Download or read book Social Assistance in the New EU Member States written by Dena Ringold and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study analyzes the performance of social assistance and family benefit programs in eight new member states of the European Union from the perspective of fiscal impact and effectiveness. It is based on household survey data for six of the countries, as well as budget data and information on program design collected at the national level. The paper finds that, although social assistance programs in the new member states are small in terms of coverage and expenditure levels (reaching 2 to 5 percent of the population), the programs are an important safety net for the poor. Programs are relatively well targeted, with between 30 and 60 percent of resources going to the poorest quintile of the population. For those who receive them, benefits can make up as much as 37 percent of average consumption of the poor.

Download or read book Social Services of General Interest in the EU written by Ulla Neergaard and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-10-30 with total page 626 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The EU has limited legislative competence in the field of social law. However, the Member States are increasingly modernizing social services and social (welfare) protection, attempting to make social services more efficient by increasingly looking to the market for the provision of such services. This policy move brings social services into the radar of EU law. The EU response to this sensitive issue has resulted in a piecemeal and fragmented approach towards the treatment of a new policy area of Social Services of General Interest (SSGI) in EU law and policy. This book is a first contribution towards charting how SSGI have emerged as a special category of SGI in the EU, the reaction of the Member States and stake-holders and how policy is being made through new governance processes, carve-outs and safe havens in legislation and soft law, especially in the light of the new values of the EU introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon 2009. It takes an inter-disciplinary approach and will be of interest to lawyers, economists and political scientists who are interested in EU policy-making as well as practioners, EU and national policy-makers. Ulla Neergaard is Professor of EU law at the Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Erika Szyszczak is a Jean Monnet Professor of European Law ad personam, Professor of European Competition and Labour Law at the University of Leicester, Barrister, Littleton Chambers, UK. Johan W. van de Gronden is Professor of European Law at the Radboud University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Markus Krajewski is Professor of Public and International law at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg.

Download or read book Minimum Income Schemes in Europe written by International Labour Organisation and published by International Labour Organization. This book was released on 2003 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates the paradox of rich countries of Western Europe, who have high levels of poverty whilst proclaiming its eradication as one of the primary social and economic goals. It looks at how policies often do not achieve their goals, why countries need mechanisms to reduce wage inequality and why they choose to provide universal benefits instead of systems of selective benefits targeted at the poor. Along with cross-countries comparisons, the volume also presents analysis of the minimum income in France, Portugal, Italy, Finland, Ireland, Belgium, and Greece.

Download or read book Activity Incomes and Social Welfare written by Manuela Sofia Stanculescu and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-10-24 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book describes and quantifies the major socioeconomic changes that have occurred in four new member states of the EU (Slovenia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria) since the early 1990s. The period covered was a particularly turbulent one, not only because of the transition process which was well underway but becase of the stablization packages and other economic, monetary and social policy measures, which have had a strong impact at individual and household levels. While previous comparable studies have been carried out, they cover the period only to the mid 1990s, thus this book contains unique and very valuable statistical and micro data. Within the broad framework of socioeconomic change, a number of topics are explored in greater detail. These include changes in activity, occupational status and educational attainment, household income sources and income inequality, and risk of income poverty. The analysis is based on household budget surveys and complemented with other statistical sources, enabling a coherent analysis of the impact of large changes in social policy at household level. The country chapters are all based on common methodological guidelines enabling comparisons to be drawn. This will be an invaluable book for researchers in comparative social policy, poverty and social stratification and economic sociology, and for specialists on Central and Eastern Europe.

Download or read book Migration and Welfare in the New Europe written by Carmel, Emma and published by Policy Press. This book was released on 2012-03-01 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides innovative insights into one of the most controversial and important subjects of the 21st century: migration and social integration. Empirically, the volume offers comprehensive grounding in the relationships between migration, migration policies and social protection/inclusion in the enlarged European Union and its member states. Theoretically, the collection moves the debate on migration and integration policies onto new terrain. It explains how policies in this field are produced by institutional frameworks, political strategy, and contingent responses to events, but that these are themselves shaped by emotions, discourses, narratives, formal and informal aspects of governance. With contributions from leading international experts, the book can be used by academics and professionals as well as by undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Download or read book The Future of the Welfare State written by Robert Urbé and published by Lambertus-Verlag. This book was released on 2012-12-25 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Future of Europe has to be social, or there will be no Future! Welfare in itself is a concept that is dependent on cultural differences. These provide an explanation for the different historically-rooted welfare concepts throughout European countries. For our research we have consciously focused on European Union member countries, the number of countries involved in one way or another in the project is twenty. According to Esping-Andersen we differentiate three different types of Welfare models: the liberal "Beveridge systems, the conservative, corporatist "Bismarck systems and the social democratic or Scandinavian (Nordic) regimes. Our working group decided to opt for an "own class of countries belonging to a "Mediterranean Model. And we added also a group of "Central and Eastern European Systems. After having described these systems and their development, we have examined if, and to what extent the countries of a given regime are all following the same trends and developments. The question of a possible convergence of all these models in one future European social model was also investigated. At the end the most important questions remain: How can we overcome the austerity paradigm and move towards a cohesive society where everyone participates according to his means and where everybody gets according to his needs? How can we agree on a minimum socket of social rights in all European Countries

Download or read book Will the EU 15s current social welfare systems induce migration from the new member states written by Martin Popov and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2006-05-30 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Diploma Thesis from the year 2005 in the subject Economics - Case Scenarios, grade: 1,0, University of Heidelberg (Alfred-Weber-Institut), language: English, abstract: 2004 was a momentous year for the European Union (EU). On 1 May the most recent act of Enlargement was finally fulfilled. Ten New Member States from Central and Eastern Europe joined the club and their residents officially became European citizens. The moment was all the more special for eight of the ten newcomers, as they were ruled with an iron fist behind the Iron Curtain for more than forty years. The accession represented the ultimate accolade for their arduous transition from central planned to market economies. The long history of an expanding united Europe thereby reached another peak - regarding cultural integrity, political influence and economic potency. Europhiles praised (lauded, acclaimed???) the EU’s greatest achievement so far. On the other hand, the EU Enlargement also encountered various feelings of skepticism or even disapproval throughout the population of Western Europe. Many people feared that “fortress Europe” would not hold and the walls of the Western social welfare states would be toppled (breached???) by millions of poor immigrants willing to work for extremely low wages and trying to maraud (infiltrate???) the Western welfare systems. Others were anxious that the Enlargement would induce a massive increase in FDI leading to an outsourcing of Western jobs into the East. Obviously the clash of two completely contrary positions raises multiple questions. Who is right? How many migrants can be expected to come, once the free movement of workers has been granted to them? How does the EU Enlargement really affect the Western economies and their labor markets in particular? Is there a threat of “welfare shopping” and, if there is any, what measures can the Western countries take in order to protect themselves from the Eastern menace? In this paper I will deal with these questions by first looking at the theoretical backgrounds and then seeking to support them with empirical findings in order to deduce some answers. In Chapter 2, after a brief overview of the main migration theories, I will examine the migration potential from the New Member States. Chapter 3 aims to provide a deeper insight into the economic and fiscal impact of immigrants on the German state. Chapter 4 deals with the “welfare magnets” hypothesis and provides an answer to the question whether immigrants really pose a threat to the Western welfare states. [...]

Download or read book New Risks New Welfare written by Peter Taylor-Gooby and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2004-11-11 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book introduces the concept of new social risks in welfare state studies and explains their relevance to the comparative understanding of social policy in Europe. New social risks arise from shifts in the balance of work and family life as a direct result of the declining importance of the male breadwinner family, changes in the labour market, and the impact of globalization on national policy-making. They differ from the old social risks of the standard industrial life-course, which were concerned primarily with interruptions to income from sickness, unemployment, retirement, and similar issues. New social risks pose new challenges for the welfare policies of European countries, such as the care of children and the elderly, more equal opportunities, the activation of labour markets and the management of needs that arise from welfare state reform, and new opportunities for the coordination of policies at the EU level. The book includes detailed and up-to-date case studies of policy development across these areas in the major European countries. These studies, written by leading experts, are organized in a comparative framework which is followed throughout the book. They highlight the way in which national welfare state regimes and institutional arrangements shape policy-making to meet new social risks. A major feature of this volume is the analysis of developments at the EU level and their interaction with national policies. The EU has been largely unsuccessful in its interventions in old social risk policy, but appears to have more success in its attempts to coordinate policy for new social risks. Experience here may provide lessons for future developments in EU policy-making. The comparative framework of the book seeks to inform an understanding of the development of new social risks in Europe and of the particular political opportunities and challenges that result. It provides an original analysis of pressing issues at the forefront of European welfare policy debate and locates it at the heart of current theoretical debates.

Download or read book The Boundaries of Welfare written by Maurizio Ferrera and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2005-11-24 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To what extent has the process of European integration re-drawn the boundaries of national welfare states? What are the effects of such re-drawing? Boundaries count: they are essential in bringing together individuals, groups, and territorial units, and for activating or strengthening shared ties between them. If the profile of boundaries changes over time, we might expect significant consequences on bonding dynamics, i.e. on the way solidarity is structured in a given political community. The book addresses these two questions in a broad historical and comparative perspective. The first chapter sets out a novel theoretical framework which re-conceptualizes the welfare state as a 'bounded space' characterized by a distinct spatial politics. This reconceptualization takes as a starting point the 'state-building tradition' in political science and in particular the work of Stein Rokkan. The second chapter briefly outlines the early emergence and expansion of European welfare states till World War II. Chapters 3 and 4 analyse the relationship between domestic welfare state developments and the formation of a supranational European Community between the 1960s and the 2000s, illustrating how the process of European integration has increasingly eroded the social sovereignty of the nation-state. Chapter 5 focuses on new emerging forms of sub-national and trans-national social protection, while Chapter 6 discusses current trends and future perspectives for a re-structuring of social protection at the EU level. While there is no doubt that European integration has significantly altered the boundaries of national welfare, de-stabilizing delicate political and institutional equilibria, the book concludes by offering some suggestions on how a viable system of multi-level social protection could possibly emerge within the new EU wide boundary configuration.

Download or read book The Handbook of European Welfare Systems written by Sonja Blum and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-12-16 with total page 699 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides the first comprehensive information and detailed data on the welfare systems of all twenty-seven EU member states and offers the reader an invaluable introduction and basis for comparative welfare research. The introductory chapter summarizes the actual debate about welfare states and welfare (state) regimes, gives an overview on current welfare (state) research and analyses the main recent developments necessitating a new focus on European Welfare Systems. The twenty-seven chapters on the welfare systems of the member states are written on the basis of a common structure by experts from the individual states. An additional chapter analyses the current social and welfare policies of the EU and focuses on the interplay and limits between European and national social policies. Two concluding chapters provide (a) a first comparative analysis on the basis of all twenty-seven European Welfare Systems and (b) a theoretical reflection both arguing for and venturing the idea of politically limited pluralism in European welfare politics.

Download or read book Social Policy in Central and Eastern Europe written by Alfio Cerami and published by LIT Verlag Münster. This book was released on 2006 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By explaining the path of extrication from state socialism, this book clarifies the patterns of the welfare state's transformation in Central and Eastern Europe. It identifies the emergence of a peculiar Eastern European welfare regime through the fusionof pre-communist, communist and post-communist features.

Download or read book Migration and Social Protection in Europe and Beyond Volume 1 written by Jean-Michel Lafleur and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-10-30 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This first open access book in a series of three volumes provides an in-depth analysis of social protection policies that EU Member States make accessible to resident nationals, non-resident nationals and non-national residents. In doing so, it discusses different scenarios in which the interplay between nationality and residence could lead to inequalities of access to welfare. Each chapter maps the eligibility conditions for accessing social benefits, by paying particular attention to the social entitlements that migrants can claim in host countries and/or export from home countries. The book also identifies and compares recent trends of access to welfare entitlements across five policy areas: health care, unemployment, family benefits, pensions, and guaranteed minimum resources. As such this book is a valuable read to researchers, policy makers, government employees and NGO’s.

Download or read book Reshaping Welfare States and Activation Regimes in Europe written by SALTSA (Program) and published by Peter Lang. This book was released on 2007 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The activation-based intervention paradigm is being adopted by several European countries resulting in major reforms to the social welfare system. The spread of the activation paradigm has had major repercussions, not only for welfare interventions aimed at combating unemployment, but also for the political regulation of the social question and citizenship. Citizenship is being redefined in contractual terms and greater emphasis is being placed on its economic aspects. Nevertheless, a wide range of policies are labelled with recourse to this interpretative framework and a pluralistic approach to implementation could serve just as well to empower as to weaken workers'/citizens' position in society. This book analyses the extent of these changes from a cross-cultural perspective. Institutional settings as well as prevailing work values and social representation of social exclusion (activation regimes) have a key role in defining the instruments to be used in national activation strategies to regulate the behaviour of job seekers. In this book, a discussion about the range of social welfare model reforms throughout Europe and a typology of activation regimes is proposed.

Download or read book Europe enlarged written by Kogan, Irena and published by Policy Press. This book was released on 2008-07-16 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The expansion of the European Union (EU) has put an end to the East-West division of Europe. At the same time it has increased the cultural heterogeneity, social disparities and economic imbalances within the EU, exemplified in the lower living standards and higher unemployment rates in some of the new member states. This important new reference work describes the education systems, labour markets and welfare production regimes in the 10 new Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) countries. In three comparative chapters, discussing each of these domains in turn, the editors provide a set of theory-driven, comprehensive and informative indicators that allow comparisons and rankings within the new EU member states. Ten country-specific chapters follow, each written by experts from those countries: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. These chapters provide detailed information on each country's education and training systems, labour market structure and regulations, and its provision of formal and informal welfare support. An important component of each country chapter is the explanation of the historical background and the specific national conditions for the institutional choices in the transitional years. The handbook provides policy makers with the tools to assess the institutional changes in CEE countries, and scholars with ways to apply the proposed indicators to their analytic research. It will be a vital resource that no major research library should be without.

Download or read book Social Policies written by European Commission. Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Social Europe guide is a bi-annual publication aimed at providing an interested but not necessarily specialised audience with a concise overview of specific areas of EU policy in the field of employment, social affairs and inclusion. It illustrates the key issues and challenges, explains policy actions and instruments at EU level and provides examples of best practices from EU Member States. It also presents views on the subject from the Council Presidency and the European Parliament. This fifth volume in the series of Social Guides sets out how the new challenges facing EU countries call for a rethink of our approach to social policies. It outlines the functions of social policies and recent initiatives by the European Commission to support increased 'social investment' - benefits and services that improve people's skills and capabilities and support people's inclusion in society. This guide also sets out how the European Union's social policy guidance is designed and delivered, and how the Commission is supporting Member States in making reforms to improve the adequacy and sustainability of their social policies.

Download or read book Innovation in Social Services written by Tomáš Sirovátka and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-05-23 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: EU member states have seen high levels of unemployment in recent years especially amongst young people. At the same time the fiscal crisis of welfare states has made it difficult for them to invest in new jobs and new economic growth. The EU, at least since the enactment of the Amsterdam treaty, has had a focus on how to support member states’ development of an employment policy which aims for higher levels of participation, lower levels of unemployment and more gender equal approaches. Through exploring patterns in the recent development of financing and governance of social services and developments of social services and employment in the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany and the UK, this volume provides readers with new knowledge and evidence of the options regarding social innovation in social services. Furthermore, it provides a comparative European perspective on how the interplay between a public and private mix of social service on the one hand might help in creating jobs, and, on the other, be a way of coping with the needs and expectations of higher level of services in the core areas of the welfare state.

Download or read book Social Benefits and Migration written by Elspeth Guild and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the main policy controversies that have emerged in the European Union over migration and its impact on the welfare system. Does migration constitute a disproportionate burden to member states' domestic labor markets and welfare systems? Should noncitizens be entitled to social benefits in the state where they live? Is there objective evidence and statistical data indicating abuse of social benefits by noncitizens, social welfare tourism, or the welfare magnet hypothesis, in which migrants are attracted to countries that provide more generous welfare? The contributors analyze these controversies as they affect different categories of noncitizens in the framework of EU law and policy. They also examine the uses or misuses of data, information, and social science knowledge in the debates over the reliance by noncitizens on social benefits. The book concludes with a set of recommendations addressed to EU policymakers.