Production of last resort support : a comparison on social assistance schemes in Europe with the notion of welfare production and the concept of social right

This paper aims to assess the present social assistance schemes with the model of production of welfare and the concept of social right. The interest is in how different stages of social assistance schemes are linked and how schemes appear when a number of indicators are used. One of the aspects analysed are outcomes, i.e. the prevalence of poverty and the poverty reduction effectiveness. To analyse outcomes the LIS data are used. Six different countries are included into comparison. The findings show that the countries vary to a large extent in their effectiveness of reducing poverty. Further, they indicated that there is some relationship between inputs, outputs and outcomes. Countries with more extensive social security scheme have less extent social assistance schemes. The results indicated also that the countries with less extensive social assistance schemes provide more generous levels of support, while also simultaneously the more generous schemes have smaller prevalence of poverty.