Henning Lohmann

Welfare States, Labour Market Institutions and the Working Poor: A Comparative Analysis of 20 European Countries

This article regards the incidence of in-work poverty and how it is reduced by the payment of social transfers in 20 European countries. It combines a micro- and a macro-level perspective in two-level models. The basis for the analysis is micro-data from the EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) 2005 and macro-data from sources such as the OECD and Eurostat. The broad comparative perspective allows for a separation of different institutional influences, namely the influence of the degree of decommodification, defamilization, and bargaining centralization. In contrast to previous studies on the working poor which have mainly described country differences in in-work poverty, this article focuses on the question of how such differences can be explained from a broader perspective of poverty research. In general, the results confirm the overall hypothesis that both welfare state measures and labour market institutions have an influence on in-work poverty. By analysing influences on pre-transfer poverty and poverty reduction separately, the author shows that such factors have varied effects on in-work poverty. While bargaining centralization proves to be relevant for the distribution of pre-transfer incomes only, the set-up of the social security system, in particular, impacts the extent of poverty reduction.

The Working Poor in Europe

For a long time in-work poverty was not associated with European welfare states. Recently, the topic has gained relevance as welfare state retrenchment and international competition in globalized economies has put increasing pressures on individuals and families. This book provides explanations as to why in-work poverty is high in certain countries and low in others.

Comparability of EU-SILC survey and register data: The relationship among employment, earnings and poverty

The Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) provide an up-to-date data source for the comparative analysis of income, material deprivation and poverty. At the European Union (EU) level, these data have become a standard source for social reporting. Yet the specific approaches to data collection in EU-SILC vary widely from one country to the next. One of the major differences is that some countries rely entirely on household surveys, while others also use administrative or ‘register’ data for a wide range of variables. This article addresses the question of how the relationship among employment, earnings and poverty changes when different approaches to data collection are used. The article shows the impact on substantial results: here, on the percentages of working and non-working poor. Since crucial questions of EU social policy rest on these data, it is an important finding that some results are most likely driven by different approaches to data collection.

Family policy in comparative perspective: The concepts and measurement of familization and defamilization

Family policy is not easily conceptualized or measured in comparative research. Previous approaches are highly diverse and have yielded mixed empirical results in terms of placing countries’ family policy profiles in the international landscape and mapping their trajectories. This article reviews the long-standing discussion of the familization and defamilization concepts popular in comparative research, derives a conceptual framework and provides an in-depth discussion of current empirical approaches. It tackles the lacking consensus on how familization and defamilization are measured, arguing that interventions in gender-specific and intergenerational dependencies are the key dimensions and that measurement at policy level is best suited to capture within- and cross-country variation in family policy. Using data on 21 European countries, the article proposes measures that acknowledge the different dimensions of familization and defamilization. The proposed indicators prove to be useful for mapping a range of European countries’ family policy constellations but are bound by data restrictions. Therefore, the article makes a strong claim for improving the availability of internationally comparable family policy data.

Male Self-employment in Four European Countries: The Relevance of Education and Experience Across Industries

Abstract: This article investigates the patterns of male nonagricultural self-employment in France, Gennany, Italy, and the United Kingdom. It is argued that the development of self-employment in these four countries is based on specific institutional and economic frameworks resulting in different opportunities and incentives for taking up self-employment. These differences affect the relevance of individual resources like education and work experience. The empirical analyses are based on national Labor Force Surveys. Although we find a remarkable number of common general patterns in self-employment in all four countries, the findings also indicate that educational requirements and the relevance of age-related experience differ fundamentally among the four countries and along industrial branches. Specific regulations and general settings in single branches and countries result in distinct opportunities for self-employment.

The Different Faces of In-Work Poverty Across Welfare State Regimes

For a long time in-work poverty was not associated with European welfare states. Recently, the topic has gained relevance as welfare state retrenchment and international competition in globalized economies has put increasing pressures on individuals and families. This book provides explanations as to why in-work poverty is high in certain countries and low in others.

The Different Roles of Low-wage Work in Germany: Regional, Demographical and Temporal Variances in the Poverty Risk of Low-paid Workers

For a long time in-work poverty was not associated with European welfare states. Recently, the topic has gained relevance as welfare state retrenchment and international competition in globalized economies has put increasing pressures on individuals and families. This book provides explanations as to why in-work poverty is high in certain countries and low in others.

Towards a Framework for Assessing Family Policies in the EU

This report presents the results of a first attempt to create a framework for assessing the performance of national family policies. The report is part of a joint EU and OECD project, which aims to help the EU Government Expert Group on Demographic Issues in evaluating national family policies. The idea behind the framework is that it allows individual countries to compare their overall performance in the area of family policies with the performance of other countries. The main focus of the report is policies for families with smaller children. The framework provides a set of cross-nationally comparable indicators on contexts, policy measures, and outcomes, organised on a systematic basis. The policy measure indicators presented in the report cover leave schemes, early childhood education and care, family benefits and workplace policies. The indicators build upon, inter alia, previous work by the OECD in various studies on family-friendly policies that were carried out on a cross-national basis using different sets of indicators. Most of these indicators are today available in the OECD Family Database. Wherever the OECD Family Database contains indicators for the majority of EU member states and OECD countries, these data have been used in the present study. Otherwise, data from other cross-national databases have been included. Each indicator in the framework is presented as a single-standing indicator in the general absence of scientific consensus on different aggregation weights. In the report no explicit ranking of countries has been attempted, instead the relative position of countries has been illustrated with the help of standard deviation scores. In the last part of the report the linkages between policy aims and the various context, outcome and policy measures are indicated, which help construct “score cards”. This “score card-approach” is illustrated for three countries: Denmark, Germany and the United Kingdom. The report offers tools for assessment that may be developed further, and should offer an approach to using the OECD Family Database, acknowledging this unique data source for cross-country comparisons in the field of family policy. Ce rapport presente les resultats d’une premiere tentative d’elaborer un cadre d’evaluation de la performance des politiques nationales en faveur des familles. Ce rapport fait partie d’un projet elabore conjointement par l’Union europeenne et l’OCDE, qui vise a aider le groupe d’experts gouvernementaux sur les sujets demographiques de l’UE pour evaluer les politiques nationales d’aides aux familles. L’idee sous-jacente est de permettre a chaque pays de comparer ses performances avec celles des autres pays. Les familles avec de jeunes enfants sont le principal sujet d’analyse de ce rapport. Le cadre elabore propose un ensemble d’indicateurs comparables entre pays sur les contextes, les mesures politiques et les resultats, organises sur une base systematique. Les indicateurs de mesures politiques couvrent les dispositifs de conge, d’aides a l’education et aux soins accordees a la petite enfance, les prestations financieres et les politiques liees au lieu de travail. Ces indicateurs ont ete elabores, inter alia, a partir des travaux anterieurs de l’OCDE sur les politiques favorables aux familles qui ont ete conduites de maniere comparative sur la base de differents ensembles d’indicateurs. La plupart de ces indicateurs sont aujourd’hui disponibles au sein de la base de donnees OCDE sur les Familles. Ces indicateurs ont ete inclus pour la majorite des pays de l’UE et de l’OCDE pour lesquels ils sont disponibles. Lorsqu’ils n’etaient pas disponibles, des donnees provenant de bases internationales ont ete prises en compte. Chaque indicateur est presente ici de facon separee, car il n’y a pas de consensus scientifique sur la ponderation qui permettrait de les agreger. Aucun classement explicite des pays n’a ete tente ici ; la position relative des pays est, au contraire, illustree au moyen de scores d’ecarts-types. Dans la derniere partie du rapport, les liens entre les objectifs politiques et les variables de contexte de resultats et de mesures politiques sont pris en compte pour elaborer des « cartes de score ». Cette approche par « cartes de scores » est illustree pour trois pays : le Danemark, l’Allemagne et le Royaume-Uni. Ce rapport offre des outils d’evaluation qui pourront etre encore developpes, et devrait offrir une approche de la maniere d’utiliser la base de donnees de l’OCDE sur les Familles, qui constitue une source de donnees incontournable pour faire des comparaisons internationales dans le champ des politiques familiales.

Bildungsungleichheiten und Privatschulen in Deutschland

Ausgehend von der Beobachtung, dass Privatschulen im deutschen Schulsystem an Bedeutung gewinnen, und der Darstellung der rechtlichen und finanziellen Rahmenbedingungen, wird mit Daten des Sozio-oekonomischen Panels (SOEP) untersucht, welche Faktoren den Zugang zu Privatschulen erklaren und ob sich die sozialen Selektionsprozesse in den letzten Dekaden verandert haben. Die Ergebnisse belegen eine zunehmende soziale Selektion. Daruber hinaus wird auf Basis der PISA-Erganzungsstudie 2006 untersucht, ob im Hinblick auf erworbene Kompetenzen Privatschulen leistungsfahiger sind. Nach Berucksichtigung der sozialen Zusammensetzung der Schulerpopulationen findet sich hier kein Zusammenhang zwischen dem Besuch einer Privatschule und den Schulerkompetenzen. Bildungspolitisch muss von daher insbesondere die zunehmende soziale Segregation zwischen den Schulformen in den Blick genommen werden.

Akzeptanz von Grundschulempfehlungen und Auswirkungen auf den weiteren Bildungsverlauf Acceptance of Secondary School Track Recommendations and Their Effects on Educational Achievement

Zusammenfassung Der Übergang von der Grundschule in die mehrgliedrige Sekundarstufe ist in Deutschland entscheidend für den weiteren Bildungsverlauf, da spätere Wechsel der Schulform zwar möglich sind, aber nur relativ selten stattfinden. In diesem Papier betrachten wir den Einfluss der Akzeptanz der Schullaufbahnempfehlungen am Ende der Grundschulzeit auf den Bildungsverlauf bis zum Alter von 17 Jahren. Die Datengrundlage bildet das Sozio-oekonomische Panel (SOEP). Unsere Untersuchungsgruppe besteht aus Personen, die zwischen 1984 und 1991 geboren sind. In den Analysen zeigt sich, dass die soziale Strukturiertheit der Akzeptanz von Empfehlungen zum Ende der Grundschulzeit auch später noch nachwirkt. Insbesondere für Kinder von Eltern mit höherer Bildung zahlt sich die Ablehnung einer niedrigeren Empfehlung aus, wenn man den Besuch des Gymnasiums mit 17 Jahren als Maß für den Schulerfolg betrachtet. Geht man davon aus, dass der Besuch eines Gymnasiums in diesem Alter den späteren Abschluss prädeterminiert, hat dieses Ergebnis auch einen Einfluss auf den weiteren Bildungsverlauf, da nur das Abitur die Zugangsberechtigung für Hochschulen gewährt. Die Ergebnisse interpretieren wir als Bestätigung der Hypothese, dass die Ablehnung von Grundschulempfehlungen eine besondere Form sekundärer Herkunftseffekte darstellt. Summary In Germany the transition from primary school to the different tracks of secondary school is decisive for students’ later educational careers as subsequent track mobility is rather low. This paper focuses on the role of teachers’ recommendations of secondary school tracks at the end of primary school. We use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP), and our sample consists of persons born between 1984 and 1991. We show that the acceptance of teachers’ recommendations is socially selective and that differences in the acceptance of recommendations according to social origin have a significant impact on later educational outcomes. Assuming that participation in the academic track (Gymnasium) at age 17 is an indicator of educational achievement we find that the rejection of low-track recommendations pays off in particular for children of parents with high educational levels. Assuming that the attendance of the Gymnasium at age 17 predetermines the chance of earning university entry qualifications, this outcome is of crucial importance for post-secondary educational achievement. We interpret our results as support for the hypothesis that the rejection of track recommendations is a particular manifestation of the secondary effects of social origin.