The sins of the parents: Conceptualizing adult-oriented reforms to family benefits

Stewart K., Patrick R., Reeves A.

Abstract Despite its significance in determining poverty risk, family size has received little focus in recent social policy analysis. This paper provides a correction, focusing squarely on the changing poverty risk of larger families (those with three or more dependent children) in the UK over recent years. It argues that we need to pay much closer attention to how and why poverty risk differs according to family size. Our analysis of Family Resource Survey data reveals how far changes in child poverty rates since 1997 – both falling poverty risk to 2012/13 and increases since then – have been concentrated in larger families. Social security changes are identified as central: these have affected larger families most as they have greater need for support, due to both lower work intensity and higher household needs. By interrogating the way policy change has affected families of different sizes the paper seeks to increase understanding of the effects of different poverty reduction strategies, with implications for policy debates in the UK and beyond. In providing evidence about the socio-demographics of larger families and their changing poverty risk it also aims to inform contested debates about the state’s role in providing financial support for children.

Aerts E., Marx I., Parolin Z.

Poverty rates among single parents vary considerably across countries, in part reflecting differences in the generosity and design of minimum income protections. We ask what the optimal ways are to target income support to single parents, if the prime objective of policy is to shelter those households from poverty. We map minimum income provisions for working and nonworking single-parent households across Europe and the United States, showing that three things matter for adequate minimum income protection. First, minimum wage levels matter, obviously for working single parents, but also for jobless ones since they effectively set the ‘glass ceiling’ for out-of-work benefits. Second, the overall generosity of the child benefit package is crucial to shelter both working and jobless single parents from poverty. Third, countries that employ a strategy of “targeting within universalism” (that is directing extra support to vulnerable groups such as single parents within the context of a universal benefit program) tend to do best.

HIRSCH D., CONCIALDI P., MATH A., PADLEY M., PEREIRA E., PEREIRINHA J., THORNTON R.

AbstractEquivalence scales, used to compare incomes across household types, strongly influence which households have low reported income, affecting public policy priorities. Yet they draw on abstract, often dated evidence and arbitrary judgements, and on comparisons across the income distribution rather than focusing on minimum requirements. Budget standards provide more tangible comparisons of the minimum required by different household types. The Minimum Income Standard (MIS) method, now established in several countries, applies a common methodological framework for compiling budgets, based on public deliberations. This article draws for the first time on results across countries. In all of the four countries examined, it identifies an under-estimation by the OECD scale of the relative cost of children compared to adults, and, in three of the four, an under-estimation of the cost of singles compared to couples. This more systematically corroborates previous, dispersed evidence, and helps explain which specific expenditure categories influence these results. These results have high policy relevance, showing greater proportions of low income households to contain children than standard income distribution data. While no single equivalence scale can be universally accurate, making use of evidence based directly on benchmarks such as MIS can help inform public priorities in tackling low income.

Ladhani S., Sitter K.C.

Motivation. In areas of the world where poverty and inequality are deep and pervasive and social protection systems comparatively fragile, cash transfers are becoming commonplace and often promoted by international institutions and aid agencies as a viable instrument for social protection. Particularly, conditional cash transfers (CCTs) are being looked to as a means of reducing poverty while also investing in human capital. Purpose. To capture some of the main critiques of CCTs from conception to evaluation, while identifying both gaps and opportunities for research and consideration for the future of CCTs. Methods. A rapid review process was used. The initial search was conducted using a number of online peer‐reviewed databases. The initial search process yielded 993 sources, results were then limited to full‐text, English language, and to sources published between 2008 and 2017. Sources were then screened. Finally, 44 articles were chosen for in‐depth review. Findings. This review captures some of the main critiques of CCTs from conception to evaluation, while identifying both gaps and opportunities for research and consideration for the future of CCTs. Policy implication. We discuss responsibilities and implications for social work professionals who may be involved in the design, implementation or evaluation of CCT programmes domestically or internationally.

Palme J., Heimer M.

AbstractThe UN Convention on the Rights of the Child has created momentum for the notion of child policy to be advanced. The article elaborates a taxonomy of child policies for analyzing policy instruments aimed at promoting various aspects of children’s welfare, and four different types of child policies are identified. The article explores the feasibility of this conceptual framework with a case study of Sweden. We frame the move toward child-centered policies in terms of defamilization: such policies may enhance “freedom as non-domination” and could be seen as the second round of the defamilization of social policy.

DALY M.

AbstractIn light of social policy’s growing focus on children and a changing family policy portfolio, we need better classifications and a more nuanced understanding of policy approaches to children. The aim here is to contribute to further thinking and analysis by reviewing some of the existing conceptualisations and the latest relevant policy developments on the one hand and developing an analytic framework for further research on the other. The article takes an EU-wide approach and empirically examines developments in income support policy, parenting-related leaves, early childhood education and care and children’s right to participation to see what they reveal about prevailing approaches to children. The paper identifies some strong moves towards a greater focus on children in social policy but suggests differentiating between three different approaches: family-oriented, childhood-oriented and child-oriented. These approaches differ in terms of whether their primary focus is on children or adults, whether they engage with children directly or indirectly, the set of entitlements involved and the desired outcome.

Watts B., Fitzpatrick S.

Daly M., Ferragina E.

This article empirically traces trends in family policy in 23 high-income countries since the 1960s. A range of data on income supports for families with children, family-related leave and early childhood education and care are brought together and analysed. The results show that family policy has developed by layering, in terms of both content and time period. A ‘foundational phase’ is characterised by investment in cash and tax allowances for families and employment leave for mothers, while a ‘consolidation phase’ sees states adding to their family policy portfolio, especially through the diversification of family-related leave and augmentation of child-related care services, increasing their overall family policy expenditure and continuing to support families financially but with a preference to direct this through the tax system. There is no inexorable development path though, either within or across countries. A layering development pattern suggests that analysis of family policy over time needs to be oriented to examining both continuity and change and, as the conclusion makes clear, there are many fruitful lines of further research.

Kuitto K.

This article contributes to the ongoing debate on the forms and characteristics of social investment policies and their potential trade-off with social security schemes by assessing developments of welfare spending profiles in 23 European welfare states in the 2000s. I argue that if a social investment turn has indeed occurred, it is not necessarily at the cost of the ‘old’ compensatory policies. Instead, social investment policies and their relation to compensating welfare policies alter with regard to policies targeted at different life-stages and to the type of welfare regime. Therefore, the results attest to a path-dependent trend within the welfare regimes, the Nordic countries remaining clear forerunners in terms of both level and dynamics of social investment policies. European social investment strategies manifest mainly in policies targeting childhood and youth, while a trade-off between social investment and compensating policies is evident in working-age policies to some degree.

Van Lancker W., Van Mechelen N.

The long-standing wisdom that universally designed benefits outperform targeted benefits in terms of poverty reduction has come under siege. Recent empirical studies tend to find that targeting is not necessarily associated anymore with lower levels of poverty reduction. In this study, we investigate for a broad set of European countries (1) the relationship between child benefits and child poverty reduction; (2) whether a universal or targeted approach is more effective in reducing child poverty; and (3) the causal mechanisms explaining the link between (1) and (2). In doing so, we take into account the general characteristics of the child benefit system, the size of the redistributive budget and the generosity of benefit levels. In contrast to previous studies, we construct an indicator of targeting that captures the design instead of the outcomes of child benefit systems. We find that targeting towards lower incomes is associated with higher levels of child poverty reduction, conditional on the direction of targeting and the characteristics of the benefit system.

Marx I., Marchal S., Nolan B.

Relative income poverty affects 5 to 15 per cent or more of Europeans whose main activity is paid work. It also affects their families; the majority of children growing up in financial poverty live in a household with at least one earner (Van Mechelen and Bradshaw, in this volume). A long-standing issue in the United States, concern about in-work poverty is now also mounting in Europe. The past few years have seen a rapid rise in the number of academic publications dealing with in-work poverty within the European context (Marx and Verbist, 1998; Nolan and Marx, 2000; Andreß and Lohmann, 2008; Lohmann, 2009; Crettaz, 2011; Fraser, Gutiérrez and Peña-Casas, 2011; Maitre, Nolan and Whelan, 2011; Kenworthy, 2011; Marx and Nolan, 2012; Van Lancker, 2012).1 Some see far reaching societal implications (Standing, 2011). At the policy level, too, a growing awareness is evident. In its 2011 report on Employment and Social Developments in Europe 2011, the European Commission states: ‘Although it is clear that, while employment is the most important factor in preventing poverty, it is also true that the phenomenon of monetary in-work poverty is nonetheless all too real.’

Morel N., Palier B., Palme J.

Gazso A., McDaniel S.A.

PurposeThis paper aims to explore how neo‐liberalism shapes income support policy and lone mothers' experiences in Canada and the USA.Design/methodology/approachA critical comparative analysis is undertaken of how Canadian and US governments take up sociological concepts of risk, market citizenship, and individualization, whether explicitly or implicitly, in the design and administration of neo‐liberal income support policies directed at lone mothers. Specifically, the contradictory life circumstances that Canadian and American lone mothers experience when they access income supports that are designed ostensibly to construct/reconstruct them as citizens capable of risk taking in their search for employment and self‐sufficiency are compared.FindingsThe paper finds that the realities for poor lone mothers are remarkably similar in the two countries and therefore argue that income support policies, particularly welfare‐to‐work initiatives, underpinned by neo‐liberal tenets, can act in a counter‐intuitive manner exposing lone mothers to greater rather than lesser economic and social insecurity/inequality, and constructing them as risk aversive and dependent.Research limitations/implicationsThe economic and social implications/contradictions of neo‐liberal restructuring of income support policies for lone mothers is revealed.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to broader scholarship on the gendered dimensions of neo‐liberal restructuring of welfare states in late modernity.

Daly M.

SKEVIK A.

‘Feminist’ social policy has done an important job in developing new concepts for studying welfare state variation. But just like ‘mainstream’ social policy, gender-sensitive analyses have their blind spots. This article argues that differences in policies towards children remain an understudied area, and that developing concepts for varying policy approaches to children can increase our understanding of social political differences. Two countries – the UK and Norway – are juxtaposed in the empirical analysis, which centres on policies towards children living with one parent and the development of universal child benefits. The empirical discussion suggests that the UK traditionally has been closer to an ‘organic’ view of the family, while Norway has been closer to an ‘individual’ view. Two dimensions are highlighted: the separation of parenting and partnering for the purposes of social benefits, and the extent to which the ‘worthiness’ of the parents determine transfers to children. Both these dimensions have the potential to influence strongly distribution between families with children, as well as the legitimacy of the benefits. They should therefore be of crucial importance in comparative studies of family policy and social policy.

Reader M., Portes J., Patrick R.

Abstract We study the fertility effects of restricting child-related social assistance to the first two children in the family. As of 2017, all third and subsequent children born on or after 6 April 2017 in the UK were made ineligible for approximately 3000 GBP of means-tested child benefits per year. Using a triple difference and regression discontinuity design, we leverage administrative births microdata to identify the impact of the two-child limit on higher-order births. We find little to no decline in higher-order fertility among low-income families, with our estimates indicating at most small elasticities relative to the literature.