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The paper starts with a brief look at social expenditure patterns and the importance of different social policy areas, in particular the role of social assistance policy within social protection systems. It then looks at the objectives of social assistance policy and considers payment-rates in terms of adequacy, financial incentives to work, addressing issues as budget standards, indexation methods and the policy approach towards specific client groups. Also, the study briefly highlights Chinese public expenditure issues more generally and presents some key indicators on the dynamics of ageing populations which will have consequences for future social expenditure trends in China.

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This document is the 2nd edition of the Net Social Expenditure paper published in 1999 (Adema, 1999). It contains an overview of net (after tax) public and private social expenditure indicators. These indicators have been developed to supplement available historical information on gross social expenditure trends by accounting for the varying impact of the tax system across countries. Tax systems can affect social spending in three ways: Governments levy direct taxes and social security contributions on cash transfers. Governments levy indirect taxes on goods and services bought by benefit recipients. Governments may award tax advantages similar to cash benefits and/or grant tax concessions aiming to stimulate the provision of private social benefits. The document summarises the methodological framework as previously developed, but extends coverage to eighteen countries for which information for 1997 is now available: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech ...

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This document is the 2nd edition of the Net Social Expenditure paper published in 1999 (Adema, 1999). It contains an overview of net (after tax) public and private social expenditure indicators. These indicators have been developed to supplement available historical information on gross social expenditure trends by accounting for the varying impact of the tax system across countries. Tax systems can affect social spending in three ways: Governments levy direct taxes and social security contributions on cash transfers. Governments levy indirect taxes on goods and services bought by benefit recipients. Governments may award tax advantages similar to cash benefits and/or grant tax concessions aiming to stimulate the provision of private social benefits. The document summarises the methodological framework as previously developed, but extends coverage to eighteen countries for which information for 1997 is now available: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech ...

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This is the 2005 edition of a Net Social Expenditure paper that contains information on net (after tax) public and private social expenditure. These indicators supplement the detailed historical information on gross (before tax) publicly mandated social expenditure in the OECD Social Expenditure Database by accounting for the varying roles of voluntary private social spending and the tax system on social policy across OECD countries. Government intervention through the tax system affects social spending as governments levy direct taxes and social security contributions on cash transfers, and indirect taxes on goods and services bought by benefit recipients. In addition, governments may award tax advantages similar to cash benefits and/or grant tax concessions aiming to stimulate the provision of private social benefits. Through compulsion and tax relief public policy contributes to private pension plans, and such arrangements are generally considered within the social domain. This document refines the methodological framework previously developed per earlier editions of net social expenditure and presents indicators based on a common questionnaire for twenty-three OECD countries for which information on taxation of benefits in 2001 is now available: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, the Slovak Republic, Sweden, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States. Accounting for the impact of the tax system and private social expenditure leads to a greater similarity in social expenditure to GDP ratios across countries and to a reassessment of the magnitude of welfare states. Usually, Denmark and Sweden are seen as the biggest social spenders. After accounting for the impact of taxation social expenditure to GDP ratios appear highest in France, Germany and Sweden.

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Child poverty is firmly on the policy agenda in many OECD countries. One of the main issues in the debate is the appropriate balance between the so-called “benefits strategy” (increasing the adequacy of benefits for low-income families with children) and the so-called “work strategy” (promoting policies to increase employment among poor families). The need to choose between these two apparent alternatives is sometimes seen as a consequence of an unavoidable trade-off between adequacy of benefits, work incentives and the costs of assistance...

Social Issues/Migration/Health