Tony Fahey

Do subjective indicators measure welfare? Evidence from 33 European societies

Indicators of subjective well-being have gained only limited acceptance as tools for the social-scientific analysis of human welfare, mainly because they seem insensitive to variations in the socio-economic context. However, this apparent insensitivity has been established by research which has been limited in various ways. Using data on life satisfaction for 33 European societies which goes some way to transcending these limits, this paper identifies linkages between subjective well-being and socio-economic conditions which are both strong and suggestive of important insights about national and cross-national relativities in human welfare. Populations in the rich parts of Europe have high and relatively equal life satisfaction, while those in the poorer parts of Europe have low and unequal life satisfaction. Social inequalities within rich European societies seem to have little effect on life satisfaction but they have significant effects within poor European societies. Inequalities between European societies also have strong effects. These findings suggest that analysis of inequalities and relativities in welfare in purely national terms is insufficient. Greater weight needs to be given to cross-national relativities, since these are much more consistent with what otherwise seem to be puzzling variations in subjective well-being across and within countries.

Housing Expenditures and Income Poverty in EU Countries

Previous research has suggested that hidden income arising from home ownership has important consequences for poverty measurement as it tends to favour certain low income groups, especially the elderly, and to have a moderating effect on poverty rates in countries with high levels of home ownership. This article explores both methodological and substantive aspects of this issue using data for 14 EU countries drawn from the European Community Household Panel Survey 1996. Methodologically, in the absence of data needed to estimate hidden income from housing directly, it explores the validity of using a housing expenditures approach to take account of the income effects of housing in a poverty measurement context. Substantively, it examines whether poverty measured in this way in the 14 countries in the data set differs in expected directions from poverty as conventionally measured. The substantive effects are found to be modest overall and to conform only partially to expectations. Certain methodological problems raise a question mark over these findings, such as variation across countries in the degree to which mortgage payments capture the cost of house purchase for home owners. The article concludes that the distributive effects of housing are important for poverty measurement but need to be better understood within each country before attempting cross-country analysis. Introduction Cross-national research on income poverty faces many comparability problems: the composition of income differs across countries and it is difficult to devise measures which capture the components in a comparable way. Much of the difficulty arises with income-in-kind: that is, non-cash benefits or services from employers, from the state, or from assets which householders possess themselves and use to produce goods or services for their own consumption. ‘Hidden’ income of this kind is difficult to quantify since even the recipient is often unaware of what its cash value might be. The barriers to accurate measurement this type of income poses are often so difficult to surmount that it is either omitted altogether or under-measured in national and cross-national analyses of income poverty. This article focuses on one general category of hidden income – that associated with housing – and explores substantive and methodological issues which arise in assessing its impact on poverty rates across EU countries. Much

Privacy and the Family: Conceptual and Empirical Reflections

This paper offers a critical assessment of the distinction between the public and the private spheres as often used in family studies. In place of the focus on a single public/private dichotomy which is common in sociological usage, it points to the multiple, cross-cutting, context-specific zones of privacy found in social life. It provides an empirical illustration of the nature and effects of such zones of privacy by examining some instances of social policy development in Ireland in the present century where questions of family privacy were very much at issue. It concludes by suggesting that the public/private dichotomy should be understood not as an objective division of the world into two spheres, but as a flexible cultural image which is put to use in wide variety of situations so as to serve a great diversity of interests and purposes.

Is there a Trade-Off between Pensions and Home Ownership? An exploration of the Irish case

It has been argued that, in countries with high levels of owner occupation of housing, home ownership can serve as a substitute for generous pensions for older people. Two possible linking mechanisms have been posited in this context, one focusing on budget constraints (high housing costs associated with home purchase makes the funding of generous pensions unaffordable), the other on needs or incentives (high home ownership gives older people material security and so makes generous pensions unnecessary). This article examines Ireland as a test case in this context. It finds no evidence that either of the posited linking mechanisms were present in Ireland. House purchase costs historically have been too low to constrain pension development, while the distributive benefits for the elderly have been too modest to obviate the need for higher pension income. However, other distributive effects emerge as important, particularly the positive historical consequences of inflation and low real interest rates for home purchasers of all ages and the implicit subsidy to home ownership provided by savers.

Housing in the Welfare State: Rethinking the Conceptual Foundations of Comparative Housing Policy Analysis

Abstract Many scholars interpret the contraction in social housing and the expansion of home ownership as reflections of a reduced role for the state and an increase in the marketisation of housing. This paper challenges this interpretation by pointing to two weaknesses in its conceptual underpinnings. One is its failure to distinguish between housing as capital (traded in the purchase market for dwellings) and housing as a service (traded in the rental market for accommodation), leading to an underestimate of the extent and diversity of continuing state intervention in housing. The other problem is a narrow focus on the balance between market and state which neglects the role of self-provisioning in the household as a form of production. The alternative view proposed here is, first, that forms of state intervention in the markets for housing capital and services are so diverse and complex that a more comprehensive analysis is needed before conclusions on trends in the states overall role can be reached, and, second, that while home ownership reflects a dominant role for the market in the distribution of housing capital, it reflects a familialisation of housing services – it enables households to self-provision themselves with accommodation and thereby remove this service from the realm of both market exchange and state provision. The paper also suggests that the welfare benefit of home ownership lies not only in its widely recognised social insurance effect but also in the efficiency and cost-reduction effects which self-provisioning of housing provides.

Immigration and Socio-spatial Segregation in Dublin, 1996-2006

Previous research on the impact of immigration on urban socio-spatial inequalities has focused on cities with long immigration histories where successive waves of new arrivals impacted on segregation patterns established by preceding waves, usually in a context where immigrants in each wave were poor and had low education. This paper focuses on Dublin as an example of a city where immigration is new and recent, is dominated by the well educated and occurs against a backdrop of a mono-ethnic existing population. In that context, it examines the impact of immigrant settlement patterns on socio-spatial inequalities in the city in the years 1996—2006, a period of economic boom. It finds that, while immigrants in Dublin were segregated to a certain degree, with a slight tendency to cluster in disadvantaged areas, clustering provided a small element of social lift to disadvantaged areas and generally contributed to a significant reduction in socio-spatial inequalities that occurred in the city in the period.

From Asset Based Welfare to Welfare Housing? The Changing Function of Social Housing in Ireland

This paper examines a distinctive and significant aspect of social housing in Ireland—its change in function from an asset-based role in welfare support to a more standard model of welfare housing. It outlines the nationalist and agrarian drivers which expanded the initial role of social housing beyond the goal of improving housing conditions for the poor towards the goal of extending homeownership, and assesses whether this focus made it more similar to the ‘asset based welfare’ approach to housing found in South-East Asia than to social housing in Western Europe. From the mid-1980s, the role of Irish social housing changed as the sector contracted and evolved towards the model of welfare housing now found in many other Western countries. Policy makers have struggled to address the implications of this transition and vestiges of social housings traditional function are still evident, consequently the boundaries between social housing, private renting and homeownership in Ireland have grown increasingly nebulous.

Family and Sexuality

The referendum on divorce held in November 1995 brought more or less to a close some three decades of loud and often bitter controversy on ‘moral’ questions in Irish public life. Contraception was the big issue of the late 1960s and 1970s, and abortion and divorce took over in the 1980s (for a detailed account, see Hug, 1999). The final rumbles of the contraception debate passed away only when the Health (Family Planning) (Amendment) Act, 1993, introduced a fully liberalised regime on ‘artificial’ contraception.1 The constitutional referendum on divorce held in 1995, which followed a previous referendum on the same subject in 1986, opened the way for the Family Law (Divorce) Act, 1996, and thereby settled the divorce question quite decisively. The triple referendum on abortion held in 1992, which followed the first referendum on abortion in 1983 and the ensuing Supreme Court decision in the ‘X’ case in 1992, had a less decisive effect, in that it left key issues unresolved, and a further referendum on abortion took place in 2002. Nevertheless, the 1992 referendum took most of the steam out of the abortion question and by comparison with the grand battles of that period, the referendum of ten years later was a low-key affair.2

Max Weber's Ancient Judaism

The paper examines Max Webers Ancient Judaism, one of the least studied of Webers works, and relates Ancietn Judaism to Webers other writings, to its background in contemporary German scholarship, and to the question of the nature of Webers historical sociology. Special emphasis is given to (1) Webers analysis of the early Israelite tribal confederacy, (2) the role of the priesthood in ethical rationalization, and (3) the contribution of secular historiography (especially that of Eduard Meyer) as well as biblical studies to Webers analysis.

Family Policy in Ireland

The state in Ireland in the early decades of national independence sought to promote the stable, large, two-parent, father-centred family, particularly one founded on the owner-occupied family farm. Property distribution and normative regulation were the main policy instruments used, though some antipoverty income supports were also introduced. Economic modernisation and cultural change after the 1960s caused families to become less patriarchal, smaller, less tied to marriage and more oriented to education and wage/salary labour. A period of normative conflict over contraception, divorce and abortion ensued, and gender equality and the rights of children emerged as policy issues. Family benefits expanded to encompass a wider range of family circumstances and poverty risks, though child poverty remained high. Policy choices between incentivising women’s work outside the home and supporting stay-at-home motherhood were resolved in mixed and sometimes conflicting ways but with a continuing strong focus on cash payments rather than provision of services. These choices remain contentious and, along with poverty alleviation, are key concerns in the current debates on family income support policies. Fiscal pressures arising from the current financial crisis also now exert an influence.