Publication type
EUROMOD Working Paper Series
Series Number
EM4/11
Series
EUROMOD Working Paper Series
Authors
Publication date
December 19, 2011
Abstract:
To what extent can a
country’s effectiveness in reducing child poverty be attributed to the size of
family cash transfers (i.e. both benefits and tax advantages) or to their
design? In this paper, we disentangle the importance of each of these two
factors, focusing on the family support system in Lithuania and comparing it
with four other new member states. Both single and large families have
increased susceptibility to poverty in Lithuania. This contrasts with other
former communist countries, namely Estonia, Hungary, Slovenia and the Czech
Republic which protect these family types much better. This paper examines
whether their family transfer systems would achieve similar results in
Lithuania. We employ the EUROMOD microsimulation tax-benefit model to swap
family policies across countries and to test whether size or design has greater
effects on child poverty reduction in Lithuania. Our results point to
considerably improving poverty situation among large families under Hungarian,
Slovenian and the Czech policies. Single parent families would only gain if
Lithuanian spending on family transfers would increase by a large degree.
Estonian policies would lead to very mixed results: small gains for large
families and losses for single parent families
Related Publications
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Is the neighbour’s grass greener? Comparing family support in Lithuania and four other New Member States
Lina Salanauskaite, Gerline Verbist,Journal Article - 20130601
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