Kenneth Nelson

Bio: Kenneth Nelson is an academic researcher from Stockholm University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Welfare state & Social policy. The author has an hindex of 24, co-authored 70 publications receiving 1488 citations. Previous affiliations of Kenneth Nelson include Swedish Institute & SoFi.

Social Assistance and EU Poverty Thresholds 1990–2008. Are European Welfare Systems Providing Just and Fair Protection Against Low Income?

Abstract: It has been suggested that income adequacy is an important condition for a fair work-test to apply. This article provides new evidence about the construction of just social minimums by analysing the relationship between social assistance, benefit adequacy, and labour market activation. Does social assistance provide benefits at levels necessary to escape poverty? To what extent is the development of benefit adequacy related to active labour market policy? The empirical analyses combine macro-level institutional data from the SaMip data set and micro-level income data for 28 European welfare systems in 1990-2008. It is shown that social assistance seldom reaches commonly applied poverty thresholds. The adequacy of social assistance has also declined, along with the increased emphasis on the activation of beneficiaries. It therefore appears difficult to perceive European social assistance programmes as just distributive instruments.

Mechanisms of poverty alleviation: anti-poverty effects of non-means-tested and means-tested benefits in five welfare states

Abstract: Summary Substantial cross-national differences in poverty alleviation are well documented. But the extent to which different parts of the social transfer system account for this variation is still relatively unexamined. This paper analyses the redistributive effects of specific social policy institutions in a comparative perspective. The main question is to what extent non-means-tested entitlements and means-tested benefits reduce relative economic poverty in different institutional settings. It is shown that the structure of non-means-tested benefits is more important than that of meanstested benefits in explaining differences in poverty alleviation across countries. The paper also presents a new method for estimating the anti-poverty effects of separate parts of the social transfer system. This method decomposes the anti-poverty effects of a set of social transfers into independent and combined effects, which produces more valid results than prevalent methods used to assess the impact of a particular transfer on poverty. The countries included in this study are Canada, Germany, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. The empirical analyses are based on data from the Social Citizenship Indicators Programme (SCIP) and Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) describing the situation in the mid1990s.

Counteracting material deprivation : The role of social assistance in Europe

Abstract: Material deprivation is high on the political agenda in Europe and part of the agreed benchmarks in the EU social inclusion process. This study analyses the link between social assistance benefit l...

Social assistance and minimum income benefits in old and new EU democracies

Abstract: Nelson K. Social assistance and minimum income benefits in old and new EU democracies Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 367–378 © 2009 The Author, Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. In this article, social assistance developments are analysed in a large number of European Union (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 to 2005. It is shown that social assistance benefits have had a less favourable 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 due mainly to lagging developments in eastern and southern Europe.

Unemployment Benefits in EU Member States

Abstract: The background to this report is the growing variation between EU Member States' economic and social situation, which has been reinforced by the economic recession and subsequent fiscal consolidation measures. It is increasingly recognized that economic and social responses to the crisis will require strengthened solidarity between Member States, in the first place within the Eurozone but also beyond. While most decisions about taxes and spending remain at national level within the EU, it can equally be argued that continued successful European integration needs an elaborate risk-sharing system where various forms of automatic fiscal transfer mechanisms may have a key role, particularly in Eurozone countries. One strategy is to set up EU- or Eurozone wide unemployment provisions where resources are transferred to areas particularly hit by asymmetric shocks.

Education at a Glance

Abstract: A detailed review of the education sector in Australia as in the data provided by the 2006 edition of the OECD's annual publication, 'Education at a Glance' is presented. While the data has shown that in almost all OECD countries educational attainment levels are on the rise, with countries showing impressive gains in university qualifications, it also reveals that a large of share of young people still do not complete secondary school, which remains a baseline for successful entry into the labour market.

Dismantling the Welfare State? Reagan, Thatcher, and the Politics of Retrenchment

Abstract: dismantling the welfare state reagan thatcher and politics of retrenchment are a good way to achieve details about operating certainproducts. Many products that you buy can be obtained using instruction manuals. These user guides are clearlybuilt to give step-by-step information about how you ought to go ahead in operating certain equipments. Ahandbook is really a user's guide to operating the equipments. Should you loose your best guide or even the productwould not provide an instructions, you can easily obtain one on the net. You can search for the manual of yourchoice online. Here, it is possible to work with google to browse through the available user guide and find the mainone you'll need. On the net, you'll be able to discover the manual that you might want with great ease andsimplicity