The Impact of Social Security on Household Welfare: Evidence from a Transition Country

Although there is no doubt that social security can help poverty reduction, their effect on poverty reduction can vary for different situations. This paper uses fixed-effects regression to estimate the effects of social security transfers including contributory pensions and social allowances on consumption expenditure of receiving households, and subsequently investigates the impact of the social security transfers on poverty in Vietnam. It is found that both pensions and social allowances increase expenditure of households, especially expenditure on non-food consumption. Pensions have a higher effect on expenditure than social allowances. Pensions and social allowances reduce poverty of the recipients as well as the whole population.