Social Policy Measures Research Articles

Evaluation of resilience impact on socio-economic inequality

This paper presents a new approach according to which the issue of socio-economic inequality is addressed not by applying social or fiscal policy measures, but by strengthening societal psychological resilience: by shaping a society characterized by a high level of social culture and education, by fostering a society in which individuals are resistant to life difficulties. In this paper, we pursue the aim of demonstrating the socio-economic vulnerability factors, the importance of strengthening resilience and reduction of socio-economic inequality, by analyzing data of a survey which was conducted in 2016 (representative sample, n=1001). The research results have demonstrated statistically significant differences of resilience in different income quintiles’ groups and resilience in different subjective socio-economic status groups and have revealed statistically significant differences in reaction to life difficulties in different income quintiles’ groups and in different subjective social economic status groups.

Die Rolle der Kommunen in der Pflegepolitik

Abstract Ideally, preventive social policy measures do not only target children or young adults but complement the whole live course. In a first step, this article develops a conception of preventive care policy addressing (older) persons in need of care as well as their caregivers in Germany. In a second step, the role of municipalities – recently subject to political reform at the federal level – in supporting such a preventive approach to care provision is discussed. On the basis of a literature and social legislation review as well as expert interviews the authors point out that realigning local care policies in a preventive way is conditional on the transfer of steady resources from the federal and state governments to the level of municipalities.

Differences in welfare take-up between immigrants and natives – a microsimulation study

PurposeInternational empirical evidence suggests that immigrants have a significantly higher risk than their native counterparts of being on welfare due to their observed characteristics. Nevertheless, it remains unclear if immigrants are also more prone to take-up benefits, conditional on being eligible. The authors explicitly focus on this potential explanation for higher welfare take-up rates. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the take-up of social assistance in Germany by immigrants and natives, conditional on being eligible, and hence focus on take-up behavior rather than on determinants of eligibility.Design/methodology/approachTo simulate welfare entitlements, the authors employ a Tax-Transfer Microsimulation Model. It is a static microsimulation model that consists of a detailed implementation of the German tax and transfer system as well as an econometrically estimated labor supply model. After the simulation of welfare entitlements, the authors analyze take-up behavior within a discrete choice framework. The authors estimate probit models of observed welfare benefit take-up for the sample of eligible households taking into account unobserved heterogeneity.FindingsThe estimation results do not reveal a significant effect of being a migrant on the probability of taking-up entitlements. The authors found a significant negative effect for citizens from European countries on the take-up probability, which disappeared after controlling for unobserved heterogeneity.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors find that it is worthwhile to focus on different groups of immigrants. Although not statistically significant, the rates of non-take-up of welfare benefits differ between different immigrant groups. The analysis further shows that controlling for unobserved heterogeneity is important when analyzing welfare differences between immigrants and natives.Practical implicationsThe higher welfare rates of immigrants are explained mainly by their higher risk of welfare dependence. Thus, given that reducing the welfare dependence of immigrants is a political goal, social policy measures to improve welfare recipients’ labor market prospects are contested. However, restricting eligibility rules to reduce entitlements does not seem to be the appropriate measure, because the take-up probability does not differ between immigrants and natives after controlling for individual characteristics.Originality/valueThe authors build on Castronova et al. (2001) and analyze the take-up behavior of individuals who are entitled to basic means-tested welfare benefits for employable persons in Germany. The analysis differs from Castronova et al. (2001) in four points. First, the authors provide first evidence of immigrant-native differences in welfare benefit take-up under the new welfare system in Germany after its reorganization in 2005. Second, the authors apply a microsimulation model of the comlete tax and transfer system in Germany to determine welfare eligibility. Third, the authors extend the analysis to a panel framework and take into account individual unobserved heterogeneity. Fourth, the authors distinguish between different groups of immigrants.

A new approach to the study of partisan effects on social policy

ABSTRACTMuch research has analysed the influence of government partisanship on social policies. This contribution addresses three challenges in that literature. First, it advocates a dynamic linear modelling (DLM) approach well suited to address time-varying partisan effects. Second, the DLM makes it possible to examine partisan effects country-by-country, thereby avoiding the cross-national pooling approach dominating this literature. Third, it offers a new approach to the challenge of choosing the right control variables. Empirically, we demonstrate the approach using data from 1972 to 2011 from 14 Western European countries. The main conclusion is that the relationship between government partisanship and welfare generosity does not appear to vary over time according to any pattern predicted by existing theories. More generally, findings indicate that in the countries and years covered by this study, government partisanship has very little or no association with the five different social policy measures included in the analyses.

직장 기혼 여성의 일-가정 갈등이 우울에 미치는 영향

이 연구는 우리나라 직장 기혼 여성의 일-가정 갈등 요소가 정신건강의 대표적 지표인 우울에 미치는 영향을 살펴보기 위해 갈등 요인들을 개인단위, 조직단위에서 파악하여 어떤 요소들을 중심으로 접근해야 할지 고찰하였다. 여성가족패널조사 5차 년도 자료 중 현재 남편과 동거 중인 기혼 유배우 여성이며 임금근로자인 1,299명을 대상으로 분석하였다. 위계적 회귀분석을 통해 모형검증을 실시하였고, 일-가정 갈등 특성이 포함된 4번째 위계 모형에서 설명력은 12.5%(p<0.001)로 일반적 특성들을 통제한 상태에서 직장 기혼 여성의 일-가정 갈등은 우울에 유의한 영향을 주는 것으로 나타났다. 특히, 가정에서 일에 대한 갈등(<TEX>${\beta}=.150$</TEX>, p<0.01)이 우울에 가장 높은 영향을 주는 것으로 나타났다. 직장 기혼 여성은 성역할 고정관념에서 자유롭지 못하여 가정 내 역할 갈등이 심화되면 이러한 문제가 직장 내 업무수행의 어려움으로 이어지게 된다. 이는 직장 여성의 정신건강에 부정적인 영향을 미칠 뿐 아니라 장기적으로 가정의 건강과 국가 생산력의 손실을 불러일으키는 원인이 되므로 이들의 일-가정 갈등을 덜어줄만한 적절한 사회 정책적 대처가 필요하다. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of work-family conflict factors on depression in Korean married women. For the analysis of the research, we were used in the 5th year data of Korean Longitudinal Survey of Women and Families. The subjects of this study were married women who were living with their husbands and wage workers, and the final analysis was 1,299. As a hierarchical regression analysis result, the work-family conflict of the working married women had a significant effect on depression. Especially, conflict from family to work has the highest effect on depression(<TEX>${\beta}=.150$</TEX>, p<0.01). This study suggests that traditional gender role pressures can have a negative impact on the mental health of working women. Therefore, it is necessary to take appropriate social policy measures to alleviate work-family conflicts of married working women.

Rede social de pessoas com consumos aditivos e dependências

Objetivos: As redes sociais desempenham um papel central na qualidade de vida da pessoa com comportamentos aditivos, determinantes, tanto na manutenção como na compensação e na reabilitação destes comportamentos. Este estudo tem como objetivo caracterizar as redes sociais de pessoas com consumos aditivos e dependências em situação ou risco de exclusão social. Métodos: Participaram no estudo 30 sujeitos consumidores de substâncias psicoativas, com idades compreendidas entre os 24 e os 65 anos (M ± DP = 43,03 ± 10,10), a maioria do sexo masculino (80,0%), não tendo fonte de rendimentos na maior parte (46,7%) ou sendo apoiados por medidas de política social (53,3%). A maioria tem como substância principal de consumo a heroína (63,3%). Avaliámos as dimensões estrutural, funcional e relacional-contextual das suas redes com o Instrumento de Análise da Rede Social Pessoal. Resultados: As redes dos inquiridos são constituídas, em média, por 7 elementos, predominando as relações familiares; são fragmentadas, constituídas essencialmente por membros das redes primárias, ainda que as secundárias representem cerca de ¼ dos membros. A reciprocidade e o nível de apoio social percebido são elevados, assim como o apoio emocional e informativo. Os indivíduos inquiridos, na sua maioria, refere ter membros na rede com CAD na rede social (77,0%), relações que ocupam mais de 20,0% do tamanho das redes. Analisámos comparativamente as redes segundo privação material e de abrigo, não tendo emergido diferenças significativas (p &gt; 0,05), ainda que os perfis de rede sugiram diferentes estratégias de ativação do suporte. Conclusões: O estudo confirma a importância da avaliação da rede social em pessoas com comportamentos aditivos e dependências. A planificação da intervenção social deve integrar as características da rede pertinentes para o suporte na redução do uso abusivo de substâncias e dos riscos associados, assim como para a promoção do bem-estar social e da cidadania.

SIMULATION MODELING OF PROGNOSTICATION OF SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF UKRAINE' REGIONS IN THE NON-STATIONARY CONDITIONS

The character of dynamics, pace and proportions of socio-economic indicators in Ukraine are largely under the influence of non-stationary conditions of operation. Some signs of non-stationary structure are unstable macroeconomic processes in time, the difficulty of formalizing their dynamics, the uncertain future etc. Ignoring these features along with the lack of statistical data makes impossible the evaluation, analysis and forecasting of dynamics of macroeconomic processes by classical methods. Therefore the study aims at reviewing the nature and characteristics of simulation for analyzing and forecasting the socio-economic development of the country. The results of the study have shown that the basis of such simulations are diagrams causality – cognitive map and study the problem on the basis of a cognitive map is through the distribution of the pulsed process. The authors have also analyzed a number of modern simulation (cognitive) models of regional development proposed in the scientific literature that demonstrate the use of this tool as the modeling of the dynamics of macroeconomic indicators and indicators of local economic and social development of the region. Finally, the basic advantages and disadvantages of the use of cognitive models in the modeling of macroeconomic and regional dynamics were defined. Having completed the study the authors made the following conclusions. The experiments made for several scenarios of development of social tension in different regions and implementing various managerial influences helped identify priority directions for reducing social tension, a high effect of increasing employment and subsidies to the poor in particular. Applying pulse models can predict the development of specific situations in certain regions and make substatntiated recommendations on measures of economic and social policy.

Social engineering and cultural policy – theoretical and empirical reflexions from Swedish cultural policy in a historical perspective

This article explores the influence of social engineering in various forms within Swedish cultural policy, seen in a historical perspective. In social engineering cultural policy measures, reforms and projects are justified by scientifically based research rather than party based ideological arguments. Karl Popper’s classification of the utopian and the step-by-step engineering make up the starting point, redefined as paternalistic engineering, welfare state engineering and utilitarian engineering in order to apply these ideas to cultural policy. Social engineering was predominant in Swedish cultural policy mainly during the post war period. In the 1950s as well as in the 1970s this engineering takes on a paternalistic character, in the struggle against injurious culture, such as video violence. Current practice of paternalistic engineering is directed at revealing and identifying invisibles structures in the field of cultural heritage. The welfare state engineering had its highlights in the planning era of the 1960s and the 1970s, and today culture as a beneficial factor for both citizens and society is labelled utilitarian engineering.

Making Ends Meet. How Roma Families Living in Poverty Cope

AbstractLiterature on how Roma families cope with precarious living conditions and social exclusion remains very limited. Out of all the national minorities and ethnic groups in Croatia, the Roma undoubtedly have the most difficult social position characterised by a high degree of poverty and social exclusion. Based on recent fieldwork, the aim of this article is to explore the coping strategies different Roma populations in Croatia employ to meet their everyday needs. Acknowledging the different forms of interconnected, interdependent and context-specific capital that together constitute advantage and disadvantage in society (Bourdieu 1986), this study analyses Roma’s access to economic, cultural, social, and symbolic capital. Along with discrimination and racism, Roma’s limited access to different forms of capital explicates the necessity of household-based, work-based, kin-based and aid-based strategies among some families living in poverty, especially in light of stricter social welfare policy measures that have been recently introduced.

VP14 Screening Recommendations For Socioeconomic Disadvantages In Pregnancy

INTRODUCTION:In 2015, 18.3 percent of the Austrian population were at risk of poverty and social exclusion - about 211,000 (20 percent) women aged 20–39 years were affected. International studies report that poverty may lead to an increased risk of complications and pathologies during pregnancy. Further, children who grow up in poverty often have poorer long-term health outcomes.METHODS:In order to identify recent guidelines (2011-2016) a comprehensive handsearch was conducted in the guideline databases National Guideline Clearinghouse (NGC) and Guidelines International Network (GIN). Moreover, a handsearch for systematic reviews and primary studies was conducted in PubMed.RESULTS:Two guidelines, the British National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) Guideline “Pregnancy and Complex Social Factors”, as well as the Australian Health Ministers' Advisory Council (AHMAC) Guideline “Antenatal Care”, address socioeconomic disadvantages of women during antenatal care. The recommendation of the AHMAC is that pregnancy care should be offered to all pregnant women. In addition, an individual approach will help to pay particular attention to socioeconomic factors and to incorporate them in routine examinations. NICE recommends in its guideline, affected women should be supported in order to ensure adequate prenatal care. NICE also defines criteria which are used to identify pregnant women who are in greater need of support. The only identified study developed and tested a tool for the identification of patients affected by poverty. The authors of this Canadian pilot study concluded that the defined questions helped to identify socioeconomically disadvantaged persons during anamnesis without stigmatizing.CONCLUSIONS:Due to the proven link between poverty and health risks, special attention must be paid to socioeconomically disadvantaged pregnant women. Research on non-stigmatizing instruments, which can identify vulnerable women, is of great importance. In addition to social policy measures, it is necessary to ensure that low-threshold services are available for socioeconomic disadvantaged women and their children.

The Quality of Seniors' Life in Their Natural Environment

The aim of the research study is to investigate the quality of life of seniors at home andtheir satisfaction in the domains of physical health, survival, social relations and the environmentitself.Design studio. We conducted the study on a sample of 80 respondents / seniors living at home inVranov nad Topľou. For processing the obtained data, we used the following statistical methods -the Fisher's F-test and Student's t-test. For detecting the data from respondents we chose ananonymous standardized questionnaire WHOQOL-BREF (World Health Organization Quality ofLife - BREF), which is a shortened version of the WHOQOL-100. As completion of this study is theimplementation of mechanisms supporting the quality of life of seniors in a natural environmentwith an emphasis on preventive measures of social policy to maintain a reasonable quality of life

Indebtedness, Socioeconomic Status, and Self‐Rated Health: Empirical Evidence From Greece

Greece has been facing a massive economic downturn during the last several years, which has several implications for living standards. This study aims to examine the relationship between several variables and self‐rated health (SRH), focusing on the impact of household indebtedness on health. Our empirical strategy is based on an ordered logistic regression in which SRH is the dependent variable, whereas several demographic and socioeconomic variables, as well as the percentage of income used for bill payments, and the frequency of reporting difficulties regarding bill payments are used as regressors. The coefficients of gender, subjective social status (SSS), age, and of the two variables regarding bill payments were statistically significant. Specifically, high‐SES, male, and younger individuals were found to have a higher probability of reporting better SRH in Greece. Moreover, our findings suggest that individuals who pay a high percentage of their income to bills and those who face difficulties to cover the bill expenses have a lower probability of rating their health as good or very good. However, the effect of indebtedness on health constitutes a new finding for the Greek population. Given that household indebtedness and difficult socioeconomic conditions are quite prevalent in Greece, targeted social policy measures could constitute one of the responses toward a looming health crisis.

Property Tax in Transition countries: The Case of the Republic of Macedonia from 2006-2015

Municipalities to develop their policies use Local taxes, fees and charges for empower of these potential sources of revenue: local tax autonomy makes collection more efficient and enables municipalities to introduce their own measures of social policy. These sources of income also increase the responsibility of local authorities: Among the various fees, charges and income tax, property tax has become an important source of funding for local costs. In most cases, the various taxes on immovable property- together with other forms of taxes property- established in the new fiscal framework of modern local governments. The fiscal autonomy of local governments is largely defined by the volume of their own sources of income. Own revenue sources limit the dependence of municipalities from intergovernmental transfers and revenues that the municipalities receive from the national budget. I will try to explain hanges made from the decentralization process in Macedonia throught ten years of starting implementation of the decentralization on property tax collection.

Shorter lives in stingier states: Social policy shortcomings help explain the US mortality disadvantage

The United States has a mortality disadvantage relative to its political and economic peer group of other rich democracies. Recently it has been suggested that there could be a role for social policy in explaining this disadvantage. In this paper, we test this “social policy hypothesis” by presenting a time-series cross-section analysis from 1970 to 2010 of the association between welfare state generosity (for unemployment insurance, sickness benefits, and pensions) and life expectancy, for the US and 17 other high-income countries. Fixed-effects estimation with autocorrelation-corrected standard errors (robust to unmeasured between-country differences and serial autocorrelation of repeated measures) found strong associations between welfare generosity and life expectancy. A unit increase in overall welfare generosity yields a 0.17 year increase in life expectancy at birth (p < 0.001), and a 0.07 year increase in life expectancy at age 65 (p < 0.001). The strongest effects of the welfare state are in the domain of pension benefits (b = 0.439 for life expectancy at birth, p < 0.001; b = 0.199 for life expectancy at age 65, p < 0.001). Models that lag the measures of social policy by ten years produce similar results, suggesting that the results are not driven by endogeneity bias. There is evidence that the US mortality disadvantage is, in part, a welfare-state disadvantage. We estimate that life expectancy in the US would be approximately 3.77 years longer, if it had just the average social policy generosity of the other 17 OECD nations.

Economic crisis, austerity and unmet healthcare needs: the case of Greece.

BackgroundThe programme for fiscal consolidation in Greece has led to income decrease and several changes in health policy. In this context, this study aims to assess how economic crisis affected unmet healthcare needs in Greece.MethodsTime series analysis was performed for the years 2004 through 2011 using the EU-SILC database. The dependent variable was the percentage of people who had medical needs but did not use healthcare services. Median income, unemployment and time period were used as independent variables. We also compared self-reported unmet healthcare needs drawn from a national survey conducted in pre-crisis 2006 with a similar survey from 2011 (after the onset of the crisis). A common questionnaire was used in both years to assess unmet healthcare needs, including year of survey, gender, age, health status, chronic disease, educational level, income, employment, health insurance status, and prefecture. The outcome of interest was unmet healthcare needs due to financial reasons. Ordinary least squares, as well as logistic regression analysis were conducted to analyze the results.ResultsUnmet healthcare needs increased after the enactment of austerity measures, while the year of participation in the survey was significantly associated with unmet healthcare needs. Income, educational level, employment status, and having insurance, private or public, were also significant determinants of unmet healthcare needs due to financial reasons.ConclusionsThe adverse economic environment has significantly affected unmet health needs. Therefore health policy actions and social policy measures are essential in order to mitigate the negative impact on access to healthcare services and health status.

Inequalities and convergence of health outcomes in South Asian countries

For human development of South Asian countries, which houses more than one-fifth of world’s population, it becomes crucial to study health inequalities between and within these countries. The aim of this paper is to explore the extent of health inequalities and convergence of health outcomes as represented by life expectancy and infant mortality rates among the South Asian countries. The statistical methods Gini coefficient, ?, and ?-convergence analysis are utilized to study inequalities and convergence-divergence, which are well established in macro-economic growth analyses. For the study longitudinal data over the period 1996-2012 for Infant Mortality rate (IMR) and Life expectancy (LE) is utilized. The results of the analysis indicate that there have been large inequalities in IMR and these are still increasing among the countries. However, in case of LE the inequalities are small and are on decline over the period of time. Further, the tests for convergence reveal that the IMR and LE have not been converged in the period 1996-2012 and no convergence clubs has been formed. The present analyses high-lights that the relative positions of countries among the South Asia have changed little and the trend of large inequalities among the countries continues. Further research to identify economic and social policy measures which decline the large inequalities among the countries can be rewarding exposition for all the stakeholders.South East Asia Journal of Public Health Vol.5(2) 2015: 71-76

ESTIMATES OF CURRENT AND FUTURE DEVELOPMENT OF LABOUR FORCE AND MIGRATION RELATIONS OF RUSSIAN ARCTIC’S REGIONS

This article discusses the use of balance of labour resources and population and labour resources movements balance for the assessment of the current and future state of regional labor markets and migration linkages in the regions of the Russian Arctic. The purpose of this article is to obtain projections of the dynamics of the main indicators of balance of labour resources, structure and dynamics of population and labor resources of the Russian Arctic regions. The study was performed in the methodology of balance of labour resources and population and labour resources movements balance. The model of population and labor resources movement, taking into account the repeated displacement of people is used. With account of the historical period we forecast the main parameters of population movements structure. The results of calculations on the example for the regions of the Asian and European parts of the Russian Arctic is given. The main problems of the Arctic regions labor resources are identifi ed. The resulting estimates of prospective changes in the structure of balance of labour resources, the most signifi cant sources of additional labor resources, changes to the importance of these sources. The article considers the trends of inter-regional movement of population and labor resources. The analysis of the main areas of origin and regions of arrival is made. The main donor regions and the recipient regions for regions of the Russian Arctic are named. The analysis of structural imbalances on the regional labour markets is made. The contribution the Arctic regions in the magnitude of structural unemployment is measured. Its shown, which regions can be conventionally considered labor-surplus and-defi cient. The results of the study can be used in the development of regional employment programmes, the development and implementation of migration policy, the development of the forecast of labour resources balance sheet, and especially of the forecast of labour resources balance sheet for the regions of the Russian Arctic. The article presents recommendations for improving tool of analysis and forecasting, measures of state social and economic policy are proposed that will enable more effi cient use of labour resources in the Arctic, can use to solve problems of coordination of labor demand and its supply on regional labour markets more eff ectively.

Does formal housing encourage settlement intention of rural migrants in Chinese cities? A structural equation model analysis

A growing body of literature has attempted to understand the social integration of rural migrants in Chinese cities, and specifically patterns and determinants of migrant settlement intention. However, few studies have directly investigated the role of housing access in migrant settlement in cities. Based on a 12-city migrant survey conducted in 2009, this paper adopts the structural equation modelling approach to delineate the causal relationship between housing access and migrant settlement intention. We found a positive correlation between access to formal housing and stronger settlement intention, but such relationship was more attributed to a sorting process in which rural migrants who are more willing to settle down strive to expand their access to formal housing. Meanwhile, controlling for socio-demographic variables, sociocultural attachment factors are more significant predictors of migrant settlement intention than economic opportunities and achievements. These findings imply the necessity of a combination of affordable housing policy and other social policy measures if the government hopes to achieve the goal of boosting permanent settlement of rural migrants in cities and towns.

‘Activating’ those that ‘lag behind’: space-time politics in Dutch parenting training for migrants

ABSTRACTSpace and time (or rather space-time) are crucial concepts in the legitimation of policy interventions into citizens' private lives. Across Europe, social policy measures to promote ‘activation’ among migrant communities—employment guidance, parenting training, youth work and so on—have proliferated, aiming to ‘move’ the Other into the here-and-now of European modernity. Van den Berg brings together theories of space-time, alterity and ‘cultural lag logics’ in an analysis of a contemporary case of such a policy: parenting training in the Netherlands. Based on ethnographic research, her study shows how certain societal problems are translated into problems of difference, and how that difference is in turn conceptualized as distance in space and time to be overcome through professional intervention.

Pracovní motivace českých matek s dětmi do tří let

This article addresses the issue of the relationship of parenthood, employment and economic inactivity of childcare holders. It focuses on the mother's motivation to in the context of Czech social policy measures. The aim is to empirically verify the willingness of women, taking care of children under three years old, to return to work. The decision of mothers, about their participation the labour market, is analysed by indicator Effective cost of return to work and by using sensitivity analysis. Negative net fi nancial effect of return to was identifi ed for all studied regions and types of workloads. These results demonstrate clearly that mothers, entering the labour market, are confronted with very high additional costs. These costs would not be covered by their employment income and other received benefi ts. Estimated amount of potential wage, which would encourage women to return to work, reach in some cases up to four times the median wage of women in the particular region.