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The welfare system can be a crucial factor in the urban settlement of rural migrants, but its effects are difficult to determine because to do so one must distinguish the effect of welfare entitlement from the effect of ‘migrant selectivity bias’, which widely exists in cities in developing countries. Using survey data from 15 Chinese cities, this study examines the ways in which social insurance – the most critical social welfare package in China – affects rural migrants’ urban-settlement intentions. The results show that there is a ‘migrant selectivity bias’ in Chinese cities, that is, rural migrants who are better off socio-economically are more inclined to participate in social insurance and are more inclined to pursue permanent urban settlement. Meanwhile, social insurance participation is significantly and positively related to rural migrants’ urban-settlement intentions, and this positive relation remains even after we discount the effect of ‘migrant selectivity bias’ in the analysis. We argue that, for rural migrants in China, the effect of social insurance participation on urban settlement intentions closely resembles that experienced by those who move to migration-managed regimes. We conclude that the Chinese government should establish a more inclusive social welfare system to enable rural migrants to permanently settle in cities.

Supplemental material, USJ936153_Supplemental_Table for Welfare migration or migrant selection? Social insurance participation and rural migrants’ intentions to seek permanent urban settlement in China by Shenghua Xie, Juan Chen, Veli-Matti Ritakallio and Xiangming Leng in Urban Studies

Over the past 20 years the use of the at-risk-of-poverty threshold has become increasingly widespread. However, as is well known, the indicator builds on a number of assumptions and simplifications that have given rise to several criticisms. In this paper we illustrate how reference budgets can help to ‘contextualise’ the weaknesses of the at-risk-of-poverty threshold by generating more insight into the kind of living standard that can be afforded with an income at the level of the threshold in different countries. This provides essential background information for those using the indicator. More in particular, we make use of the first effort to construct cross-country comparable reference budgets in Europe to show what the strong cross-national differences in living standards imply in practice for the adequacy of incomes at the level of the at-risk-of-poverty threshold. The budgets show that in the poorest EU Member States, even adequate food and housing are barely affordable at the level of the threshold, whereas a decent living standard is much more in reach for those living on the threshold in the richer EU Member States. The reference budgets also suggest that the poverty risk of some groups (for instance children) is underestimated relative to that of other age groups, while the poverty risk of homeowners is probably relatively overestimated.

sThe urban integration pattern of migrant workers in China has not been fully articulated. This paper seeks to work out this issue by using the questionnaire survey data from Wuhan, China. Based on social integration theories on international migrants, this paper developed four hypotheses on the urban integration pattern of migrant workers in China, including assimilation, integration, separation, and marginalisation, and examined the four hypotheses. The results show evidence to support both the assimilation and integration hypotheses, but no evidence to support the separation or marginalisation hypotheses. Based on the research findings, this study proposes the assimilation/integration pattern to summarise the urban integration pattern of migrant workers and argues that this pattern should be understood as being based on the social context of China.

This chapter studies trends in income poverty in Finland from 1971 to 1995. This period is characterized by wide variation in economic performance, ranging from frequent cycles in the 1970s through steady growth in the 1980s to a sharp contraction in the 1990s. The chapter reviews macroeconomic and institutional developments over the period. It also reviews previous literature on income poverty in Finland and briefly describes the data sets on which the empirical analyses are based. Standard methods are used to summarize poverty in each year and examine the robustness of the resulting trends of other methods, such as the fraction of median and the equivalence scales that were chosen. The chapter also examines the incidence of poverty among subpopulations and the composition of the poverty population using consistent population breakdowns over the whole period.

Previous studies have not paid enough attention to the effect of health on urban-settlement intention of rural-urban migrants in China. Using survey data from the Rural Urban Migration in China project, this article examines how self-rated physical and mental health influence rural-urban migrants' intention to settle down in cities. First, the results show that both self-rated physical and mental health are significant factors influencing the migrants' intention to permanently move to cities. Second, the effect of physical health on rural-urban migrants' intentions to permanently reside in cities can be moderated by their length of urban residence. Third, the impact of health on rural-urban migrants' urban-settlement intention shows no generational differences. According to the research findings, this paper discusses how urban-settlement intention of rural-urban migrants based on health selection might impair urbanization, exacerbate health disparity between the rural and urban areas, and aggravate the burden on healthcare system in rural areas of China in the long run.

European Union (EU) indicators on poverty and social exclusion employ only two child breakdowns: the proportion of children living in households with incomes below 60% of the national median using the modified OECD equivalence scale and the proportion of children living in workless households. The UK also uses these indicators in the Opportunities for All series. This article first develops a new indicator of child poverty based on income, subjective and deprivation indicators which may be more reliable than income alone. It then explores the extent to which income poverty and worklessness represent international variation in child well‐being using an index that we have developed. The conclusions are that: (1) relative income poverty and worklessness are poor indicators of child well‐being, especially for some of the new EU countries; (2) deprivation has a stronger association with overall well‐being than relative income poverty or worklessness; (3) there are a number of other single indicators of child well‐being that could be used as proxies for overall child well‐being; and (4) The EU (and the UK) could easily develop its own index of child well‐being.

In this paper three methods of relativizations are used: (1) we apply the conventional poverty approach: the poor are those whose income remains below 60 percent of the national equivalent disposable income, (2) we collapse nations together into one data pool and calculate a poverty line for the EU, and (3) we decompose nation states into smaller units representing the poorest and richest areas. Within-nation differences seem to be more pronounced than differences between nations. In the Nordic countries incomes between regions as well as between individuals are more evenly distributed and, consequently, the national means are more representative for the whole countries. Moreover, the Nordic cluster, together with central Europe, is robust against the method of comparison. The method affects the Mediterranean countries. The use of the European poverty line leads to poverty rates two to three times higher than analyses based on national data. The regional variation in these countries is the widest...

Our aim is to analyse both the incidence and distribution of economic hardship in three countries - Finland, Britain and Sweden - using measures of relative deprivation. The study represents a unique endeavour as our comparisons are based not on income data but on direct observations of consumption of goods and services. The method applied has been developed from the consensual poverty approach pioneered by Mack and Lansley (1985). Hence, what we will observe is the inability to consume socially perceived necessities, both goods and activities, because of lack of income. The preliminary results contradict, to a large degree, findings derived from more traditional studies based solely on income data. They also reveal a detailed picture of the way relative deprivation is structured within countries and the differences that prevail between the three countries. The analysis represents a first step in an effort to develop alternative tools when comparing poverty and economic well-being between countries.

Social Policy or Social Structure? Income Transfers, Socio demographic Factors and Poverty in the Nordic Countries and in France The paper compares poverty in Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and France. We have (1) descriptive/analytical and (2) methodological goals. (1) We pool the four Nordic countries into a single data set and compare France with this “Scandinavia”. The results give strong evidence to the existence of the homogenous Scandinavian model in terms of incidence of poverty, poverty profiles, and the effectiveness of social policy. (2) The methodological objective is to “change the world” and simulate what would happen if France had the Scandinavian social structure – but its own social policy – and vice versa. Our re-weighting simulations show that the results of the “Scandinavization” of France depend on the method of simulation. First, a static simulation, changing the socio-economic structure, but preserving the present median incomes and poverty lines as they are, would almost eradicate poverty in France. The „Francofication“ of Scandinavia would lead to dramatic results in Scandinavia: the number of persons totally dependent on social transfers would increase, the effectiveness of transfer systems would decrease, and the poverty rate would rise near to the actual French figures. Second, in dynamic simulation we also change poverty lines to correspond actual median income (in “Scandi-France” the median income would rise – because of increased female labor force participation – and in “Franco-Scandinavia” decrease – because of lower female employ-ment). In “Scandi-France” the poverty rate would decrease close to the present Scandinavian figures, but the poor would be richer that the poor actually are in France. In “Franco-Scandinavia” the extension of poverty would be about the same as nowadays but the poor would be worse-off than they now are. In sum, differences in the French and Scandinavian poverty rates are explained by the dynamic interplay between social security and structural variables. However, differences in the family structure and in labor market behavior seem to be more important explanatory factors: about 2/3 of differences between countries are explained by these structural factors, while 1/3 is explained by income transfer systems. However, it is important to remember that these background factors are greatly affected by the institutional set-ups of the welfare states.

Mainstream comparative research on welfare policy outcomes has focused mainly on the role of government benefits and resulting distributions of income. From the point of view of the economic well-being of households, it is said that this narrow approach has produced results which have exaggerated the difference between continental western Europe and the New World. It has been argued that, to get fair results, comparative studies of welfare outcomes should take into account the differences in housing policies and structures of tenure. The ownership of private houses is more common in the New World nations than in Europe. Home ownership is thought to improve the economic well-being of the typical poverty-prone group, namely older people. This article tests how the cross-national picture of poverty and inequality changes when we approach the economic well-being of households on the basis of disposable incomes after housing costs instead of the traditional, purely income-based approach. The empirical analysis shows that, instead of vast differences in inequality, poverty and, in particular, old-age poverty, the real differences between Australia and Finland are only modest when housing costs are taken into account.

Comparative research on poverty, income inequality and the effectiveness of income transfer systems has flourished during the last two decades, largely owing to the contribution of the Luxembourg Income Study. So far, however, the majority of comparative analyses have been based on a single year. In this paper, we have analysed cross-national patterns of poverty and income inequality with special emphasis on their stability. We examine trends in poverty and income inequality between 1980 and 1995 in nine countries representing three different ideal types of social policy.The differences in poverty among the countries studied correspond with the respective models of social policy more clearly in the mid-1990s than they did 15 years earlier. Generally speaking, the poverty rate is slightly under 5 per cent in the Nordic countries, around 7.5 per cent in Central Europe, 10 per cent in Canada, 12.5 per cent in the UK, and as high as 17.5 per cent in the USA.In all countries included in the analysis, the primary distribution – based on market income – has become less equal than before. In each country, the proportion of the population able to achieve subsistence from the market alone has decreased continuously. This trend is more significant than the change in actual poverty, which means that the absolute poverty-alleviating impact of income redistribution systems became stronger in these countries during the period 1980–1995.The analysis of income inequality produced a similar picture. In comparison to poverty, however, the change is rather less extensive. The Nordic countries, in particular, have been able to respond to the rise in market income differences so that the income inequality for disposable incomes has hardly increased at all. Canada shows a parallel trend. The USA and, in particular, the UK reflect a movement in the opposite direction.Trends in poverty in various population groups are analysed. By 1995 poverty had turned into a risk for young adults in all the countries studied. The poverty rate increased for the 18–30 age-group in all countries, while an opposite trend was observed among the elderly, in particular those aged over 65. The poverty rate among the elderly is now below the average population rate in all the countries studied.

This study offers a longitudinal scrutiny of the development of pension policy in Finland and evaluates the impacts that the shift from a “marginal” to an “institutional” welfare state imposed on economic well-being among the elderly. The data that are used stem from household budget surveys from 1966 to 1990. During that period, average income of the elderly doubled in real terms, legislated pensions replaced other sources of income, the traditional cycle of poverty, where the elderly had a higher risk of poverty, disappeared, and income differences between the elderly diminished.

This article uses data from the Luxembourg Income Study to analyse cross-national and cross-temporal poverty risks in 11 Western countries. We show that poverty risks have tended to increase from t ...

In Finland, family policy is based on universal child benefits, parenthood allowances, and a publicly supported day care system for small children. The present system is a result of a long evolution throughout the 20th century, for in Finland, modern family policy started slowly. Nowadays Finland differs from countries with a conservative and liberal model in that it has made investments in measures to reconcile work and family life. The aim of this paper is to describe the historical development and the main elements of the Finnish family policy system and to evaluate how changes in family policy have affected the well-being of families with children. The recession in the 1990s changed the favourable development of family policy system in Finland. Cuts had to be made in every social policy sector. The largest cuts in the family policy field were made towards the end of the depression. The reductions in family support indicated a clear change in the direction of family policy. Changes in family policy had an influence on the well-being of children. Social trends in the 1990s strained the livelihood of parents with small children in terms of their income, working life and services at their disposal.