Welfare State Regimes and Child Poverty in the Uk and Hungary

Abstract

Recent social policy reforms in Hungary have signalled a significant reduction in state sup port for working mothers, including the mtro duction of means-tested benefits for families with children. In this article we argue that this represents a move towards a welfare-state regime similar to that found in the UK, which, for families with children, encourages the 'Breadwinner' household where the father is the sole earner and the mother works in the home. Comparative analysis of the incidence of child poverty in the UK and Hungary in 1993, prior to the recent reforms, shows that children in Hungary were less likely to fall into poverty than their UK counterparts. We argue that this was a result of a combination of gen erous and universal state benefits for families with children, and high rates of labour market participation by mothers. We maintain that the reforms recently implemented in Hungary can be expected to lead to increases in child poverty, the incidence of which is partly deter mined by the degree of welfare state support for families with children and the extent of female participation m the labour market.