Social assistance: comparative analysis
ENSocial assistance is an important element of welfare states. Each country has some social assistance, but its structure, production and eligibility criteria can differ. In last decades, researchers have focused on the comparative analysis of social assistance. The aim of the paper is to introduce the comparative analysis of social assistance and its complexity. This paper is based on descriptive analysis of literature and statistical data. It discusses the concepts ‘social assistance’ and ‘comparative analysis’, as well as gives an overview of indicators and proposed typologies of social assistance. The analysis of social assistance mostly focuses on the following aspects: what resources are used, who and on what pre-conditions can get different types of benefits, and whether it affects poverty. The paper gives an insight into several typologies of social assistance, based on different criteria – ideas and values, relations between assistance, insurance and social work, generosity, selectivity, targeting etc. To illustrate the complexity of the comparative analysis of social assistance, the case of the Baltic countries is used. The comparative analysis of social assistance has faced several methodological problems – there is no precise definition of the concept ‘social assistance’, and different terms are used as synonyms of it. Often it is difficult to make distinction between social assistance and other elements of social protection. Social assistance varies significantly from country to country in different dimensions. Key words: social assistance, comparative analysis.
