Measuring the size and impact of public cash support for children in cross-national perspective

Abstract

We suggest a new comprehensive measure of support given through tax-benefit systems
to families with children. Using microsimulation techniques, this accounts for all
provisions contingent on the presence of children, while usually only gross child/family
benefits are considered. We use EUROMOD, the European Union tax-benefit
microsimulation model, to quantify the support for children and analyse its impact on
household incomes and child poverty for 19 countries. We find that the conventional
approach underestimates on average the total amount of support for children by about
one fifth. Furthermore, the differences between two measures vary considerably across
countries and are, therefore, critical for cross-national comparisons.