scholarly journals Targeting Families' Assistance: Evaluating Family and Employment Tax Credits in New Zealand's Tax-Benefit System

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Patrick John Nolan
Keyword(s):  
Financial Incentives ◽  
Relative Effectiveness ◽  
Child Poverty ◽  
Economic Cost ◽  
Tax Credits ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
Family Assistance ◽  
The Family ◽  
Families With Children ◽  
Benefit System

<p>In 2004 the Labour-led government announced a series of tax-benefit reforms (the Working for Families reforms) that will account for an estimated $1.17 billion per-annum of new spending when fully implemented by 1 April 2007. These reforms aim to both reduce rates of child poverty and improve financial incentives for paid work at low wages, particularly for caregivers. Changes to family and employment tax credits (the Family Assistance programmes) are central to these reforms. This study reviews methods for measuring the effectiveness of family and employment tax credits, evaluates the Working for Families reforms, and considers possible improvements to Working for Families. Questions that this study considers are: What roles should family and employment tax credits play in tax-benefit systems? How should family and employment tax credits be designed? Should eligibility for assistance reflect work effort as opposed to family structure? What lessons do historical and comparative perspectives on Working for Families provide? Will New Zealand's Working for Families reforms achieve the optimal design and role of family and employment tax credits? What improvements, if any, could be made to the Working for Families reforms? This study concludes that the Working for Families reforms represent significant income redistribution towards families with children but little change will be made to the overall design of the Family Assistance programmes, some of which have remained largely unchanged since 1986. Working for Families does not fully address the need to reform the Family Assistance programmes in the light of important social and economic changes that have taken place over the last two decades, such as the breakdown of the breadwinner model of social arrangements and the liberalisation of the labour market. This study thus considers a number of improvements to Working for Families, ranging from simplifying the structure of the Family Assistance Tax Credits to a more radical redesign of these programmes. This study concludes that more clearly established policy priorities and a greater understanding of the relative effectiveness of different tax-benefit instruments are required if New Zealand is to develop a tax-benefit system that achieves a desired level of redistribution to families with children at least economic cost.</p>

scholarly journals Targeting Families' Assistance: Evaluating Family and Employment Tax Credits in New Zealand's Tax-Benefit System

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Patrick John Nolan
Keyword(s):  
Financial Incentives ◽  
Relative Effectiveness ◽  
Child Poverty ◽  
Economic Cost ◽  
Tax Credits ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
Family Assistance ◽  
The Family ◽  
Families With Children ◽  
Benefit System

<p>In 2004 the Labour-led government announced a series of tax-benefit reforms (the Working for Families reforms) that will account for an estimated $1.17 billion per-annum of new spending when fully implemented by 1 April 2007. These reforms aim to both reduce rates of child poverty and improve financial incentives for paid work at low wages, particularly for caregivers. Changes to family and employment tax credits (the Family Assistance programmes) are central to these reforms. This study reviews methods for measuring the effectiveness of family and employment tax credits, evaluates the Working for Families reforms, and considers possible improvements to Working for Families. Questions that this study considers are: What roles should family and employment tax credits play in tax-benefit systems? How should family and employment tax credits be designed? Should eligibility for assistance reflect work effort as opposed to family structure? What lessons do historical and comparative perspectives on Working for Families provide? Will New Zealand's Working for Families reforms achieve the optimal design and role of family and employment tax credits? What improvements, if any, could be made to the Working for Families reforms? This study concludes that the Working for Families reforms represent significant income redistribution towards families with children but little change will be made to the overall design of the Family Assistance programmes, some of which have remained largely unchanged since 1986. Working for Families does not fully address the need to reform the Family Assistance programmes in the light of important social and economic changes that have taken place over the last two decades, such as the breakdown of the breadwinner model of social arrangements and the liberalisation of the labour market. This study thus considers a number of improvements to Working for Families, ranging from simplifying the structure of the Family Assistance Tax Credits to a more radical redesign of these programmes. This study concludes that more clearly established policy priorities and a greater understanding of the relative effectiveness of different tax-benefit instruments are required if New Zealand is to develop a tax-benefit system that achieves a desired level of redistribution to families with children at least economic cost.</p>

Family Benefits and Services

2021 ◽  
pp. 640-660
Author(s):  
Naomi Finch ◽  
Jonathan Bradshaw
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Maternal Employment ◽  
Child Poverty ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Low Fertility ◽  
Family Welfare ◽  
Family Policies ◽  
The Family ◽  
Family Benefits ◽  
Families With Children

This chapter examines welfare-state support for families with children in the context of low fertility, increasing rates of childlessness, and a general move away from the breadwinner model of the family. Welfare-state spending on families is explored, and, although most countries, with few exceptions, spend more on older people, spending on children varies between countries, as does spending to encourage mothers into employment. Adopting the model family method to compare the package of policies to support families with children at different earning levels, the chapter shows varying results of generosity, depending on whether we compare low or average earners. The chapter also provides evidence that family policies matter for outcomes—with stronger spending on services increasing both fertility and maternal employment, spending on both services and benefits increasing child well-being, and generosity of transfers lowering child poverty rates.

scholarly journals Reflections on the Budget 2015 Child Hardship Package

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan St John
Keyword(s):  
Policy Making ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Child Poverty ◽  
Tax Credits ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Distributional Effect ◽  
Policy Direction ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Benefit System

The 2015 Budget contained benefit rate increases for beneficiaries with children and some minor adjustments  to work-based child-related tax credits. The significance of these increases when other policies are taken into account suggests a reshuffling of money in which much of the distributional effect will be minimal and offset. For children it resembles the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff rather than a structural review of child-related income policies that might be reformist, preventative and inclusive. The cost to society is more complexity in the benefit system and a cementing in of reliance on work-related child tax credits that have unproven worth either in incentivising work or in reducing child poverty. A rational policy-making approach with the clear aim of child poverty reduction, measurable outcomes, agreed criteria and a process for evaluation might have suggested that a different policy direction was more appropriate and more likely to be effective.

Canada

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua T. McCabe
Keyword(s):  
Income Tax ◽  
Child Poverty ◽  
Tax Credits ◽  
Primary Method ◽  
Tax Relief ◽  
The Us ◽  
Cash Benefits ◽  
Child Tax Credit ◽  
Family Allowances ◽  
Initial Change

Chapter 4 examines how Canadian policymakers’ renewed promise to tackle child poverty translated into the Child Tax Benefit, the nonrefundable Child Tax Credit, and the Working Income Tax Benefit. Whereas the logic of tax relief served as the springboard for fiscalization in the US, the logic of income supplementation drove the process in Canada. This difference had important implications for the shape and scope of Canadian tax credits, enabling them to significantly reduce child poverty relative to the much weaker outcomes in the US. Family allowances offered policymakers an alternative to welfare as the primary method of delivering cash benefits to children. Canadian policymakers, including conservative policymakers and profamily groups, saw expanding child tax credits as a way to “take children off welfare” by redirecting benefits through a nonstigmatizing program. The initial change occurred under the Progressive Conservatives in 1992 and was consolidated under the Liberals in 1997.

Belgium: Creeping Vulnerability of Children

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Vinck ◽  
Wim Van Lancker
Keyword(s):  
Social Protection ◽  
Child Poverty ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
Important Lesson ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Number Of Children ◽  
Poverty Risk ◽  
Poor Households ◽  
Families With Children ◽  
The Impact

Belgium has been plagued by comparatively high levels of child poverty, and by a creeping, yet significant, increase that started in the good years before the crisis. This is related to the relatively high share of jobless households, the extremely high and increasing poverty risk of children growing up in these households, and benefits that are inadequate to shield jobless families with children from poverty. Although the impact of the Great Recession was limited in Belgium, the crisis seems to have had an impact on child poverty, by increasing the number of children living in work-poor households. Although the Belgian welfare state had an important cushioning impact, its poverty-reducing capacity was less strong than it used to be. The most important lesson from the crisis is that in order to make further headway in reducing child poverty, not only activation but also social protection should be improved.

scholarly journals Has the Economic Lockdown Following the Covid-19 Pandemic Changed the Gender Division of Labor in Israel?

2021 ◽  
pp. 089124322110012
Author(s):  
Meir Yaish ◽  
Hadas Mandel ◽  
Tali Kristal
Keyword(s):  
Gender Inequality ◽  
Unpaid Work ◽  
Paid Work ◽  
Flexible Work ◽  
Work Arrangements ◽  
Work From Home ◽  
The Family ◽  
Allocation Of Time ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Families With Children

The economic shutdown and national lockdown following the outbreak of COVID-19 have increased demand for unpaid work at home, particularly among families with children, and reduced demand for paid work. Concurrently, the share of the workforce that has relocated its workplace to home has also increased. In this article, we examine the consequences of these processes for the allocation of time among paid work, housework, and care work for men and women in Israel. Using data on 2,027 Israeli adults whom we followed since the first week of March (before the spread of COVID-19), we focus on the effect of the second lockdown in Israel (in September) on the gender division of both paid and unpaid work. We find that as demand for housework caused by the lockdown increases, women—especially with children—increase their housework much more than men do, particularly when they work from home. The consequences of work from home and other flexible work arrangements for gender inequality within the family are discussed.

scholarly journals Grief counselling for bereaved families with children

1994 ◽  
Vol 18 (6) ◽  
pp. 340-342
Author(s):  
A. Ubeysekara
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Mental Health Professionals ◽  
Physical And Mental Health ◽  
Loved One ◽  
Child Psychiatric ◽  
The Family ◽  
Preventive Work ◽  
Adults And Children ◽  
Families With Children ◽  
Causative Link

The effects of losing a loved one through death on the physical and mental health of both adults and children are well documented in the literature. Children are likely to be referred to mental health professionals for various behaviour and emotional problems which may have a causative link with a bereavement within the family. In this paper I discuss the need for preventive work and, propose a role for child psychiatric services in preventive work for bereaved families with surviving children and adolescents. A ten-point plan is suggested as a guideline.

scholarly journals FAMILIES, GENERATIONS AND INTERGERACIONALITY IN NET MODERNITY

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (9) ◽  
pp. 321-330
Author(s):  
Camila Kuhn Vieira ◽  
Carine Nascimento da Silva ◽  
Ana Luisa Moser Keitel ◽  
Adriana da Silva Silveira ◽  
Solange Beatriz Billig Garces ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Nuclear Family ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Social Institution ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
Traditional Family ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family ◽  
The 19Th Century

We are experiencing a period of accelerated socio-cultural, political and economic changes that are reflected in practically all social institutions, including the family. This is a secular social institution, which reflects the evolution of society. There is still resistance to “idealizing” the family as the “sphere of care and love”. However, it is known that the traditional family of the 19th century gave way to the nuclear family and that, at the same time, it gives way to families with different backgrounds. Also noteworthy are the transformations that occur in complex and liquid society, as highlighted by authors such as Morin and Bauman. In this sense, these transformations also occur in the social institutions that compose it, among them the family nuclei and other social spaces where different generations are inserted, especially with the increasing presence of elderly people. Therefore, with so many important social issues involved in these relationships (society-family-aging and intergenerationality), these reflections are considered to be extremely relevant.

Early detection of social neglect in economically disadvantaged families as a direction of family policy

2020 ◽  
pp. 55-66
Author(s):  
Tatyana Anatolievna Mikhailova
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Early Detection ◽  
Early Identification ◽  
Economically Disadvantaged ◽  
Family Policy ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Children And Families ◽  
The Family ◽  
Families With Children ◽  
Disadvantaged Families

One of the directions of social policy is to improve the situation of children and families with children. The main objectives of family policy are related to improving the well-being of the family. In this regard, it becomes obvious that there is a need to develop a system of measures for early identification of families in crisis.

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