GINI DP 54: Social Redistribution, Poverty and the Adequacy of Social Protection in the EU

Social protection systems traditionally serve a dual purpose: to maintain acquired living standards in the event of the materialization of social risks and to combat poverty by guaranteeing adequate minimum incomes. More recently, these goals – which are basically instances of damage compensation – have been complemented with a third objective, namely to foster ‘active inclusion’ as a means of preventing or rectifying damage. Although this third aspect is present in any insurance system, it has only come to the fore more prominently and explicitly in the context of social protection since the 1990s.1 Instruments deployed to this end may range from guidance for unemployed or disabled persons towards economic self- reliance to disincentives for prolonged benefit dependency (see among many others Barr 2001). There are inherent tensions between these three primary purposes of social protection which have arguably become more pronounced as a result of social, economic and demographic changes. More specifically, as a consequence of the occurance of so-called ‘new social risks’ and of the need to develop employment strategies it may have become more difficult to pursue the goal of ‘poverty alleviation’.