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- Minas, Renate, et al.
(författare)
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Rescaling inequality? Welfare reform and local variation in social assistance payments
- 2014
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Ingår i: Social policy review 26. - Bristol : Policy Press. - 9781447315568 ; , s. 239-258
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Social assistance and other means tested benefits are the last resort in national social protection systems and variation in benefit receipt are in part a direct consequence of differences in means and needs. Variation may however also be related to local discretion over implementation of national legislation, implying inequality unintended by legislators. Such discretion is generally believed to have increased following decentralizing reforms in the 1990s, an international trend frequently referred to as devolution. More recent reforms have instead often implied recentralization and/or involved institutional cooperation of welfare agencies located at different vertical levels. Little is however known regarding the extent to which shifting divisions of power influences benefit receipt. Using individual level register data, multi-level modelling and a difference-in-difference approach we attempt to link changes in legislation to changes in inter-municipal differences in social assistance payments in the Nordic countries during the period 1990 to 2010. Somewhat simplified, the assumption is that the more detailed the regulation the less variation is possible and vice versa. The results show the changes in inequality in the wake of the reforms to be heterogeneous, both in accordance with and contradictory to the starting hypothesis. Although some of the unexpected results are difficult to account for, others may be explained by the character or implementation of the reforms.
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
- Minas, Renate, 1962-, et al.
(författare)
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The governance of poverty : Welfare reform, activation policies, and social assistance benefits and caseloads in Nordic countries
- 2018
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Ingår i: Journal of European Social Policy. - : SAGE Publications. - 0958-9287 .- 1461-7269. ; 28:5, s. 487-500
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Social assistance benefits are the last resort in national social protection systems, and decentralizing reforms leading to increasing local discretion over implementation of national legislation was an international trend frequently referred to as devolution. More recent reforms have instead often implied recentralization and/or involved mandatory institutional cooperation between welfare agencies located at different hierarchical levels. In contrast to North America, there is little European evidence on the extent to which shifting responsibilities influence benefit levels and benefit receipt. Using individual level register data from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden and applying a difference-in-difference approach, we link changes in legislation to changes in municipal benefits as well as caseloads during the period 1990–2010. We only find indications of reform effects linked to distinct benefit centralization, concluding that other reforms were too insubstantial to have an impact. Combined with earlier evidence, this suggests that in order to have an impact, welfare reform requires marked changes in authority.
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