Despite serving as the Philippines’ main social protection strategy, debate continues surrounding the ability of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) to meet its long-term goal of breaking cycles of intergenerational poverty. To engage with this debate, this study brings together the constructs of entitlement and agency to analyse how different actors associated with 4Ps understand and experience the program. Drawing on forty-three semi-structured interviews with 4Ps beneficiaries, non-beneficiaries, and implementers, we provide a provisional explanation as to why a disconnect exists between the long-term goals of 4Ps and the experiences with the program among these different actors. In addition, this study highlights how challenges associated with the design and implementation of 4Ps, including limited transparency and communication of the program’s eligibility requirements, rigid monitoring of beneficiary compliance, and delays in receiving cash transfers, may constrain the transformational potential of this social protection strategy.

Consumption taxes are a policy tool that shape the income distribution and potentially thwart the redistributive goals of social policy. Different household types might be affected differently due to diverging income positions and consumption levels. This study examines the change in poverty across household types when accounting for consumption tax payments. To this end, the study draws on harmonised data from eleven OECD countries in the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS). Implicit indirect tax rates are estimated from national accounts and poverty rates before and after subtracting consumption taxes are investigated. The results indicate significant variation across household types. In most countries, large family and single parent households experience the highest poverty increase. Ultimately, the increase in poverty across countries is positively associated with the consumption tax level.

This cluster-randomised study analyses the implementation of a family intervention model (the HOLF model) on four target areas: parental employment, the financial and housing situations, and the social inclusion of children. The study compares family coordinators implementing the HOLF model including tools, schemes and supervision structures, with those implementing local family intervention practices. All twenty-nine participating Labour and Welfare offices received two family coordinators per office, with a caseload of twenty-one families. Of the offices, fifteen were randomised to implement the HOLF model, while fourteen implemented local family intervention practices. In a twelve-month follow-up of 862 parents, baseline and T2 questionnaires and administrative data show a significant improvement on financial situation and children’s social inclusion; however, with no differences between offices implementing the HOLF model and those implementing local family intervention practices. The results show the need for further analyses of key elements and implementation practices within family intervention projects.

Although the older adult population faces a higher risk of poverty compared to others, there is no clear picture of their poverty in Iran. The aim of this study was to measure multidimensional poverty and its related factors among Iranian older adults. This cross-sectional study was conducted from July to November 2019 and collected data by interviewing 1,280 participants in Tehran, Iran. To compute multidimensional poverty, four dimensions were used: health (disabilities), education, housing and standard of living. Single and multidimensional poverty and the joint distribution of deprivation were calculated. Multilevel logistic regression models were used to determine the relationship between predictor variables and outcome (multidimensional poverty). Multidimensional poverty among Tehran's older people was 59.0 per cent. The prevalence of health, housing, education and standard of living deprivations were 15.4, 25.3, 29.5 and 29.9 per cent, respectively. Furthermore, multivariate analysis shows that living with a spouse, being employed, and having health and social insurance coverage were protective factors, while being female was a risk factor for multidimensional poverty. Approximately 21 per cent of multidimensional poverty variance was attributed to the district level and the remaining was assigned to individual-level factors. This study showed that the older adults living in different areas of Tehran experience different aspects of poverty. So paying attention to the dimensions of multidimensional poverty can play an important role in customising the policies of each district. Also, the findings of this study on risk and protective factors of multidimensional poverty can be effective in designing and implementing interventions to mitigate poverty among the older adults.

Stress has been linked with children’s socioemotional problems and lower language scores, particularly among children raised in socioeconomically disadvantaged circumstances. Much of the work examining the relations among stress, language, and socioemotional functioning have relied on assessments of a single dimension of maternal stress. However, stress can stem from different sources, and people may appraise stressors differently. Taking a dimensional approach, this manuscript characterizes stress in multiple ways: as an overall composite; across the constructs of psychological appraisal vs. environmental stressors; and the independent contributions of a variety assessments. Data are from 548 mother–infant dyads (M = 13.14 months, SD = 2.11) who served as the control group for a poverty reduction clinical trial. Mothers completed questionnaires regarding the different types of stresses they may have experienced, as well as their children’s language and socioemotional development. Results indicate that, collectively, higher maternal report of stress is associated with lower reports of children’s socioemotional and language development. In addition, maternal psychological appraisals of stress were associated with both socioemotional and language development, whereas reports of environmental stressors were only associated with socioemotional development. Together, these findings suggest that maternal reports of stress are associated with lower maternal report of child development among low-income children.

Medical-legal partnerships (MLPs) integrate knowledge and practices from law and health care in pursuit of health equity. However, the MLP movement has not reached its full potential to address racial health inequities, in part because its original framing was not explicitly race conscious.

The European Union’s at-risk-of-poverty threshold is set at 60 per cent of national median disposable equivalent income. Changes in median income therefore shift the threshold, which is likely to affect at-risk-of-poverty rates. This effect is likely to vary across population subgroups due to, for instance, connectedness to the labour market. This exploratory study investigates whether there are typical patterns related to changes in age-specific at-risk-of-poverty rates. The study uses European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions microdata and focusses on the development of poverty rates in 30 European countries in the mid-2010s. Results show that especially the old-age poverty rates followed patterns that were different from those of child or working-age poverty rates. There were differences between age groups regarding both the magnitude and direction of at-risk-of-poverty rates. Additionally, the association between changes in at-risk-of-poverty rates and changes in poverty thresholds, income and employment significantly differs between the older population and the two other age groups.

The present study aims to compare the suicide rates in people over 85 years of age in relation to overall suicide rates in different European countries. In addition, the study aims to perform a preliminary analysis of which socioeconomic factors could explain higher suicide rates in this age group in Europe. An analysis of the Eurostat database has been made. In this pilot phase, certain socioeconomic variables representative of people over 85 years of age were chosen based on criteria of suitability, according to the bibliography available for other regions and availability of the information provided. The conditional suicide rate in this age group with respect to the overall suicide rate in each country has been calculated. Furthermore, Spearman correlations between the suicide rates in this age group and the chosen socioeconomic factors were performed. Conditional suicide rates in people over 85 years of age show a marked difference between southern and northern European countries. In the correlational analysis, suicide in this age group was associated with different economic ratios, the old-age dependency ratio, and the self-perceived health ratio. After performing a multivariate regression, the model that best explained the differences between the European countries included the variables "old-age dependency ratio" and "economic impossibility to buy new clothes ratio.” Different socioeconomic factors, specifically poverty and economic inequality, added to the old-age dependency ratio, could explain huge differences between the suicide rates in people over 85 years of age in the different European countries.

The food bank has become a charitable safety-net for those who have been failed by the social security system in times of austerity and during the Covid-19 pandemic. In this article we evidence the rise of food banking in the context of declining social security, examining the decade of austerity in the UK and the Covid-19 period. We also contextualise the process of normalisation of food banks as a new safety-net in a reduced welfare state. We argue that the welfare state has failed to address a fundamental ‘Want’ – namely, food security.

The present study is the first to examine the relations between participation in a public early childhood intervention (the Child-Parent Center (CPC) program) and psychological well-being (or, positive functioning) into early mid-life. Data are drawn from the Chicago Longitudinal Study (CLS), which has followed a cohort of 1,539 individuals who grew up in urban poverty for over four decades. Approximately two-thirds of the original study cohort participated in the CPC program in early childhood; the rest comprise a demographically matched comparison group. Participants’ psychological functioning at age 35–37 was assessed using the Ryff Scales of Psychological Wellbeing. Results support a positive relationship between CPC preschool participation and long-term psychological wellbeing. Moderated mediation (e.g., whether CPC effects on wellbeing differ across subgroups) and potential mechanisms across multiple social-ecological levels (according to the 5-Hypothesis Model of early intervention) are also empirically investigated. Future directions for child development research, early childhood intervention, and public policy are discussed.

In Germany, as in many other European countries, vast changes in the welfare regime – towards workfare – have taken place. As a central activating element of workfare, sanctions were introduced to take effect by temporarily increasing deprivation through benefit cuts. This paper provides first quantitative insights on the effect of first sanctions on deprivation and contributes to the recent debate on the (un)constitutionality of sanctions, which re-emerged after a verdict of the Federal Constitutional Court, criticizing the lack of knowledge about the effects of sanctions on those affected. We implement a difference-in-differences propensity score matching approach that addresses selection on observables and individual time constant unobserved differences. High data accuracy is ensured by combining the “Panel Labour Market and Social Security” (PASS) with administrative data from the Federal Employment Agency. The results illustrate a slightly higher yet statistically insignificant level of deprivation for first-sanctioned unemployment/basic income recipients compared to non-sanctioned recipients. The results hint in the direction that higher levels of deprivation are not what activates the sanctioned beneficiaries to reintegrate into the labour market. We discuss whether the results imply a significant deviation from the socio-cultural subsistence minimum of sanctioned recipients and a failure of the welfare state.