Reducing Risk as well as Inequality: Assessing the Welfare State's Insurance Effects

Autor:	Philipp Rehm, Jacob S. Hacker
Rok vydání:	2020
Předmět:	Sociology and Political Science Public economics Inequality media_common.quotation_subject 0502 economics and business 05 social sciences 050602 political science & public administration Economics Welfare state 050207 economics 0506 political science media_common
Zdroj:	British Journal of Political Science. 52:456-466
ISSN:	1469-2112 0007-1234
DOI:	10.1017/s0007123420000034
Popis:	Leading accounts of the politics of the welfare state focus on societal demands for risk-spreading policies. Yet current measures of the welfare state focus not on risk, but on inequality. To address this gap, this letter describes the development of two new measures,risk incidenceandrisk reduction, which correspond to the prevalence of large income losses and the degree to which welfare states reduce that prevalence, respectively. Unlike existing indicators, these measures require panel data, which the authors harmonize for twenty-one democracies. The study finds that large losses affect all income and education levels, making the welfare state valuable to a broad cross-section of citizens. It also finds that taxes and transfers greatly reduce the prevalence of such losses, though to varying degrees across countries and over time. Finally, it disaggregates the measures to identify specific ‘triggers’ of large losses, and finds that these triggers are associated with risks on which welfare states focus, such as unemployment and sickness.
Databáze:	OpenAIRE
Externí odkaz:	https://explore.openaire.eu/search/publication?articleId=doi_________::abbd5bc329452b45d700ea52f5f1237c https://doi.org/10.1017/s0007123420000034 Zobrazit plný text záznamu