Reconciling Work and Poverty Reduction

How Successful Are European Welfare States?

Edited by Bea Cantillon and Frank Vandenbroucke

International Policy Exchange

This book measures poverty and exclusion and discusses some of the important data limitations.
The book examines a complex policy puzzle: why did poverty not decrease during good economic years prior to the crisis?

Reconciling Work and Poverty Reduction

How Successful Are European Welfare States?

Edited by Bea Cantillon and Frank Vandenbroucke

Description

This book examines the link between poverty on the one hand and labour market participation and the distributive capacity of welfare states on the other hand. It focuses on the working-age population and the evolutions in Europe during the 'good economic years' before the financial crisis. The book provides social research in an accessible way. It introduces the reader into the various concepts of measuring poverty and exclusion and discusses data limitations. Obviously, we are not the first to observe worrying trends in poverty or inequality. The specific approach in this book may be summarized as follows. First, to gain a better understanding of the nexus of labour market participation, social redistribution and poverty, we focus on the distinction between work-poor and work-rich households. Second, we augment a traditional 'pre-post approach' of the impact of social transfers with regression analysis and policy indicators. Third, we refine the common method of measuring the redistributive effect of social expenditure, particularly for in-kind benefits . Fourth, we give due consideration to concepts and data. Most of the analyses are based on the European Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (SILC), but when relevant and feasible, we include alternative surveys (in the case of Germany, SILC and SOEP data) and additional data, i.e. administrative expenditure data and indicators that inform directly on policy. Finally, we discuss our observations with reference to the employment-centred welfare reforms that were prominent in European countries since the mid-1990s, and link the analysis with a broader perspective on the socio-economic, demographic and paradigmatic evolutions in contemporary welfare states.

Reconciling Work and Poverty Reduction

How Successful Are European Welfare States?

Edited by Bea Cantillon and Frank Vandenbroucke

International Policy Exchange

Contents
Preface
Introduction
Bea Cantillon, and Frank Vandenbroucke
1 Mapping At-Risk-of-Poverty Rates, Household Employment and Social Spending
Frank Vandenbroucke, and Ron Diris
2 The Evolution of Poverty in the European Union: Concepts, Measurement and Data
Koen Decancq, Tim Goedemé, Karel Van den Bosch, and Josefine Vanhille
3 Individual Employment, Household Employment and Risk of Poverty in the EU. A Decomposition Analysis
Vincent Corluy, and Frank Vandenbroucke
4 In-Work Poverty
Ive Marx, and Brian Nolan
5 Social Redistribution, Poverty and the Adequacy of Social Protection in the EU
Bea Cantillon, Natascha Van Mechelen, Olivier Pintelon, and Aaron Van den Heede
6 The Redistributive Capacity of Services in the EU
Gerlinde Verbist, and Manos Matsaganis
7 Who Benefits from Investment Policies? The Case of Family Activation in European Countries
Wim Van Lancker, and Joris Ghysels
8 The Reform Capacities of European welfare states
Anton Hemerijck
9 Identifying the skeleton of the social investment state: defining and measuring patterns of social policy change on the basis of expenditure data
Johan De Deken
10 Beyond Social Investment. Which Concepts and Values for Social Policy-Making in Europe?
Bea Cantillon
Epilogue. What we know, don't know and need to know
Frank Vandenbroucke, and Bea Cantillon
Appendix. The Evolution of Public Social Spending 1985-2009
Leen Meeusen and Annemie Nys
References
Index

Reconciling Work and Poverty Reduction

How Successful Are European Welfare States?

Edited by Bea Cantillon and Frank Vandenbroucke

International Policy Exchange

Author Information

Edited by Bea Cantillon, Professor of Social Policy, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, University of Antwerp, Belgium, and Frank Vandenbroucke, Member of Parliament, Flemish Parliament, Belgium

Bea Cantillon is Professor of Social Policy at the Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.Frank Vandenbroucke is Member of Parliament of the Flemish Parliament.

Contributors:

Vincent Corluy
University of Antwerp
Antwerp, Belgium

Johan De Deken
University of Amsterdam
Amstrdam, The Netherlands

Koen Decancq
University of Antwerp
Antwerp, Belgium

Ron Diris
KU Leuven
Leuven, Belgium

Joris Ghysels
University of Antwerp
Antwerp, Belgium

Tim Goedemé
University of Antwerp
Antwerp, Belgium

Anton Hemerijck
VU University Amsterdam
Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Ive Marx
University of Antwerp
Antwerp, Belgium

Manos Matsaganis
Athens University of Economics and Business
Athens, Greece

Leen Meeusen
University of Antwerp
Antwerp, Belgium

Brian Nolan
UCD School of Applied Social Science
Dublin, Ireland

Annemie Nys
University of Antwerp
Antwerp, Belgium

Olivier Pintelon
University of Antwerp
Antwerp, Belgium

Karel van den Bosch
University of Antwerp
Antwerp, Belgium

Aaron van den Heede
University of Antwerp
Antwerp, Belgium

Josefine Vanhille
University of Antwerp
Antwerp, Belgium

Wim Van Lancker
University of Antwerp
Antwerp, Belgium

Natascha Van Mechelen
University of Antwerp
Antwerp, Belgium

Gerlinde Verbist
University of Antwerp
Antwerp, Belgium