As pointed out by the Expert Group on Household Income Statistics (Canberra Group, 2001), the way in which is dealt with the income value of home ownership is crucial for distribution analyses. Home-ownership can have a large impact on a household’s expenditure structure. Because of the large...

Poverty reduction rests on the mechanisms of horizontal and vertical solidarity and on prevention and repair of social risks. In this contribution, we argue that in contemporary welfare states the poverty-reducing capacity of existing social security systems perceive inherent limitations....

Childcare services are increasingly regarded as a major policy lever to mitigate social inequalities. Such services are believed to be effective in reducing poverty and increasing employment rates by allowing both parents to engage in paid employment, as well as to benefit the cognitive and...

The poverty risk rate increased in Finland from 7 to 14 per cent between 1993 and 2010. We have estimated the counterfactual poverty rates for the year 2010 in order to evaluate the impact of changes in tax and benefit systems on the increase of the poverty risk rate. Household disposable...

Part-time employment in Europe has continued to grow faster than overall employment during the Great Recession and its aftermath. But as part-time work becomes more prevalent, so does involuntary part-time – at least in most countries. In this paper we focus on Greece and the UK, two European...

Over the past two decades, pension reforms have been at the top of the agenda of social policy makers in Europe. In many countries, these reforms have resulted in less generous public pensions. At the same time, minimum income protection for the elderly has received attention from policy makers,...

Should the EU be involved in the governance of minimum income protection, and if it should, in which role precisely? This question raises a complex policy conundrum. We focus on a proposal by the European Anti-Poverty Network (EAPN) for an EU Framework Directive on Minimum Income Protection, in...

The general and universal right to education has been well established for some time. But despite international agreement, the commitment to education for all is not necessarily linked to obligatory mainstream education for all children with disabilities. The mature European countries have a...

Although societies, as a reaction to the social model of disability, try to integrate and empower people with impairments and disadvantaged families through inclusive policies, these population groups continue to experience integration difficulties. Besides negative changes in health, a weak...

This paper investigates how social class shapes the occurrence of social risks, defined as socio-economic circumstances associated with significant losses of income. The motivation for this exploration derives from the ‘individualisation thesis’, which calls into question the structuring...