How do income-support systems in the UK affect labour force participation?

Arbeitspapier

This paper reviews how income-support systems affect labour force participation in the UK. The UK's approach to social insurance is basic security, with modest, typically flat-rate, benefits; insurance-based benefits are relatively unimportant. Compared with the EU, the UK has high employment rates, but a high proportion of non-workers say that they are not working through disability. In general, the low generosity of out-of-work benefits means that positive incentives to work exist for almost all benefit recipients, but weak work incentives exist for those receive Housing Benefit, and for primary earners in couples who have low earnings. Recent reforms to strengthen work incentives have altered the in-work tax credits, rather than the benefit system, and recent reforms to the out-of-work benefits have involved toughening and extending job-search requirements. The two main political parties seem to agree that future reforms will involve more conditionality, a greater use of the private sector, and a unification of the different labour market programmes.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Working Paper ; No. 2009:27

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; National Government Expenditures and Welfare Programs ; Social Security and Public Pensions ; Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty: Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs ; Labor Economics Policies ; Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure ; Time Allocation and Labor Supply ; Mobility, Unemployment, and Vacancies: Public Policy
• Subject: Institutions ; incentives ; reforms ; labour supply ; disability ; Arbeitsmarktpolitik ; Arbeitsangebot ; Ökonomischer Anreiz ; Soziale Sicherung ; Sozialhilfe ; Erwerbstätigkeit ; Steuerbegünstigung ; Großbritannien

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Brewer, Mike
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation (IFAU)
• (where): Uppsala
• (when): 2009

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/45768
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:45 AM CET