Reducing poverty is a central policy priority in many countries, also in wealthy countries with comprehensive universal support systems, such as the Nordic welfare states. This study examines policy options designed to support families with preschool-aged children and their implications for...

This paper describes the integration of labour supply behavioural responses into UKMOD, the UK tax-benefit microsimulation model belonging to the EUROMOD family. Traditional static models quantify only the direct ("morning after") fiscal and distributional effects of policy reforms, abstracting...

In April 2013, a significant change to Child Benefit (CB) was introduced in the UK: it switched from a universal benefit to a targeted benefit. The new High Income Child Benefit Charge (HICBC) required families to repay some or all of their Child Benefit via the tax system if either partner's...

Non-take-up of social benefits occurs when eligible individuals or households fail to claim welfare support to which they are entitled. This paper provides new estimates of take-up for major UK benefits between 2008 and 2023, including Child Benefit, Pension Credit, and Universal Credit together...

Cahyadi et al. (2020) examine the cumulative effects of conditional cash transfer programs in Indonesia after 2 and 6 years. They find beneficial effects for several of the indicators targeted by the cash transfer programme. They find a substantial increase in childcare using trained...

This research estimates by how much the NCS reduces childcare costs for families who use formal childcare in Ireland. The cost 'coverage' of the subsidy, measured by the ratio of the subsidy to the total cost of care, is estimated using the microsimulation model, SWITCH, linked to 2022 data from...

We examine whether financial incentives affect fertility and family planning. We use a reform reducing child benefits paid to larger families together with Danish longitudinal register data on the universe of legal abortions and birth control pill purchases to address this question. We find that...

This paper assesses the impact of the Agrarian Unemployment Benefit (AUB), a regionally targeted income support scheme introduced in Andalucía, Spain, in 1984. At its peak, the program covered more than 10% of the regional labour force, making it one of the most extensive welfare measures of...

Utilising the EU-SILC modules 2009, 2014, and 2021, this note analyses child-specific material deprivation in the EU Member States. Besides the statistics on the most frequently lacked items, the child-specific material deprivation intensity (i.e., the number of lacked items) and the...

In a cross-border context, it is possible that the entitlement to family benefits arises in more than one Member State. Therefore, the Regulations on the coordination of social security systems lay down priority rules to define the 'primarily competent Member State' which is obliged to provide...

Trade mis-invoicing represents a significant economic challenge in Ghana, with losses estimated at 3.03 per cent of gross domestic product in 2018. We examine the potential of a universal child benefit in Ghana through a counterfactual taxation of illicit financial flows. Using microsimulation,...

Child poverty is of growing concern in Ireland and internationally due to the growing body of evidence on the detrimental effects of childhood socio-economic disadvantage on children, both in the short term and in the long term through loss of education, earnings and health. In Ireland, child...

Russia's Maternity Capital program, launched in 2007, is a key policy with an obvious pronatalist focus aimed at countering the country's long-term depopulation trend by encouraging families to have more children. Initially, providing financial incentives for second and subsequent births. The...

This paper examines how access to informal insurance shapes family responses to reductions in social welfare benefits, and how these adjustments affect children's development. In 2003, Israel reformed its child allowance program, significantly reducing unconditional cash benefits for large...

This paper examines how access to informal insurance shapes family responses to reductions in social welfare benefits, and how these adjustments affect children's development. In 2003, Israel reformed its child allowance program, significantly reducing unconditional cash benefits for large...

Eine steuerliche Besserstellung von Alleinerziehenden streben in ihren Anträgen im schleswig-holsteinischen Landtag sowohl CDU und Grüne als auch FDP an. Gleichzeitig ist dieses Ziel auch im Koalitionsvertrag zwischen Union und SPD auf Bundesebene verankert, wonach eine Anhebung oder...

Purpose - This study investigates how emotional and instrumental family support contribute to work-life balance (WLB) among women in higher education, with a particular focus on the mediating roles of self-efficacy and grit in enhancing this balance. Design/methodology/approach - Utilizing a...

This working paper presents an overview of the gradual development of the Soviet welfare system from the October Revolution of 1917 to the country’s dissolution in 1991. It examines all major social welfare programmes in the Soviet Union and their generosity – understood as the combination...

This paper uses register-based data to analyze the consequences of a recent major Danish welfare reform for children’s academic performance and well-being. In addition to work requirements, the reform brought about considerable reductions in welfare transfers. We implement a comparative event...

We study the relationship between divorce law reforms codifying intimate partner violence (IPV) as legal grounds for unilateral divorce, the Oportunidades conditional cash transfer program, and the incidence of IPV in Mexico. Using data from three nationally representative surveys in 2003, 2006,...

This report provides an overview of the export of family benefits for the reference year 2022. Family benefits were transferred to more than 1.1 million family members residing in another EU/EFTA country or the UK. On average, 2.6 % of the total family benefits were paid to persons residing in...

We study the fertility effects of the 1997 Quebec Family Policy, which introduced universal childcare and simultaneously ended its newborn allowance. Using a 20% sample of Canadian tax returns, we find that the reform reduced overall fertility at the intensive margin but had varying impacts by...

Take-up of social benefits is a central issue in poverty alleviation and fiscal evaluations of policy reforms. However, it is difficult to find exogenous variation in the benefit level, and little is therefore known about take-up responses to basic financial incentives. We exploit large and...