Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/45768
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2009
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper No. 2009:27
Publisher: 
Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation (IFAU), Uppsala
Abstract: 
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.
Subjects: 
Institutions
incentives
reforms
labour supply
disability
JEL: 
H53
H55
I38
J08
J21
J22
J68
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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