Impact of unemployment benefit generosity on worker reallocation, by group

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diana Farrell ◽  
Peter Ganong ◽  
Fiona Greig ◽  
Max Liebeskind ◽  
Pascal Noel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  

2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kerstin Bruckmeier ◽  
Sandra Dummert ◽  
Philipp Grunau ◽  
Katrin Hohmeyer ◽  
Torsten Lietzmann

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.


2020 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 207-235
Author(s):  
Jayeon Lindellee

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.


2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-133
Author(s):  
Sampo Varjonen ◽  
Olli Kangas ◽  
Mikko Niemelä

2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-44
Author(s):  
Gráinne McKeever ◽  
Mark Simpson

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.


Author(s):  
Vicenç AGUADO I CUDOLÀ ◽  
Raquel PRADO PÉREZ

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.


2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (03) ◽  
pp. 615-634 ◽  
Author(s):  
CARLO KNOTZ

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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