Social Transfers and Social Assistance : An Empirical Analysis Using Latvian Household Survey Data
The author assesses the performance of Latvias system of social transfers, in three ways: First, he analyzes the incidence (who receives transfers) of pensions, family allowances, unemployment benefits, and social assistance. Per capita analysis sh...
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2015
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2000/04/437758/social-transfers-social-assistance-empirical-analysis-using-latvian-household-survey-data http://hdl.handle.net/10986/22191 |
| Summary: | The author assesses the performance of
Latvias system of social transfers, in three ways: First, he
analyzes the incidence (who receives transfers) of pensions,
family allowances, unemployment benefits, and social
assistance. Per capita analysis shows pensions tending to be
pro-rich, and families allowances pro-poor (a finding
typical in poverty analyses). Introducing an equivalence
scale alters the results and shows all individual cash
transfers performing about the same: mildly pro-poor. Next,
he examines the performance of social assistance, which is,
by definition, directed to the poor. He shows that Latvia's
current system is concentrated - meaning that social
assistance is disbursed to few households (only 1.5 percent
of all households receive it) but among those that do
receive it, it represents a relatively high share (20
percent) of income. Households that are systematically
discriminated against in the allocation of social assistance
are urban households living outside the capital (Riga) and
those headed by male adults. Third, he looks at the regional
allocation of social assistance. The results confirm earlier
findings of large horizontal inequalities - that people with
the same income from different parts of the country are
treated unequally, because the existing system is based on
local financing of social assistance. |
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