Evaluating the impact of social transfers on income poverty and material deprivation in European countries (provisional title)

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The research project concerns the evaluation of the impact of socialtransfers on income poverty and material deprivation in European countries.Despite the large empirical comparative literature about the relationship betweenthe welfare state and poverty and the links between social expenditure and thereduction of poverty (Brady, 2005; Korpi and Palme, 1998; Kenworthy, 1999;Avraam, 2013), relatively little is known about the impact of social transfers onboth income poverty and material deprivation. Most research has focused onexamining the impact of social transfers on income poverty and inequality, whereasthe effect of social transfers on material deprivation has only recently attracted theattention of some scholars (Notten and Guio 2019; 2021). Although a number ofstudies have shown that income and material deprivation are complementarybecause they reflect related but different concepts of material well-being (Nottenand Guio, 2016) and they address the need to capture the multidimensional aspectsof poverty and social exclusion (Marlier et al., 2007; Nolan and Whelan, 2010;Battiston et al., 2013) , it appears that a very limited number of studies have beencarried out to date on the effect of social transfers on both income poverty andmaterial deprivation across countries and that there is no single correctmethodology established to evaluate the effect of social transfers. As such, thereare currently gaps in the evidence on the impact of social transfers, especially asregards comparative evidence on the actual effect of social transfers on bothincome poverty and material deprivation.By employing a quantitative approach based on secondary longitudinal dataanalysis, this study seeks to explore changes in the impact of social transfers onpoverty and deprivation. It focuses on the EU-27 member-states and the UK,covering the period 2015-2019. The main objective of this research is toinvestigate and assess the impact of social transfers on both income poverty andmaterial deprivation cross-nationally and to provide comparative quantitativerelevant evidence for the EU-27 member-states and the UK. The findings of thisresearch are expected to improve the understanding of the impact of socialtransfers by providing quantitative evidence regarding the effect of social transferson both income poverty and material deprivation cross-nationally. In this respect, itis expected to contribute to enriching literature concerning the impact of socialtransfers and to provide useful insights in measuring its impact that may constitutenew opportunities for comparative research and in-depth country case studyanalyses. Overall, the project is expected to improve our knowledge and provide abetter understanding of the impact of social transfers and their role in socialprotection. At the same time, the findings of this research will be useful fordesigning more effective social policies.