Belgium
,
Croatia
,
Poland
,
Spain
,
Sweden
,
United Kingdom
Abstract
In this deliverable, we critically analyse the tax-benefit systems of Belgium, Croatia, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom, for their capacity to function as an automatic stabiliser and protect the income and reduce the risk of poverty for a range of different household- and family types. It was found that in none of the countries in focus and in none of the scenarios were full-time workers found to be at-risk-of-poverty. However, single parents (for whom working full-time is often already a challenge), are very close to the poverty threshold when working at two-thirds of the average wage in most of the countries studied here. Differences between family- and household types tend to be larger than the differences between different countries: single-earner households are closer to the poverty thresholds, as are households with dependent children – this accumulates in single-parent households usually being close to the at-risk-of-poverty thresholds. Short-term unemployment is compensated for reasonably well, at least when one partner of a dual-earner couple becomes unemployed and if they are eligible for unemployment benefits. Long-term unemployment of both partners results in an income below poverty. Finally, the findings suggest that neither part-time employment, nor living with grandparents, are guaranteed ways in all countries to avoid poverty for (previously) unemployed single parents. These analyses highlighted two relevant findings. The first was that in some countries, income taxation was found to be related to part-time working single parents falling into poverty. The second was even though (the sharing of) pension income can reduce poverty in households of multigenerational households, we found that this poverty-reduction capacity is lowest in countries where multigenerational households are more common (Croatia and Poland), whereas it is more effective in countries where such households are least common (i.e. Sweden).
