The personal distribution of economic welfare in Germany – how the welfare state works

Social Indicators Research -     

Gendered Time-Crunch and Work Factors in Denmark

Being crunched for time is an important aspect of life quality. Although Denmark is a country known for gender-equality, on average mothers are more time-crunched than fathers. We show this using a representative sample of Danish dual-earner couples with at least one child aged 0–10 years. We analyze the determinants of time-crunch in relation to work factors for the individual as well as the spouse and find significant gender differences. One result is that longer working hours are associated with more time-crunch for both mothers and fathers, whereas the amount of housework only matters for mothers. The results show that men and women have different working conditions, which partly explains the gendered time-crunch.     

Transitions in welfare participation and female headship

This study uses data from the 1990, 1992, 1993 and 1996 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation to examine how welfare policies and local economic conditions contribute to women's transitions into and out of female headship and into and out of welfare participation. It also examines whether welfare participation is directly associated with longer spells of headship. The study employs a simultaneous hazards approach that accounts for unobserved heterogeneity in all of its transition models and for the endogeneity of welfare participation in its headship model. The estimation results indicate that welfare participation significantly reduces the chances of leaving female headship. The estimates also reveal that more generous welfare benefits do not directly contribute to headship but rather contribute indirectly to headship by increasing the chances that a mother will enter welfare and consequently remain a single mother for longer. More generous Earned Income Tax Credit benefits are associated with more stable arrangements for both headship and welfare participation. Other measures of welfare policies, including indicators for the adoption of welfare waivers and the implementation of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families programs, are generally not significantly associated with headship or welfare receipt. Better economic opportunities are estimated to increase headship but reduce welfare participation among unmarried mothers.     

Educational Assortative Mating and Income Inequality in Denmark

Many writers have expressed a concern that growing educational assortative mating will lead to greater inequality between households in their earnings or income. In this article, we examine the relationship between educational assortative mating and income inequality in Denmark between 1987 and 2006. Denmark is widely known for its low level of income inequality, but the Danish case provides a good test of the relationship between educational assortative mating and inequality because although income inequality increased over the period we consider, educational homogamy declined. Using register data on the exact incomes of the whole population, we find that change in assortative mating increased income inequality but that these changes were driven by changes in the educational distributions of men and women rather than in the propensity for people to choose a partner with a given level of education.     

Transitions in welfare participation and female headship

This study uses data from the 1990, 1992, 1993 and 1996 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation to examine how welfare policies and local economic conditions contribute to women's transitions into and out of female headship and into and out of welfare participation. It also examines whether welfare participation is directly associated with longer spells of headship. The study employs a simultaneous hazards approach that accounts for unobserved heterogeneity in all of its transition models and for the endogeneity of welfare participation in its headship model. The estimation results indicate that welfare participation significantly reduces the chances of leaving female headship. The estimates also reveal that more generous welfare benefits do not directly contribute to headship but rather contribute indirectly to headship by increasing the chances that a mother will enter welfare and consequently remain a single mother for longer. More generous Earned Income Tax Credit benefits are associated with more stable arrangements for both headship and welfare participation. Other measures of welfare policies, including indicators for the adoption of welfare waivers and the implementation of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families programs, are generally not significantly associated with headship or welfare receipt. Better economic opportunities are estimated to increase headship but reduce welfare participation among unmarried mothers.     

Gender differences in poverty among single people in Denmark

This study — based on data from the Danish Welfare Survey of 1986, covering 461 single women and 319 single men — showns that single women have a potential higher risk than single men of becoming poor even when the sexes are categorized by household status, age and relationship to the labour market. These results suggest that the most important reason for higher risk of poverty among women than among single men is not — as often supposed — whether women are single, with or without children, but that gender as such discriminates as to poverty via the different ways men and women are linked to the labour market, This would apparently confirm that which, indirectly, was indicated by previous research on poverty.     

Immigrant over-education: evidence from Denmark

This paper uses register-based panel data to examine over-education amongst immigrants in Denmark. Foreign-educated immigrants are found to be more prone to over-education than both native Danes and immigrants educated in Denmark. Labour market experience reduces this risk, whereas periods of unemployment make a person more likely to accept a job for which he is over-qualified. Over-educated workers earn slightly more than their adequately matched colleagues, but less than if they had been appropriately matched in a higher level job. Foreign-educated immigrants gain the least from over-education.     

Basic parameters of the welfare state

The article attempts to show the limitations and dangers of that trend in contemporary research which sees in the interplay between GNP and social security spending as percent of GNP a predominant parameter of the modern welfare state. Through a criticism of this trend and its implications the problematic nature of the correlation between GNP and social security spending is demonstrated. Simultaneously, analysis of several welfare policies showing, among other things, the influence of ideology and strategy on the degree of welfare, calls into question the theses of convergence in welfare policies in rich countries and of ideology's lack of influence.     

Demographic behavior and the welfare state

The evaluation of the effects of tax and transfer programs on demographic behavior raises a number of difficult econometric issues related to identification of program effects. The main issue concerns whether there exists the true exogenous variation in program parameters necessary to estimate the effects of the program on behavior. This paper provides a discussion of the types of exogenous variation that are commonly available as well as the pitfalls in using potentially endogenous sources of variation. The general points are illustrated with an example drawn from the demographic literature in the United States. The paper concludes with a recommendation that the source of exogenous variation in program parameters be carefully examined in any study undertaken.Presented at the Second Annual Conference of the European Society for Population Economics, University of Mannheim, June 23–25, 1988. The author would like to thank the participants of the conference for their comments and, in particular, Bjorn Gustafsson, Siv Gustafsson, and Denis Kessler for their information on Swedish and French tax and transfer programs. Joseph Hotz also provided useful comments.     

The welfare economics of immigration control

This paper develops a Harris-Todaro (HT) type model of East-West migration in which labour market imperfections prevent market clearing in both blocs. The model encompasses two extremes of perfectly flexible wages with full employment on the one hand, and the HT scenario where the real wage in the host country is fixed, on the other. Welfare analysis compares the laissez-faire migration equilibrium based on explicit calculations of potential migrants without immigration controls in the West, with the socially optimal level of migration. The paper examines the issue of immigration control by developing a model of illegal immigration in which the incentives facing the potentially illegal immigrant are explicitly modelled. Received: 3 April 1997/Accepted 16 March 1998     

Optimal demogrants and taxes in a federal welfare state

This paper provides a framework for the simultaneous calculation of optimal commodity and income taxes in a federal framework with demogrants. The optimal income tax rate is shown to depend on a range of demographic and economic variables. Alternative models of fiscal federalism are proposed, and their implications for optimal commodity taxes and demogrants considered. Illustrative empirical evidence on Indian data confirms sensitivity of tax magnitudes to federal specification, and to assumptions about resource transfer between the federal and provincial authorities.Much of the work in this paper was done during my visit to the Scuola Superiore, S. Anna in Pisa (Italy) in the summer of 1991. The paper was revised during my visit to the Economics Research Centre, University of Western Australia, during May/June 1992. I am grateful to the staff and students of both institutions for their hospitality. I also thank two anonymous referees for helpful remarks. The disclaimer applies.     

Family allowances in France

We model the impact of past migration on fertility, assessing the separate effects of relative urbanization of the destination, as a proxy for norms, and post-migration employment, as a proxy for opportunity costs. In the Philippines, we find that large fertility declines accompany post-migration employment. If not followed by work for pay, the estimated fertility impact of migration is small. We find little evidence of migrant selectivity in fertility, and offer speculative evidence that fertility disruption accompanying migration may be large enough to account for much of the apparent effect of normative adaptation.     

Family allowances in Belgium

In this paper the author describes the system of Family Allowances at present in force in Belgium. A voluntary movement at first, Family Allowances became compulsory in 1930, and were gradually extended to cover not only wage-earners, but the whole of the population. The administration and finances of the scheme are described, and an account is given of the ancillary social services provided by the Equalization Funds which administer the allowances.     

Family planning in Africa

The population growth rates and population policies and programs in African countries are summarized. Individual attention is given to Algeria, Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mauritius, Tanzania, Gabon, Zaire, Botswana and the Republic of South Africa. In addition, cultural and educational obstacles to family planning programs in Africa are briefly examined.     

Family planning in Malta

The crude birth rate has dropped dramatically in Malta¹ over the post-war period, from 36·0 per 1,000 population in 1948 to 17·1 in 1971. A drop of this magnitude is not uncommon² although it rarely occurs so fast.     

Family planning in Malta

Abstract The crude birth rate has dropped dramatically in Malta(1) over the post-war period, from 36·0 per 1,000 population in 1948 to 17·1 in 1971. A drop of this magnitude is not uncommon(2) although it rarely occurs so fast.