Social Welfare Budget Research Articles

Does Gender Matter? The Effect of Gender Representation of Public Bureaucracy on Governmental Performance

This article investigates gender representation in the public bureaucracy in the context of South Korea and its substantial effects on governmental performance. The past decades have seen a growing body of research on the theory of representative bureaucracy, yet the conceptual linkages remains unclear. This study, first, identifies three missing links existing in the theory of the representative bureaucracy. Second, we investigate whether the presence of women in the bureaucracy affects on the consequences of governmental activities. Using an unbalanced time-series data set for 25 years with gaps including 1978, 1983, 1986 to 2008, the investigation is conducted in terms of the media attention on women’s issues, social welfare budget, and the legislative success of the executive branch measured by the number of passed bills submitted to the National Assembly. The result of the autoregressive integrated moving average time series analysis (ARIMA) suggests that a representative bureaucracy influences substantive consequences on governmental performance.

Is universal coverage via social health insurance financially feasible in Swaziland?

The Government of Swaziland decided to explore the feasibility of social health insurance (SHI) in order to enhance universal access to health services. We assess the financial feasibility of a possible SHI scheme in Swaziland. The SHI scenario presented is one that mobilises resources additional to the maintained Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MOHSW) budget. It is designed to increase prepayment, enhance overall health financing equity, finance quality improvements in health care, and eventually cover the entire population. The financial feasibility assessment consists of calculating and projecting revenues and expenditures of the SHI scheme from 2008 to 2018. SimIns, a health insurance simulation software, was used. Quantitative data from government and other sources and qualitative data from discussions with health financing stakeholders were gathered. Policy assumptions were jointly developed with and agreed upon by a MOHSW team. SHI would take up an increasing proportion of total health expenditure over the simulation period and become the dominant health financing mechanism. In principle, and on the basis of the assumed policy variables, universal coverage could be reached within 6 years through the implementation of an SHI scheme based on a mix of contributory and tax financing. Contribution rates for formal sector employees would amount to 7% of salaries and the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare budget would need to be maintained. Government health expenditure including social health insurance would increase from 6% in 2008 to 11% in 2018.

A Study of the Determinants on the Change in the Social Welfare Budget of Local Governments Since Fiscal Decentralization

A Study of the Determinants on the Change in the Social Welfare Budget of Local Governments Since Fiscal Decentralization

MOROCCO: Social Welfare Budget (M Dirhams 1 = £0.07/$0.14)

MOROCCO: Social Welfare Budget (M Dirhams 1 = £0.07/$0.14)

An Analysis of the Impact of Public Pension Spending on Economic Growth in the Affluent Democracies 1960-1988

During the past two decades a number of studies have attempted to assess cross-nationally the impact of government spending on economic growth (Castles and Dowrick, 1988; Korpi, 1985; Marlow, 1986; McCallum and Blais, 1987; Saunders, 1985; Weede, 1986a, 1986b, 1991). Most of these studies have assessed the impact of government consumption spending or, more commonly, total social welfare spending. Few studies, however, have attempted to specifically assess the impact of the largest component of social welfare spending, public pension expenditures, on rates of economic growth. Determining the impact of pension spending on economic growth has potentially important social policy implications. An important factor in the future of the welfare state may well be whether its programs hinder or facilitate economic development. The coincidence of declining economic growth and rapidly rising social spending in the industrial democracies during the past two decades has led many to implicate this spending as a cause of economic difficulties. If expenditures on social programs are widely believed to be detrimental to economic growth, support for those programs may wane. As the largest component of social welfare spending, public pension programs may be an especially important factor in determining the direction of whatever effects government spending has on economic growth. This paper investigates the relationship between public pension expenditures and economic growth in the affluent democracies for the years 1960-1988. We measure the effects on economic growth of both aggregate pension expenditures and average per recipient benefit levels. Previous studies have shown that the size of a nation's population is a major factor in the size of its social welfare and public pension budget (Holzman, 1988; Pampel and Williamson, 1985, 1988; Williamson and Pampel, 1993). Nations with larger elderly populations will have larger public pension budgets even if their per recipient benefit levels are lower than those of other nations. To distinguish the effects of the total size of public pension programs from their generosity, attention must be paid to the per recipient benefit levels as well as aggregate spending levels. Theoretical and empirical analyses of the economic impacts of public pension programs focus largely, but not exclusively, on savings rates, labor supply, and income redistribution. Though there are likely economic growth consequences for income redistribution brought about by public pensions there is little published work in that area. Instead, attention to the redistributional impact of pension schemes primarily concerns the net effect of transfers on income levels of the aged and the intergenerational transfer of wealth.(1) In contrast to the work on redistribution, much of the work on the savings and labor supply impacts of public pension programs is directly related to economic growth, at least implicitly. Savings rates, as they translate into capital investment, and labor supply are primary components of economic growth. The economic growth concern of public pensions programs is how those programs alter savings and work incentive structures for both beneficiaries and taxpayers. Mainstream neo-classical theory is ambivalent about the impact of public pension expenditures on economic growth, primarily because microeconomic responses to the receipt of those benefits are varied (Aaron, 1982; Danziger, Haveman, and Plotnick, 1981). Some of the actual responses consumers and workers have to the prospect of guaranteed public pension benefits might be growth promoting, while others might be growth retarding. As a way of highlighting the difficulties encountered in trying to anticipate the economic impact of public pensions, Aaron presents three theoretical models of the savings and labor supply behavior of individuals. The central issue distinguishing these three models is their assumption of the time horizon on which individuals base their behaviour. …

Spatial Distribution of the Day Care Centers in Tohoku District, Japan

In order to gain an accurate profile of social welfare activities in the Tohoku District (the northeastern part of Honshu Island, Japan, encompassing Aomori, Akita, Iwate, Yamagata, Miyagi, and Fukushima Prefectures), the author investigated the spatial distribution of day care centers (hoikusho) by townships or shi-cho-son, in the district. The analysis, conducted in 1983, was based on the following data: fixed number (i. e., the number of children accepted by a center) and capacity rate (i. e., number of children per 100 in the centers/total population of children aged four and under in the municipality) of day care centers.In general, the fixed number of children in city day care centers exceeds that of smaller towns and villages but the average capacity rate is actually less (Table 3). The municipalities with the highest capacity rates were primarily located in underpopulated areas such as remote villages along the Ou Mountain Range (which runs north to south in the center of Tohoku) and places near the Kitakami Mountains fronting the Pacific Ocean. The number of municipalities with high capacity rates (30% and over) in each prefecture were as follows: Aomori, 56; Akita, 35; Iwate, 27; Fukushima, 19; Yamagata, 18; and Miyagi, 4.Both the fixed number and the capacity rates of day care centers in the three northern prefectures of Aomori, Akita, and Iwate are comparatively higher than those of the three southern prefectures of Yamagata, Miyagi, and Fukushima (Table 4).Areal differentials exist in each municipality due to four factors: (1) variation in the fixed number; (2) variation in total population of children aged four and under; (3) the number of “both parents employed” households (with children under six years of age); and the size of a municipality's social welfare budget. The values of these four mutually related factors are in direct proportion; e. g., an increase in the population of children aged four and under results in a proportional rise in the fixed number of children accepted by a day care center.Aomori Prefecture shows the highest correlation coefficient between fixed number and the other three factors. That prefecture's correlation coefficient ranges from 0.76 to 0.92 while that of Fukushima, the lowest ranking prefecture, ranges from 0.40 to 0.62 (Figs. 3, 4, 5).The presence of a kindergarten has a negative impact on day care center enrollment. Once a kindergarten is established in a small town or village, it is likely that day care center enrollment will decline somewhat. So far, in all prefectures, kindergartens have been concentrated in cities, with more than 70% of the available children enrolled in such a facility.Among the six prefectures, the number of children in day care centers exceeds that of kindergartens in Aomori, Iwate, and Akita but the opposite is true in Yamagata, Miyagi, and Fukushima.Recently there has been a remarkable proliferation of unauthorized “baby homes” (nonregulated nurseries that accept infants and small children without hours or restrictions) and nurseries controled by enterprises in the central cities of the district, especially in Fukushima Prefecture (Fig. 10).The ratio of the combined number of children placed in day care centers, kindergartens, and unauthorized baby homes to the total population of children aged six and under is one to three. Since this ratio differs little from prefecture to prefecture (Fig. 2), the total capacity of the institution in each prefecture is approximately the same.

The Decline of Social Welfare: Falling State Support for the Elderly since Early Victorian Times

ABSTRACTCurrent searchings for ways to trim a burgeoning social welfare budget come at the end of a long period of decline in the value of pensions. The social welfare benefits paid in Britain today are not as valuable, relative to the incomes of non-beneficiaries, as were the pensions paid during the first half of the twentieth century, and they are worth very much less than the allowances distributed by the nineteenth century Poor Law. Demographic changes, including the growing numbers of elderly persons, the movement of elderly persons towards living alone, the decline in household size, and the return of large numbers of women to the paid workforce, have overtaken the Welfare State, which has failed to develop a programme for redistributing resources between the generations.

社会福祉予算の動向 : ゼロ・シーリングと社会福祉予算の構造(行財政改革と社会福祉)

社会福祉予算の動向 : ゼロ・シーリングと社会福祉予算の構造(行財政改革と社会福祉)

National Defence and Social Welfare Budget Trends in Ten Nations of Postwar Western Europe

For the past two decades, economists, political scientists, and other public policy analysts have repeatedly lamented the lack of attention afforded the expenditure side of fiscal policy. Such concern has prompted numerous studies which have examined in great detail budgets of individual countries. Despite this renewed interest, surprisingly little has appeared in the area of comparative expenditure development. Cross‐country comparisons have traditionally employed cross‐section analyses while ignoring, except in rare instances, comparisons of time series data.