About this event

The speaker will join the seminar virtually and present online. The seminar will still take place in SAL 3.05 for anyone who wants to attend in person. Europe has experienced a significant rise in single, childless households of working age in recent decades. This presents a challenge to European welfare states that have typically tended to prioritise social security and anti-poverty spending around family-based and lifecycle needs. In response, this event will introduce new analysis that moves beyond an examination of the absorptive functions of family to consider how household structures affect access to, and adequacy, of working-age welfare. To do so, Daniel Edmiston will present new findings on the effectiveness of tax and transfer systems in tackling poverty amidst considerable changes in household composition across Europe. The event will first explore how the overall profile and composition of poverty has changed across Europe in recent years. Relative to their poverty risk and contribution towards overall poverty rates, Daniel will then explore how European tax and transfer systems tend to perform in lifting single, childless households out of poverty, exploring fault lines according to labour market attachment, disability status and levels of (de) familisation. Daniel Edmiston is currently Principal Investigator of the WHOCOUNTS project at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. His research focuses on poverty, inequality, welfare politics and state-citizen dynamics in high-income countries. His research has been funded by Economic and Social Research Council, British Academy and European Research Council.