This event features a presentation by scholars Joaquín Alcañiz-Colomer and Edmiston (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) and with EUI Visiting Fellow Heta Pöyliö.
'Restricting Support: Conditionality in Unemployment Protection and Its Impact on Well-Being'.
Speakers: Joaquín Alcañiz-Colomer and Daniel Edmiston
Across Europe, unemployment benefit systems have become increasingly conditional, requiring claimants to meet stricter behavioural obligations under threat of sanction. While existing research has highlighted the buffering role of benefit generosity, there is much less comparative evidence on how conditionality affects the well-being of unemployed people. This paper addresses this gap by analysing survey data from the European Social Survey and the World Values Survey/European Values Study, covering up to 20 countries and more than two decades. Using multilevel models that distinguish within- and between-country effects, we show that higher levels of conditionality within countries exacerbate the negative impact of unemployment on life satisfaction, happiness, and perceived control. By contrast, the effects of benefit generosity are more established and less consistent within countries, though cross-nationally more generous systems continue to mitigate the harms of unemployment. Crucially, the impact of conditionality persists even after accounting for generosity, demonstrating that these are distinct institutional dimensions with independent psychosocial consequences. Our findings highlight the normative significance of conditionality as a policy tool that not only structures incentives but also shapes the dignity, control, and subjective well-being of unemployed citizens.
'More cracks with a bigger puzzle? Socio-economic differences in income sufficiency within fragmented social protection systems'.
Speaker: Heta Pöyliö, Visiting Fellow, European University Institute
Social protection systems are considered the cornerstones of the welfare state, originally built to balance inequalities, alleviate poverty, and mitigate various social risks. Many European social protection systems have evolved into complex and multi-tiered puzzles in updating their coverage for further life-course risks. This has created systems where navigating is a skill and access is unequal. These issues weaken the efficiency of the welfare state and contribute to the persistent inequalities in the society. This paper takes a system-based approach in analysing the socioeconomic inequalities in welfare recipiency. Using micro-data from Luxembourg Income Study, this paper examines whether the level of fragmentation of social protection, in the form of cash and benefit transfers, is associated with sufficient livelihoods. Particularly, the paper analyses how many benefits a household receives at one time point and if this is differently associated with individual relative income standing across various socio-economic groups. Considering social protection systems take a big chunk of public spending, it is important to understand who receives them and how they contribute to the socio-economic inequalities in the country.
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