Social welfare policies


1 - 30 of 189
21 May 2013

Adult learning is seen as a key factor for enhancing employment, innovation and growth, and it should concern all age cohorts. The aim of this paper is to understand the points in the life cycle at which adult learning takes place and whether it leads to reaching a medium or high level of educational attainment. To this end we perform a synthetic panel analysis of adult learning for cohorts aged 25 to 64 in 27 European countries using the European Labour Force Survey.

27 March 2013

The demographic and societal structures in southern and eastern Mediterranean countries are expected to undergo profound transformations in the future, calling for new public policies related to employment, human capital and mobility. In addition, the population projections of the MEDPRO project until 2030 have pointed to an increase in working-age populations. Against this background, the authors suggest policies to address challenges in education, inequality, social protection and migration.

19 March 2013

In this MEDPRO Policy Paper, four population scenarios were derived that describe indicators of demographic behaviour for people living in different future political-economic contexts. The paper explores future trends in i) population growth at regional and national levels, ii) working age populations, and iii) elderly populations.

30 January 2013

This report assesses the current status of the education and social protection systems in 11 southern and eastern Mediterranean countries. It compares these countries using various education indicators and attempts to highlight the main differences in the social protection systems among the countries using qualitative analysis.

28 December 2012

This Policy Brief presents the research questions, main results and policy implications and recommendations of the seven Work Packages that formed the basis of the ANCIEN research project, financed under the 7th EU Research Framework Programme of the European Commission. Carried out over a 44-month period and involving 20 partners from EU member states, the project principally concerns the future of long-term care (LTC) for the elderly in Europe and addresses two questions in particular: How will need, demand, supply and use of LTC develop? How do different systems of LTC perform?

21 December 2012

This report evaluates the performance of long-term care (LTC) systems in Europe, with a special emphasis on four countries that were selected in Work Package 1 of the ANCIEN project as representative of different LTC systems: Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Poland. Based on a performance framework, we use the following four core criteria for the evaluation: the quality of life of LTC users, the quality of care, equity of LTC systems and the total burden of LTC (consisting of the financial burden and the burden of informal caregiving).

17 December 2012

The evaluation of long-term care (LTC) systems carried out in Work Package 7 of the ANCIEN project shows which performance criteria are important and – based on the available information – how European countries score on those criteria. This paper summarises the results and discusses the policy implications. An overall evaluation was carried out for four representative countries: Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Poland.

10 December 2012

This paper investigates the relationship between female labour force participation rates and economic growth in southern Mediterranean countries. A two-step methodology involving econometric estimations and the use of a general equilibrium model was used for this purpose.

The econometric estimations suggest that there is a U-shaped relationship between economic growth and female labour force participation rates and they indicate the presence of region-specific barriers impeding women's entry into the labour force in southern Mediterranean countries.

06 December 2012

This paper addresses the issues of current levels of inequality: their trends, determinants and future scenarios, demonstrating that welfare levels are measured by per capita consumption. Location, educational attainment and employment status have been identified as the key factors affecting levels of welfare and its distribution. A benefit incidence analysis was performed to investigate benefits of different deciles of per capita expenditure from education and health services.

05 October 2012

Measuring human capital has been a significant challenge for economists because the main variable of interest is intangible and not directly observable. In the Middle Eastern and Northern African region the task is further complicated by the general scarcity of comparable and reliable data.

14 September 2012

This paper explores the extent to which that elusive phenomenon called “workplace innovation” has pervaded workplaces in Europe and whether it could be one of the answers to Europe’s long-term social and economic challenges that stem from an ageing workforce and the need for more flexibility to stay competitive.

20 July 2012

This report provides a forecast of the potential direct and indirect influences of various kinds of technologies on the LTC milieu, answering the following question: from a technology-driven perspective: “Consider each technological solution.

26 April 2012

This report considers three case studies (namely diabetes, dementia and obesity) for setting up a framework to assess the systemic influences of technologies in the long-term care milieu, using a problem-driven approach in relation to health care. Such technologies could be an enabling factor or a catalyser of advances taking place in the health and social sectors.

19 April 2012

EDITORS: Joanna Geerts is researcher and Peter Willemé is health economist in the Social Security Research Group at the Federal Planning Bureau (FPB), Esther Mot is senior researcher in the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB). Chapters are written by Joanna Geerts, Peter Willemé, Linda Pickard, Derek King, Adelina Comas-Herrera, Jérôme Wittwer, Andreas Golz, Ester Mot, Erika Schultz, Agnieszka Sowa and Raquel Vegas.

18 April 2012

In Germany the majority of people in need of care are living at home with the help of their family and/or professional carers. Admission into a nursing is seen as the last step. Caregiving in nursing homes is required if caregiving at home is not possible due to the absence of an informal carer or cannot be provided to the required degree, in particular if the recipient suffers from mental illnesses or if around-the-clock-care and advice is required.

12 April 2012

Projections of use and supply of formal and informal care carried out in Work Package 6 of the ANCIEN project show that if current patterns of care use and supply prevail, supply of care is likely to fall behind demand. This paper discusses the key policy implications of these findings.

04 April 2012

This study reports on the quality indicators that were collected by the ANCIEN project partners in each country considered in Work Package 5 (Quality in Long-Term Care).

30 March 2012

Work Package 2 of the ANCIEN project assesses the future numbers of care-dependent elderly in four selected countries: Spain, Poland, Germany and the Netherlands. The estimates are consistent with the available disability data and the mortality forecasts of the EUROPOP 2008 scenarios. The results show the effects of  assumptions about how old age disability and mortality are related, and assess the effects of smoking and BMI.

20 March 2012

An assessment of quality assurance policies in LTC in Estonia finds in general that much progress has been achieved in creating and monitoring the quality of inputs of services (infrastructure, personnel, planning and funding). Some attempts have been made to evaluate the processes of LTC services, but almost nothing is found about the evaluation of the results.

20 March 2012

This paper describes the quality assurance system for long-term care services in Latvia. Policy planning for long-term care is undertaken by the Ministry of Welfare and the municipalities. Monitoring takes place at three levels: by the ministry, the municipalities and social service providers themselves. The legislation sets out requirements for social service providers and the evaluation of quality standards against a few criteria.

08 March 2012

Notes:

This report analyses the quality assurance policies for long-term care (LTC) in the following countries: Austria, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.

29 February 2012

New technologies may have a beneficial impact on long-term care (LTC) systems by improving the quality, effectiveness and efficiency of LTC provision, and even by decreasing the need for LTC in the first place. Given the great uncertainty about the diffusion and implementation of available technology, there is little point in trying to make quantitative forecasts about the impact of technology. A more useful approach is to study the mechanisms through which technology can have an impact on LTC. This is the subject of Work Package 4 of the ANCIEN project.

29 February 2012

In Austria, the responsibilities for long-term care mainly lie with the provinces, although federal and organisational-level initiative has grown. Quality assurance policies focus overwhelmingly on the health system and are only slowly appearing in the realm of long-term care (LTC). Although the Austrian LTC system is still very fragmented owing to the division of competencies, there are enhanced efforts underway to harmonise LTC provision, standards and quality nationwide.

28 February 2012

In Germany, quality assurance has enjoyed an important role in long-term care since the Act on Long-Term Care Insurance was introduced in 1995. The Act distinguishes three dimensions of quality, namely quality of the structure, the process and the outcome. Quality assurance is regulated by law at the national level and is differentiated into internal and external quality-assurance measures. The operators of care facilities have to ensure an appropriate level of quality in their services, facilities, staff and equipment.

28 February 2012

In Slovenia, the government’s Strategy of Care for the Elderly up to 2010 attempted to introduce a new model to support families with elderly members, new programmes for elderly care with individual solutions and supportive social networks to foster the cohabitation of generations. Yet there is no national, quality management strategy. The most apparent difficulty in gathering data on quality is the fragmentation of long-term care between the health and social care sectors.

06 December 2011

This Working Document looks at which OECD countries deliberately attempt to reproduce social stratification through educational policies, and which countries put greater emphasis on intervening in the stratification process.

The research findings challenge a one-policy-fits-all approach that advocates education policy reforms designed to increase equal opportunities in education. The authors argue that the context of each country needs to be considered before the implementation of such policies.

17 November 2011

Understanding the factors that determine the type and amount of formal care is important for assessing the need for care in European nations and developing consistent long-term policies. In this report, the provision of care in terms of its extensive (choice of care) and intensive qualities (the number of hours of care received) is analysed. Following the methodology proposed in Bourguignon et al. (2007) and using SHARE data, we estimate a sample selection model with the particularities that the first step is a multinomial logit model and the second step is a standard regression equation.

17 November 2011

The aim of this report is to identify patterns in the utilisation of formal and informal long-term care (LTC) across European countries and discuss possible determinants of demand for different types of care. It addresses specific research questions on the volume of different types of care and the conditions under which care is provided. The latter include demographic factors, especially population ageing, health status and the limitations caused by poor health, family settings and social networking.