TY - JOUR
T1 - Social welfare matters
T2 - A realist review of when, how, and why unemployment insurance impacts poverty and health
AU - O'Campo, Patricia
AU - Molnar, Agnes
AU - Ng, Edwin
AU - Renahy, Emilie
AU - Mitchell, Christiane
AU - Shankardass, Ketan
AU - St. John, Alexander
AU - Bambra, Clare
AU - Muntaner, Carles
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by the European Community's Seventh Framework Program ( FP7/2007–2013 ) to the SOPHIE Project (Evaluating the Impact of Structural Policies on Health Inequalities and their Social Determinants and Fostering Change), Grant no. 278173 . Special thanks to Carolyn Ziegler, medical librarian at St. Michael's Hospital, Toronto, Canada for her assistance with selecting keyword search terms and electronic databases.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 The Authors.
PY - 2015/5/1
Y1 - 2015/5/1
N2 - The recent global recession and concurrent rise in job loss makes unemployment insurance (UI) increasingly important to smooth patterns of consumption and keep households from experiencing extreme material poverty. In this paper, we undertake a realist review to produce a critical understanding of how and why UI policies impact on poverty and health in different welfare state contexts between 2000 and 2013. We relied on literature and expert interviews to generate an initial theory and set of propositions about how UI might alleviate poverty and mental distress. We then systematically located and synthesized peer-review studies to glean supportive or contradictory evidence for our initial propositions. Poverty and psychological distress, among unemployed and even the employed, are impacted by generosity of UI in terms of eligibility, duration and wage replacement levels. Though unemployment benefits are not intended to compensate fully for a loss of earnings, generous UI programs can moderate harmful consequences of unemployment.
AB - The recent global recession and concurrent rise in job loss makes unemployment insurance (UI) increasingly important to smooth patterns of consumption and keep households from experiencing extreme material poverty. In this paper, we undertake a realist review to produce a critical understanding of how and why UI policies impact on poverty and health in different welfare state contexts between 2000 and 2013. We relied on literature and expert interviews to generate an initial theory and set of propositions about how UI might alleviate poverty and mental distress. We then systematically located and synthesized peer-review studies to glean supportive or contradictory evidence for our initial propositions. Poverty and psychological distress, among unemployed and even the employed, are impacted by generosity of UI in terms of eligibility, duration and wage replacement levels. Though unemployment benefits are not intended to compensate fully for a loss of earnings, generous UI programs can moderate harmful consequences of unemployment.
KW - Health
KW - Poverty
KW - Realist review
KW - Social protection programs
KW - Unemployment
KW - Unemployment benefits
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84925004919&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.03.025
DO - 10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.03.025
M3 - Article
C2 - 25795992
AN - SCOPUS:84925004919
VL - 132
SP - 88
EP - 94
JO - Social Science and Medicine
JF - Social Science and Medicine
SN - 0277-9536
ER -
