Do social-welfare policies reduce poverty? A cross-national assessment
Do social-welfare policies reduce poverty? A cross-national assessment
复制标题
DOI：
10.2307/3005973
复制
发表时间：
1999-03-01
期刊：
影响因子：
4.8
通讯作者：
Kenworthy, L
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Kenworthy, L
大多数支持福利国家的社会科学家、政策制定者和公民之所以这样做，部分原因是他们相信社会福利计划有助于减少贫困。然而，越来越多的批评者断言，这些计划实际上未能减少贫困，因为实际到达穷人手中的转移支付份额太小，或者因为这些计划创造了福利/贫困陷阱，或者因为它们削弱了经济。本研究评估了1960- 1991年间15个富裕的工业化国家的社会福利政策的广泛性对贫困率的影响，使用了绝对和相对的贫困措施。研究结果有力地支持了社会福利计划减少贫困的传统观点。
Most social scientists, policymakers, and citizens who support the welfare state do so in part because they believe social-welfare programs help to reduce the incidence of poverty. Yet a growing number of critics assert that such programs in fact fail to decrease poverty, because too small a share of transfers actually reaches the poor, or because such programs create a welfare/poverty trap, or because they weaken the economy. This study assesses the effects of social-welfare policy extensiveness on poverty rates across fifteen affluent industrialized nations over the period 1960-91, using both absolute and relative measures of poverty. The results strongly support the conventional view that social-welfare programs reduce poverty.