children," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 135, OECD Publishing.
    4. Inmaculada Herranz Aguayo & Eduardo Díaz Herráiz & Elsa Montenegro Marques & Idalina Machado & Sidalina Almeida, 2016. "Child at Risk of Poverty or Social Exclusion: Comparative View Between Spain and Portugal in the European Context," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 129(3), pages 961-978, December.

    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. Tess Penne & Tine Hufkens & Tim Goedeme & Berenice M L Storms, 2018. "To what extent do welfare states compensate for the cost of children? A hypothetical household approach to policy evaluations," JRC Working Papers on Taxation & Structural Reforms 2018-08, Joint Research Centre.
    2. Deniz Sevinc & Edgar Mata Flores & Simon Collinson, 2020. "Are there inequality spillovers? Evidence through a modified inequality measure and European dynamics of inequality," Working Papers 545, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    3. Pezer Martina & Mustać Nora & Leventi Chrysa, 2023. "The Distributional Impact of Social Spending on In-Kind and Cash Child Transfers in Croatia," South East European Journal of Economics and Business, Sciendo, vol. 18(1), pages 161-175, June.
    4. Ive Marx & Lina Salanauskaite & Gerlinde Verbist, 2013. "The paradox of redistribution revisited: and that it may rest in peace?," LIS Working papers 593, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    5. Tim Goedemé & Diego Collado & Leen Meeusen, 2014. "Mountains on the move: recent trends in national and EU-wide income dynamics in old and new EU Member States," ImPRovE Working Papers 14/05, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    6. repec:ces:ifodic:v:6:y:2008:i:4:p:14567195 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Peter Benczur & Zsombor Cseres-Gergely & Peter Harasztosi, 2017. "EU-wide income inequality in the era of the Great Recession," Budapest Working Papers on the Labour Market 1713, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    8. Sauro Mocetti, 2012. "Educational choices and the selection process: before and after compulsory schooling," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(2), pages 189-209, February.
    9. Sabina Alkire, Mauricio Apablaza, 2016. "Multidimensional Poverty in Europe 2006-2012: Illustrating a Methodology," OPHI Working Papers 74, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford.
    10. Daniele Vignoli & Gustavo Santis, 2010. "Individual and Contextual Correlates of Economic Difficulties in Old Age in Europe," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 29(4), pages 481-501, August.
    11. Marx, Ive & Salanauskaite, Lina & Verbist, Gerlinde, 2013. "The Paradox of Redistribution Revisited: And That It May Rest in Peace?," IZA Discussion Papers 7414, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Koen Caminada & Kees Goudswaard, 2009. "Effectiveness of Poverty Reduction in the EU: A Descriptive Analysis," Poverty & Public Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 1(2), pages 1-49, July.
    13. Elena Bárcena-Martín & M. Carmen Blanco-Arana & Salvador Pérez-Moreno, 2016. "Assessing the impact of social transfer income packages on child poverty in European countries: Pro-child targeting vs pro-poor targeting," Working Papers 410, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    14. Tess Penne & Irene Cussó Parcerisas & Lauri Mäkinen & Bérénice Storms & Tim Goedemé, 2016. "Can reference budgets be used as a poverty line?," ImPRovE Working Papers 16/05, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    15. Riccardo Soliani & Alessia Di Gennaro & Enrico Ivaldi, 2012. "An Index of the Quality of Life for European Countries: Evidence of Deprivation from EU-SILC Data," Review of Economics & Finance, Better Advances Press, Canada, vol. 2, pages 1-14, May.
    16. Ismael Ahamdanech-Zarco & John A. Bishop & Andrew Grodner & Haiyong Liu, 2011. "Subjective poverty equivalence scales for Euro Zone countries," Working Papers 233, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    17. Caminada, Koen & Goudswaard, Kees & Koster, Ferry, 2010. "Social Income Transfers and Poverty Alleviation in OECD Countries," MPRA Paper 27345, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Andrea Brandolini & John Micklewright, 2023. "Measuring global poverty," Chapters, in: Jacques Silber (ed.), Research Handbook on Measuring Poverty and Deprivation, chapter 6, pages 60-69, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    19. Marisa Hidalgo-Hidalgo, 2019. "Childhood-Related Policies and Adult Poverty: Evidence from Some European Countries," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 144(1), pages 191-217, July.
    20. Bérénice Storms & Tim Goedemé & Karel Van den Bosch & Kristof Devuyst, 2013. "Towards a common framework for developing cross-nationally comparable reference budgets in Europe," ImPRovE Working Papers 13/02, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    21. Miles Corak & *UNICEF, 2005. "Principles and Practicalities in Measuring Child Poverty for the Rich Countries," Papers inwopa05/27, Innocenti Working Papers.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C81 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Microeconomic Data; Data Access
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ese:iserwp:2009-24. 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: Jonathan Nears (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rcessuk.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.