Réduire la pauvreté et l’exclusion sociale est un objectif essentiel de tous les gouvernements français. Même si la pauvreté, telle que mesurée conventionnellement, est en fait moins répandue que dans beaucoup d’autres pays, son ampleur est plus importante que ce qui peut être...

Reducing poverty and social exclusion is an important objective for all French governments. Even though conventionally measured poverty is in fact lower than in most other countries, it is still higher than can be easily accepted. The current policy approach involves a large number of measures...

Welfare-to-work measures are a central theme of Israel’s labour and social policies to tackle relative poverty, which is concentrated among the Arab-Israeli and Ultra-orthodox (Haredi) communities. Policies include pilot programmes involving private-sector job placement (the “Wisconsin”...

Hungarian family policy focuses on providing generous options to take time off work to look after children. This system not only contributes to Hungary’s low employment rate but encourages long separation from the labour market, has largely failed to significantly influence fertility rates and...

This paper reviews the main elements of social security reform in Brazil since 1998 and discusses areas where further policy action is yet to be taken to ensure the sustainability of the social-security system over time. Outlays on pensions paid to private-sector workers have risen as a result...

In recent years, policymaking in China has put increasing emphasis on stemming the growth in inequality, which had been fairly steep since the 1980s. Policy action has taken the form of regional development measures and of reforms of various aspects of the social safety net broadly defined. The...

Immigration could offer one way for Denmark to expand its labour supply, thereby lowering the dependency ratio, at least for some time, and easing the task of ensuring fiscal sustainability. However, these beneficial effects are obtained only if immigrants are in work. Yet a significant...

In 2008, the Czech government implemented a major overhaul of the personal income tax (PIT), replacing the previous progressive rate schedule with a single 15% rate levied on an enlarged base. This was accompanied by significant changes to the corporate income tax (CIT) and an increase in the...

This paper provides a synthesis of age-related developments and policies for a range of OECD countries, drawing on recent OECD work. It describes the expected impact of ageing on expenditure and fiscal pressures taking into account the current configuration of age-related policies. Since later...

This paper reviews public expenditure in New Zealand and the scope for further progress. Since the mid-1980s, New Zealand has been a world leader in public management reforms. Government agencies have been transformed by delegating managerial responsibility to them and replacing input controls...