Cash benefit programs

While sickness and disability are actuarial risks in that the incidence does not vary greatly from year to year, this is not the case with unemployment. It is partly for this reason that the duration for which unemployment benefits can be paid is limited in most countries or that benefits are reduced after a designated period. A further reason is to induce the unemployed to seek and accept work after benefits end or when they fall, although such work may be less well paid than the individual’s earlier work and may provide an income that is lower than the unemployment benefit that has ceased.

The payment of contributions plays a critical role in policing eligibility for unemployment benefits; as a result the benefit is not payable to all persons who are involuntarily unemployed. The school dropout who has never had a job or has held one only for a short period is normally ineligible for unemployment benefits. Women seeking to return to work after child-rearing are also ineligible, even though contributions were paid before leaving work. A prospective recipient must normally have held a job from which he has been released immediately before the benefit is claimed, and the individual must establish that he is available for work by registering at an employment office. Normally anyone who has voluntarily left a job or been discharged for misconduct is denied benefits or is penalized.

In some countries the level of unemployment benefits is deliberately set at the same rate as the benefit for short-term sickness (e.g., Canada, Denmark, and the Netherlands) so as to create no incentive for the beneficiary to try to establish eligibility for the higher benefit. In other countries the benefit for unemployment is at a lower level than the benefit for short-term sickness (e.g., Germany, Greece, and Hungary). Some countries that pay an earnings-related benefit for sickness pay a flat rate for unemployment (e.g., Bulgaria and Italy). In Australia and New Zealand unemployment benefits, like sickness benefits, are subject to a test of income. The duration of the benefit varies from 13 weeks in Bulgaria to six months in Hungary, Italy, and the Netherlands and a year in France, Germany, Luxembourg, and the United Kingdom; in Belgium benefits can be continued indefinitely. In many, but not all, countries the unemployed can claim social assistance after their unemployment benefits cease. In several countries in northern Europe unemployment benefit schemes are operated by trade unions, though with substantial government subsidy.

While only a few countries had family allowances before World War II and several of the schemes covered employed persons only, with financing by the employer, there was a rapid extension of schemes in the 1940s and ’50s. The extension was in large part attributable to the influence of the Beveridge Report in the United Kingdom. Following the British example most of the new schemes in Europe, Canada, and Australasia included all resident children. A second influence was France, which introduced flat-rate family allowances for all children of employed persons in its African colonies—a system also introduced in some Latin-American countries (e.g., Bolivia, Brazil, and Chile). The majority of schemes cover only employed persons, but a minority, particularly to be found in industrialized countries, pay allowances to all residents. The United States is exceptional among the latter countries in making no provision at all except in aid to dependent children paid on a means-tested basis.

Some systems of family allowances are intended to reduce poverty in large families or, particularly in eastern European countries, to increase the birth rate; the rate paid per child increases with the number of dependent children, reaching a maximum rate with the fifth or sixth child and subsequent children in, for example, Australia, Belgium, France, Ireland, and Norway, or the eighth child, as in the Netherlands. In the former Soviet Union, family allowances began with the fourth child and reached the maximum rate at the 11th. Some systems seem to suggest a desired maximum family size insofar as the rate falls for subsequent children once there are three (e.g., Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia) or two (e.g., Greece and Hungary), or allowances may be payable for a maximum of six children (e.g., Morocco). Finland recognizes that a mother is less likely to go to work if a child is under three years of age and therefore pays a supplement. On the other hand, Austria pays higher rates for older children because they are more expensive to maintain. Entitlement to family allowances ceases when a child reaches a particular age—in most cases the age when compulsory education ceases, though allowances may be continued when a child continues in full-time education or is disabled.

During the 1970s a number of countries decided to abolish income tax allowances for children and make a corresponding increase in the level of their family allowances. It was recognized that the largest beneficiaries from the tax allowances were high-income families with high marginal tax rates, and it was decided that this indirect benefit for children should be fairly shared among all families so as to increase the efficacy of family allowances in reducing poverty. Changes of this kind were made in Australia, Canada, Denmark, West Germany, Israel, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Denmark has gone one stage further and removed family allowances from the higher income groups by means of an income test. The United Kingdom has an additional income-tested allowance called the family income supplement which gives further help to low-income families.

It is the general practice for schemes that provide sickness benefits also to provide a maternity allowance starting before the birth of a child and extending for a number of weeks afterward. In some cases the rate of benefit is the same as for a sickness benefit, but in many cases the rate is higher—66 to 100 percent of previous earnings. Sweden has pioneered a parental allowance that can be drawn by the father as well as the mother to encourage fathers to take their turn in staying at home to look after the young child. In some cases a lump sum is also paid on the birth of a child to help pay for nursery goods and clothing.

During the 1970s there was a concerted effort in eastern Europe to try to increase the birth rate by increasing the period for which a maternity benefit was paid and by giving credits in the social insurance scheme to mothers who stayed at home to look after a young child. Similar credits are provided in the United Kingdom for persons who stay at home to care for a child or a disabled relative, but the motive in this case is to increase the personal pension rights of those, particularly women, who have accepted family responsibilities.

Provision is normally made for a widow below pension age left with a dependent child. Where pensions are earnings-related, the pension for a widow typically amounts to one-half to three-quarters of her husband’s pension rights. In some countries the benefit is income-tested or time-limited (e.g., three years in France). Other schemes vary considerably in the extent to which provision is made for widows. Some countries pay benefits providing widows are of a certain age when their husbands die. The age may vary between 40 (the Netherlands) and 55 (France). Some countries pay the benefit only providing the marriage has lasted for a specified period (six months in Greece; two years in France). Other countries pay the benefit to any widow who is disabled or to widows of any age for a short period or indefinitely. Widows’ benefits normally cease on remarriage. A widower may be able to claim rights similar to those of a widow if he was dependent on his wife. Some countries extend widows’ rights to divorced women. Increasingly, long-term provision for widows without dependent children is being questioned in societies where the trend has been for more and more married women to engage in paid work.

Provision for single parents other than widows is normally left to social assistance where such a scheme exists. Some countries have a special income-tested benefit. In Australia this is at the same level as an old-age pension for a person aged at least 65 but less than 70. In New Zealand it is less than half this rate for a single parent with one child. The problem with either of these arrangements is that a less skilled woman is unlikely to be able to improve her position by taking paid work because earnings lead to a reduction of the benefit or assistance. Denmark pays an extra family allowance higher than the normal rate per child for a single parent. Norway pays an extra allowance as if for one more child. The United Kingdom pays an extra allowance at just over half the level of child benefit.

All of the industrialized countries have social insurance schemes, and nearly all of them cover the main contingencies discussed above. The United States is exceptional in not providing family allowances, in not providing short-term sickness benefits in the vast majority of states, and in having no general scheme of national health insurance other than for the aged and the poor. The extent of provision in developing countries varies between those that still make provision by employers’ liability and those that make provision by social insurance.