engleski

Local social benefits in Croatia: how much do they address the poverty risks and needs of families with children?

Family policies and their impact on the well-being of families are often a topic of research. However, local social benefits are the least researched among them. This paper sets to explore to what extent the most important cash and in-kind local social benefits of the Croatian capital Zagreb and of the country’s three biggest cities (Split, Rijeka and Osijek) cover the costs of child-rearing and reduce child poverty. Using microsimulation techniques, the support provided to families with children is estimated and the distributional impact of these policies assessed. The results reveal that local benefits greatly complement the central government policies and substantially increase the support for families but with differences among cities ; the policies of Zagreb and Rijeka proved to be the most generous and effective, followed by those of Split and Osijek. Main limitations of this study come from the use of microsimulation models: assumption of full benefit take-up for some policies and lack of simulation of some policies due to lack of data. This article is a first comprehensive study of family benefits on central and local government level in Croatia.

miCROmod ; local self-government ; family policies ; child poverty

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