This study examines the redistributive impact of taxes and social transfers on income inequality in six Central and Eastern European countries from 2010 to 2019 using European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions microdata. Through inequality decomposition and marginal effect analysis, the study reveals substantial cross-country variation in redistribution effectiveness. While labor income remains the primary driver of inequality, taxes contribute more significantly to redistribution than transfers. The findings highlight the declining role of non-elderly benefits and the rising reliance on pensions, underscoring the importance of tax system design and targeted social policies in addressing inequality.
Over the past decade, Western societies have experienced an expansion of economic risks at the same time as citizens' political trust has come under pressure. A common assumption in previous research is that perceived economic risks reduce political trust. This paper presents a novel theoretical argument for the reversed causal pathway where political trust is seen as a coping-mechanism for expected economic risks. We test this argument using panel data and statistical models equipped to isolate this specific causal pathway running from trust to economic risks. Our findings demonstrate that political trust reduces perceptions of economic risks, in particular for people with high normative welfare state beliefs. As such, we contribute to the burgeoning literatures on the interplay between political attitudes and economic risks and on the consequences of political trust.
In today's Mexico, approximately 50% of children experience multidimensional poverty, with Indigenous children particularly affected; half of them live in extreme poverty and nearly all lack access to social security. The current political landscape threatens to exacerbate these issues. Reductions in public spending and the dismantling of federal child health programmes are likely to further hinder children's development, well-being and health by limiting access to vital services like childcare, education and healthcare. Children's hospitals in Mexico may increasingly depend on philanthropy and civil society support, however, the relationship between the State and the philanthropic sector is not without problems. This paper presents a case study of 'social assistance' in Mexico, by exploring the structure and organisation of two non-for-profit groups and their relationship with a children's hospital and healthcare staff in the southeast of Mexico through semi-structured interviews and document analysis. It aims to explore the challenges and tensions that arise in the collaboration between the State and philanthropic organisations, particularly in the context of sustaining and enhancing children's hospitals. Our study reveals that the philanthropic sector has tried to compensate for some of the enormous needs that historical and more recent challenges imply to the most vulnerable families when seeking medical attention for their children. However, philanthropic efforts are ultimately sustained by the same families through a 'co-responsibility model'. There is an urgent need for public policies based on human rights and social reform, which simplify bureaucratic processes and support philanthropic organisations in aiding vulnerable groups beyond the healthcare system's scope. Our case studies suggest that today philanthropic organisations not only complement the activities of the public health system by giving support to the families of the patients, but also substitute the State in the delivery of very basic medical care people should have the right to receive.
Background:Many countries around the world are expanding the enrollment of children in early childhood education (ECE) outside the home to improve school readiness and, ultimately, academic achievement. While socioeconomically disadvantaged children are typically underrepresented in ECE, they are often thought to benefit the most from participation. This study empirically tests whether increasing ECE participation rates are associated with reductions in socioeconomic inequalities in ECE participation and, consequently, with decreases in socioeconomic inequalities in reading achievement at the end of primary school. Methods:The study draws on data from 64 education systems participating in PIRLS cycles between 2001 and 2021, comprising 225 country-by-year observations. Using country-fixed effects, we estimate a mediation model to test whether socioeconomic inequalities in ECE participation mediate the relationship between overall ECE participation rates and socioeconomic inequalities in reading achievement. This fixed effects approach controls for time-invariant differences between education systems. We include a set of control variables to account for economic, demographic, and policy-related changes that might confound within-country trends and discuss untestable assumptions that have to be met to interpret the mediation relationship causally. Additionally, we examine international trends in all three variables of interest. Results:As hypothesized, we find that countries with increasing ECE participation rates and decreasing socioeconomic inequalities in ECE participation also show declining socioeconomic inequalities in reading achievement. Internationally, ECE participation rates have risen over time, while both socioeconomic inequalities in participation and socioeconomic inequalities in reading achievement did not show clear trends over time. Conclusions:According to our interpretation, increasing ECE participation rates seem to help reduce socioeconomic inequalities in reading achievement-provided that the increases also reduce disparities in access to ECE. This finding, together with previous research, offers encouraging evidence for countries investing in or planning to expand ECE. Moreover, this study highlights the importance of ensuring that ECE expansion policies specifically address socioeconomic inequalities in participation to mitigate later educational inequalities.
This paper explores public participation in socialist and post-socialist housing estates in Croatian cities. The quantitative (survey, N = 1,536) and qualitative research methods (focus groups with residents, semi-structured interviews with experts) were conducted. The focus was on the level of participation and obstacles for participation in Croatian housing estates. The results confirm the hypothesis that those citizens who do not believe that their participation impacts the decision-making process are less likely to participate. At the level of all estates, citizens are poorly acquainted with the actions of the city and local authorities, and poorly involved in decision-making processes. Citizens are mainly engaged when urgent situations occur that endanger the quality of life in the estate, which is most often related to environmental or infrastructural issues. That is also the most important ad hoc channel by which residents communicate their requirements with the formal government in cities, which is also called reactionist activism.
