When the 2008 crisis hit, social safety nets in Europe were not in the best of shape. This article examines what, if anything, governments did to adjust minimum income protection after two decades of relative neglect. In view of the hardship brought on by the crisis, this question is of importance in itself. In addition, there is a long-standing interest in the role crises play in re-shaping policies, possibly in a radical way. Building on purpose-collected data for twenty-four European countries, this article shows that many countries introduced supportive measures during the first years of the crisis, particularly in the form of additional benefit increases and more generous child benefits. Behavioural requirements imposed on minimum income recipients were not relaxed but in some countries activation efforts were intensified. Although the evidence shows that the crisis did trigger a response, there is little evidence for a structural change of course towards more adequate safety nets.

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The Great Wake-Up Call? Social Citizenship and Minimum Income Provisions in Europe in Times of Crisis

The adequacy of minimum income protection is high on the policy agenda in Europe today. The EU2020 Strategy, as agreed by the Council in June 2010, has made the reduction of poverty and social exclusion one of its top priorities. By 2020, the number of people living in poverty should be reduced by 20 million. Poverty is measured here as an aggregate based on three indicators: the financial poverty risk (i.e. the share of households with a net income below 60 per cent of median standardized income), the extent of material deprivation (i.e. households that were unable to afford four out of nine previously determined items) and the number of households with a low work intensity (i.e. households whose members are either jobless or work for just a few months per year). With the first two indicators the notion of minimum income protection has come to the fore again.

http://www.gini-research.org/system/uploads/398/original/DP_55_-_Van_Mechelen_Marchal.pdf?1353505968

Struggle for Life: Social Assistance Benefits, 1992–2009

Social cash transfers to the poor have mushroomed in countries of the global South and on global agendas since the 2000s. Around 2000, there was no clear picture if social cash transfers would make it to global agendas. By the end of the 2000s, a repertoire of four models of social cash transfers had been codified by international organizations. Based on an in-depth analysis of all major documents by international organizations and applying a model of ideational change in global arenas, we trace the trajectories of the four models: who developed the models during the 2000s, how were they constructed, and what forces propelled the process? We find that the process was driven by an extension of the domains of international organizations (‘socialization of global politics’) and by an opening of global discourses and development policies to ‘social’ concerns. But organizational domains and global discourses, especially on development, also constrained the concept of social cash transfers, reducing it to four models that reflect a fragmented and incomplete universalism. We conclude that global social policy, conceived as ‘socialization of global politics’, is not a simple ‘uploading’ of ‘social’ ideas from European traditions, but an active process of social construction in global arenas.

Constructing new global models of social security: How international organizations defined the field of social cash transfers in the 2000s

Social protection for the elderly and people with disabilities has been, and continues to be, the largest part of welfare state activity. Not least due to demographic ageing, age-related social expenditure is expected to increase further. Social insurance against income losses due to old age and disability represents a major pillar in the more than hundred year old Bismarckian welfare systems in Continental Europe, but also the postwar Beveridge reforms in Anglophone or Nordic countries extended means-tested to universal basic pensions to all residents. The postwar ‘welfare system for the elderly’ has been relying on the intergenerational contract between past and current cohorts, between current and future generations. The commonly shared expectation has been that the working population pays for the retired because they had previously paid into the system during their working lives and have therefore earned their retirement. However, the old welfare system for the elderly has come under severe economic, fiscal and demographic pressures. European welfare states face multiple problems due to persistent unemployment, fiscal restrictions on public spending, and the challenges of an ageing society. Will these challenges lead to new ‘leaner’ welfare systems for the elderly across Europe? Will people have to provide more for themselves, work longer, and retire later, while being at greater risk of poverty in old age? Some observers have claimed that the welfare system for the elderly is difficult to change because of the intergenerational contract. The ‘new politics’ of the welfare state perspective, prominently advanced by Paul Pierson (2001b), used pension policy as the prime case of path-dependent inertia and

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The Politics of Old and New Social Policies

Welfare states and population health: the role of minimum income benefits for mortality.

Introduction Defining and measuring minimum income protection Welfare state contexts Country analyses Comparative analyses Conclusion.

The last safety net: A handbook of minimum income protection in Europe

Der Artikel analysiert die Beschaftigungs- und Einkommenssituation von Familien in Deutschland, Danemark, Frankreich, Grosbritannien und den Niederlanden. Im Mittelpunkt stehen familiare Risikogruppen: Paare und Alleinerziehende, die wenig oder nicht beschaftigt sind oder geringe Arbeitsverdienste erzielen. Diese Familienstrukturen sind in den Landern unterschiedlich stark verbreitet und auch ihre Einkommenssituation und Armutsbetroffenheit unterscheidet sich, was auf institutionelle Unterschiede zwischen den Landern zuruckzufuhren ist, z. B. im Hinblick auf die Abgabenlast fur niedrige Einkommen, Generositat von Familienleistungen oder offentliche Forderung der Arbeitsmarktintegration durch Kinderbetreuung. Im Landervergleich ergibt sich fur Deutschland kein gutes Bild: Vor allem Alleinerziehende und Arbeitslose, aber auch Geringverdiener sind hier stark benachteiligt.

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Familiäre Risikogruppen im europäischen Vergleich

The dissertation explores interactions between households, states and markets and their relation to socio-economic inequalities among working-age households. The focus lies on three aspects: the importance of the welfare state, economic risks and opportunities within households, and the link between these two aspects and broader patterns of inequality at the societal level. These are analysed in three empirical studies, using a range of statistical methods (multilevel analysis, event history models and counterfactual analyses of income distributions). In addition, an extensive framework paper provides a background to the analyses, clarifies their relation in theoretical terms, and discusses the results.
The first empirical study explores the relation between the regulation of social benefits, social risks, and household nonemployment in 20 European countries using internationally comparative institutional and survey data. The study reveals that eligibility conditions and activation policy vary systematically with the effect of social risks on the probability of household nonemployment. The strength and direction of influence depends on the specific policy area and risk factor. The second study analyses the duration of household nonemployment for British and German couples from the early 1990s to the mid-2000s. Dual joblessness has become longer over time, which is related to changes in the household composition of nonemployed couples. The third analysis evaluates the consequences of welfare shifts between households on changing patterns of inequality between 2005 and 2010. Changes in the distribution of household employment, benefit transfers, and family types in Germany, the United Kingdom, Poland, and Spain are analysed in terms of their contribution to developments in income inequality between households. The analysis of income distributions suggests that changes in socio-demographic and economic household characteristics in a population can have a substantial impact on different income groups. 
The overarching conclusion of the dissertation is that certain aspects of household composition enhance the risk of lower economic activity and welfare but that the impact of these factors varies strongly according to the broader context the households are situated in. Social policies that have the potential to reduce inequalities between households need to consider possible adverse effects on economic risk structures and spill-over effects to other areas of social protection. Future research should continue studying the household’s role in relation to the market, the state, and individual needs and resources; incorporate additional economic and welfare regime aspects into the analyses; and explore further statistical tools to do so.

Household Nonemployment, Social Risks and Inequality in Europe

Minimum income protection (MIP) provides cash benefits of last resort for people in need. It is the generosity of these means-tested social assistance benefits and thus their capacity to ameliorate or even eradicate poverty that most often draws the attention of both scientists and policymakers (Nelson, 2003, 2010; Cantillon, Van Mechelen and Schulte, 2008). Indeed, benefit levels are a crucial dimension for poverty alleviation. In order to be eligible for benefits, however, individuals usually have to fulfil a number of conditions. Such criteria of eligibility may vary for different groups of recipients, leading to categorically differentiated systems of MIP or specific treatment of certain recipient groups within one MIP scheme.

Categorical Differentiation in the Light of Deservingness Perceptions: Institutional Structures of Minimum Income Protection for Immigrants and for the Disabled

Vanessa Hubl

Papers

The last safety net: A handbook of minimum income protection in Europe

Familiäre Risikogruppen im europäischen Vergleich

Household Nonemployment, Social Risks and Inequality in Europe

Categorical Differentiation in the Light of Deservingness Perceptions: Institutional Structures of Minimum Income Protection for Immigrants and for the Disabled

Categorical Differentiation in the Light of Deservingness Perceptions