Preferences for specific social welfare expenditures in Ireland

Abstract

Many articles examine general level preferences for redistribution. However, few articles examine preferences for specific forms of redistribution. This article examines the decomposition of demand for three major categories of social welfare expenditure in Ireland: unemployment payments, old age pensions and child benefit. The determinants of preferences are found to be fairly consistent with a self-interested economics perspective with respect to the utilization and financing of these three specific schemes. In addition, the split sampling procedure used in the nationwide survey indicated that the provision of information on the schemes' costs did not have a significant effect on preferences.

Acknowledgements

Liam Delaney is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Geary Institute in University College Dublin. This research was carried out while he was a Government of Ireland research scholar in Trinity College Dublin. Francis O'Toole is a lecturer in economics at Trinity College Dublin. The survey, which was financed by the authors, was carried out by Lansdowne Market Research. Thanks for helpful comments to James MacCarthy-Murrough, seminar participants at Trinity College Dublin and at the Irish Social Policy Association Annual Conference 2004.

Notes

¹Coughlan (1966), as cited in Curry (2003), in reviewing the development of social service provision provides a quote that is illustrative: ‘Most people are aware of the ad hoc and fragmentary way in which the social services came into being; they were largely a piecemeal growth, introduced at different times to cover different categories of need and in response to different pressures, the result of a wide variety of motives – humanitarianism, social idealism, political expediency, the desire to damp down social discontent, the response to the spread of democracy and universal suffrage, the need to provide an environment conducive to industrial development. Seldom were they the expression of a coherent philosophical outlook’.

²See the Department of Social and Family Affairs' website (http://www.welfare.ie/) for more details.

³The State old age pension system is operated on a pay as you go system. An important aspect of the system is the sustainability of higher levels of pensions in the face of an ageing population. While Ireland's demographic pyramid is more robust than many other European countries (e.g. France or Germany), it is still the case that the country faces an increasing pension bill. De Vaus et al. (2003) review some of the potential consequences of increasingly ageing populations, among them increasing age polarization and age group consciousness and conflict between generations undermining social cohesion. Fahey et al. (1997) in an Irish context argue that the increased pension bill going forward will be offset by favourable employment trends.