Reducing poverty remains an important challenge, and the COVID-19-crisis may further reinforce social vulnerabilities. Although it has declined lately, relative poverty remains high in international comparison and is distributed unevenly across population groups with the elderly, people with...

In several OECD countries, public pay-as-you-go financed pension systems have undergone major reforms in which future retirement benefit promises have been scaled down. A consequence of these reforms is that especially in countries with a tight tax-benefit linkage, the retirement benefit claims...

Perhaps the single greatest achievement of social policy in the United States over the last three decades has been reducing poverty in old age. The transition from work to retirement is no longer economically perilous for the vast majority of older American workers. For most married couples, the...

Social protection systems play a key stabilising role for individuals and societies, especially in the recent context of heightened uncertainties. Income stabilisation and related social policy objectives hinge on the extent to which social protection is accessible for those requiring support....

In 2014, prior to the political transition of 2015 towards democracy, the government published the Myanmar National Social Protection Strategic Plan with the aim of supporting socio-economic development, and strengthening the resilience of vulnerable people against shocks and life cycle...

This paper provides a broad overview of welfare schemes in India and their impact on social protection during a period of high economic growth. It summarizes India's performance with respect to select economic and social indicators relative to select low and middle income countries in the Asia...

Since 2000, Zimbabwe has been under some pressure to provide more fully for its children. It is not clear whether child poverty has worsened, although AIDS, drought, and economic mismanagement have all compromised poverty reduction. In any case, child poverty has come under increased scrutiny,...

Using observational micro data from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), we assess the redistributive impact of tax and transfer configurations across 22 OECD countries for the period 1999-2013. After recovering new tax data (employer social contributions), we measure the reduction of income...