IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp9547.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Social Assistance in Five Countries in North-Western Europe

Author

Listed:
  • Hansen, Hans

    (Rockwool Foundation Research Unit)

  • Schultz-Nielsen, Marie Louise

    (Rockwool Foundation Research Unit)

Abstract

In this paper, we calculate the disposable incomes in 2012 of three selected family types receiving social assistance in five countries in north-western Europe. We also calculate the net replacement rates for families receiving social assistance, calculated on the basis of the disposable incomes of 'average workers' in the five countries, as reported by the OECD. The results show that the Danish social assistance benefits are the highest, or among the highest, of the five countries; Swedish benefits are the lowest or among the lowest, but very much in line with those in Germany. The benefits in the United Kingdom for families with children are in the middle of the group, whereas the UK's benefits for single persons without children are among the lowest. In the Netherlands the picture is more mixed; for single persons without children the benefits are among the highest, for lone parents they are around the middle, and for couples with children the benefits are comparatively low.

Suggested Citation

  • Hansen, Hans & Schultz-Nielsen, Marie Louise, 2015. "Social Assistance in Five Countries in North-Western Europe," IZA Discussion Papers 9547, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9547
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp9547.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    unemployment; net replacement rate; social assistance benefits;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J38 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Public Policy
    • J65 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment Insurance; Severance Pay; Plant Closings
    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs

    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:iza:izadps:dp9547. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.