Unemployment benefit coverage is high

Abstract The Sample of Integrated Welfare Benefit Biographies (SIG) is a new administrative longitudinal microdata set representative of recipients of Germany’s main welfare programme, the Unemployment Benefit II (UB II, Arbeitslosengeld II). The data set contains detailed longitudinal information on welfare receipt and labour market activities, and hence enables researchers to analyse the dynamics of benefit receipt, income and employment. A distinct feature of the SIG is that it provides information not only for individual benefit recipients but also for family members, including children and partners. This is possible because eligibility for UB II benefits depends on the household structure, and it is means-tested on household income. In addition to socio-demographic and regional information, the SIG contains extensive information on the employment biographies of benefit recipients and their household members from the Integrated Employment Biographies (IEB) of the Institute for Employment Research (IAB). This allows researchers to examine the interaction between labour market participation and benefit receipt. The SIG is available to researchers at the Research Data Centre (FDZ) of the Federal Employment Agency (BA) at the IAB.

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Distributive Consequences of Risk Privatization: The Case of the Swedish Unemployment Insurance System

Zeitschrift für Sozialreform ◽

10.1515/zsr-2020-0010 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 66 (3) ◽

pp. 207-235

Author(s):

Jayeon Lindellee

Keyword(s):

Unemployment Insurance ◽

Unemployment Benefit ◽

Income Loss ◽

The Public ◽

Insurance Benefit ◽

Insurance Program ◽

Unemployment Insurance Benefit ◽

Income Insurance ◽

Unemployment Insurance System ◽

Retail Workers

Abstract The public unemployment insurance program in Sweden has retrenched in terms of its benefit generosity in the last three decades. As a response to this trend, in which an ever-smaller proportion of the previous income of unemployed persons is compensated by public unemployment insurance benefit, complementary income insurance schemes provided by unions have expanded rapidly in the last 15 years, currently covering one half of the working population. What does this change mean for people who need income protection upon unemployment and are more likely to find themselves unemployed or underemployed? By analyzing survey-based benefit recipiency data among retail workers who were unemployed in 2014, this article explores the outcomes of the multi-pillarized unemployment benefit provision system in Sweden. While public unemployment insurance benefit does not fully compensate for the income loss for the majority of retail workers, the promise of a complementary income insurance scheme seems to be illusory for many individuals as they repeatedly oscillate between precarious work and benefits, accompanied by the burden of navigating a complex system.

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Partisanship, continuity, and change: Politics in Finnish unemployment benefit reforms 1985–2016

Social Policy and Administration ◽

10.1111/spol.12526 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 54 (1) ◽

pp. 119-133

Author(s):

Sampo Varjonen ◽

Olli Kangas ◽

Mikko Niemelä

Keyword(s):

Unemployment Benefit ◽

Continuity And Change

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Designing and implementing unemployment benefit systems in middle and low income countries: beyond risk-pooling vs savings

IZA Journal of Labor Policy ◽

10.1186/2193-9004-2-12 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

pp. 12 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

David A Robalino ◽

Michael Weber

Keyword(s):

Low Income ◽

Low Income Countries ◽

Unemployment Benefit ◽

Risk Pooling

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Worlds of welfare collide

European Journal of Social Security ◽

10.1177/1388262717699457 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 19 (1) ◽

pp. 21-44

Author(s):

Gráinne McKeever ◽

Mark Simpson

Keyword(s):

Social Insurance ◽

Social Protection ◽

Conservative System ◽

Unemployment Benefit ◽

Unemployment Benefits ◽

Social Democratic ◽

Asymmetric Shocks ◽

The Uk ◽

Operational Issues ◽

The Eu

The post-2007 financial crisis has brought renewed interest in a European Unemployment Benefit Scheme (EUBS) as a manifestation of solidarity between citizens of different Member States and an economic stabiliser in the event of future asymmetric shocks. The EU-wide benefit would operate in tandem with existing national unemployment benefits. This creates challenges of compatibility given the diversity of approaches to social security within the Union, based on at least four philosophies of welfare: liberal, conservative, social democratic and southern European. This article examines potential legal, operational and political difficulties associated with marrying a EUBS that is at heart a conservative system of social insurance to the UK’s liberal welfare state. Few legal obstacles exist and although the addition of a new, earnings-related benefit to an already complex mix of social protection would raise significant operational issues, these need not be insurmountable. However, fundamental ideological differences would have rendered the EUBS as proposed politically ill-matched with the UK even absent the June 2016 vote to leave the EU. A contributory income maintenance benefit is a poor fit with a residual, largely means-tested national system whose role is limited to offering protection against severe poverty while maintaining work incentives and minimising costs.

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Derecho a la protección de la salud y exclusión de la asistencia sanitaria: la crisis económica como pretexto para la limitación del acceso a los servicios y prestaciones del estado del bienestar

RVAP 118 - Revista Vasca de Administración Pública / Herri-Arduralaritzarako Euskal Aldizkaria ◽

10.47623/ivap-rvap.99.100.2014.004 ◽

2014 ◽

pp. 125-148

Author(s):

Vicenç AGUADO I CUDOLÀ ◽

Raquel PRADO PÉREZ

Keyword(s):

Health Services ◽

Health System ◽

Medical Care ◽

Home Health ◽

Vulnerable Groups ◽

Unemployment Benefit ◽

Autonomous Communities ◽

International Obligations ◽

Constitutional Right ◽

Economic Criteria

LABURPENA: 16/2010 Errege Lege Dekretuak osasun-laguntzan ezarritako erreformak asegurudun eta onuradun kontzeptuak erabiltzen ditu osasun-sistema publikoa erabiltzeko bide gisa. Sistema guztiz unibertsalizatzeko joera geldiarazten da horrela, eta, soilik irizpide ekonomikoetan oinarrituta, sistematik kanpo utzi nahi dira egoera ahulean dauden zenbait kolektibo, hala nola, egoera irregularrean dauden etorkinak eta langabezian dauden, laurogeita hamar egun baino gehiagoz atzerrian dauden eta langabezia-prestazioa edo –subsidioa jasotzeari utzi dioten emigratzaile espainiarrak. Defendatzen den tesia da egoera ahulean dauden taldeak kanporatzea osasuna babesteko konstituzio-eskubidearen eta estatu espainiarrak bere gain hartutako nazioarteko betebeharren kontrakotzat jo daitekeela. Gainera, erreformak berriz zentralizatzeko asmo garbia dauka, Gizarte Segurantzako berezko ideiak erabiliz; autonomia-erkidegoek barne-osasunaren alorrean haien gain hartutako eskumenak zatikatzen ditu erkidegoetako osasun-zerbitzuak deskoordinatuta daudenaren aitzakian baina hori inola frogatu gabe. RESUMEN: La reforma de la asistencia sanitaria llevada a cabo por el Real Decreto-Ley 16/2012 utiliza las nociones de asegurado y beneficiario como vias de acceso al sistema publico de salud. Se frena una tendencia dirigida a una plena universalizacion del sistema para excluir, en base a criterios meramente economicos, a determinados colectivos vulnerables como los inmigrantes en situacion irregular y los emigrantes espanoles en paro que estan mas de noventa dias en el extranjero y que han dejado de percibir la prestacion o subsidio de desempleo. La tesis que se defiende es que la exclusion de grupos vulnerables puede entenderse contraria al derecho constitucional a la proteccion de la salud y a las obligaciones internacionales asumidas por el Estado espanol. La reforma tiene, ademas, un rasgo claramente recentralizador, a traves de la utilizacion de las nociones propias de la Seguridad Social, que laminan competencias que habian asumido las comunidades autonomas en materia de sanidad interior, bajo el pretexto de una no acreditada descoordinacion entre los servicios de salud autonomicos. ABSTRACT: The reform of medical care carried out by means of the Royal Decreelaw uses the concepts of insured and beneficiary as ways of access to the publich health system. It curbs the trend towards a full univesalization of the system in order to exclude, based upon merely economic criteria, some specific vulnerable groups as irregular inmigrants and Spanish unemployed emigrants who are abroad more than ninety days and who are not receiving the unemployment benefit. The thesis is that the exclusion of vulnerable groups can be considered against the constitutional right to the health protection and to the international obligations assumed by the Spanish state. Besides the reform has a clear recentralizing feature by using notions typical to Social Security which laminate the competences that had been taken by the Autonomous Communities in the field of home health, with the excuse of a non proved discordination between the automic health services.

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Why Countries ‘Get Tough on the Work-Shy’: The Role of Adverse Economic Conditions

Journal of Social Policy ◽

10.1017/s0047279418000740 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 48 (03) ◽

pp. 615-634 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

CARLO KNOTZ

Keyword(s):

Social Policy ◽

Social Protection ◽

Economic Conditions ◽

Unemployment Benefit ◽

Clear Trend ◽

Original Dataset ◽

Large N ◽

Economic Downturns ◽

Historical Periods

AbstractThere has been a clear trend toward greater conditionality and coercion in labour market and social policy in recent decades, a key part of which is tougher sanctions for unemployment benefit claimants who refuse offers of employment or otherwise fail to comply with their obligations. Our understanding of this trend and its determinants is so far built only on a corpus of small-N evidence, while systematic comparative large-N analyses are lacking. As a result, the broad patterns of policy change and their general political drivers remain underexplored. This paper fills this gap by examining unemployment benefit sanction reforms in 20 democracies between 1980 and 2012 using an original dataset. It is shown that governments introduce tougher sanctions in order to reconcile two competing pressures that arise during economic downturns: an increased need for social protection and reduced fiscal revenues. The findings, which are also applicable to other historical periods and policy areas, provide an impulse for future comparative large-N research on ‘demanding activation’ policies.

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Conflictive preferences towards social investments and transfers in mature welfare states: The cases of unemployment benefits and childcare provision

Journal of European Social Policy ◽

10.1177/0958928716684302 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 27 (3) ◽

pp. 229-246 ◽

Cited By ~ 22

Author(s):

Marius R. Busemeyer ◽

Erik Neimanns

Keyword(s):

Welfare State ◽

European Social Survey ◽

Welfare States ◽

Political Support ◽

Government Support ◽

Unemployment Benefit ◽

Public Provision ◽

Political Conflicts ◽

Policy Fields ◽

The Unemployed

This article explores potential cleavages and conflicts between political support coalitions of social investment versus classical social transfer policies. To that extent, we analyse international survey data from the European Social Survey (ESS) for 21 European countries. Our central finding is that different welfare state beneficiary groups perceive and react negatively to increased government involvement in policy fields from which they do not benefit themselves: single parents are more likely to oppose government support for the unemployed when long-term replacement rates in the unemployment benefit scheme are high. Vice versa, the unemployed are less likely to support the public provision of childcare services if the latter is already well-funded. This finding has implications for the study of welfare states in general because it implies that in mature welfare states, political conflicts may be less about the welfare state as such, but about the distribution of welfare state services and benefits between different groups of beneficiaries.

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The Perils of Vanguardism

Socio-Economic Review ◽

10.1093/ser/mwx046 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 17 (4) ◽

pp. 947-968 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Joshua C Gordon

Keyword(s):

Causal Explanation ◽

Unemployment Benefit ◽

Right Wing ◽

Social Democrats ◽

Asylum Policy ◽

The Past ◽

The Social ◽

The Rich ◽

The Right ◽

Unexpected Outcome

AbstractOver the past 25 years, Sweden has gone from having one of the most generous unemployment benefit systems among the rich democracies to one of the least. This article advances a multi-causal explanation for this unexpected outcome. It shows how the benefit system became a target of successive right-wing governments due to its role in fostering social democratic hegemony. Employer groups, radicalized by the turbulent 1970s more profoundly than elsewhere, sought to undermine the system, and their abandonment of corporatism in the early 1990s limited unions’ capacity to restrain right-wing governments in retrenchment initiatives. Two further developments help to explain the surprising political resilience of the cuts: the emergence of a private (supplementary) insurance regime and a realignment of working-class voters from the Social Democrats to parties of the right, especially the nativist Sweden Democrats, in the context of a liberal refugee/asylum policy.

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