Social welfare matters: A realist review of when, how, and why unemployment insurance impacts poverty and health

O'Campo, P.; Molnar, A.; Ng, E.; Renahy, E.; Mitchell, C.; Shankardass, K.; St. John, A.; Bambra, C.; Muntaner, C.

doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.03.025

Social welfare matters: A realist review of when, how, and why unemployment insurance impacts poverty and health

O'Campo, P.; Molnar, A.; Ng, E.; Renahy, E.; Mitchell, C.; Shankardass, K.; St. John, A.; Bambra, C.; Muntaner, C.

Authors

P. O'Campo

A. Molnar

E. Ng

E. Renahy

C. Mitchell

K. Shankardass

A. St. John

C. Bambra

C. Muntaner

Abstract

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.

Citation

O'Campo, P., Molnar, A., Ng, E., Renahy, E., Mitchell, C., Shankardass, K., …Muntaner, C. (2015). Social welfare matters: A realist review of when, how, and why unemployment insurance impacts poverty and health. Social Science & Medicine, 132, 88-94. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.03.025

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Mar 13, 2015
Publication Date	May 1, 2015
Deposit Date	Mar 19, 2015
Publicly Available Date	Mar 24, 2015
Journal	Social science and medicine
Print ISSN	0277-9536
Publisher	Elsevier
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	132
Pages	88-94
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.03.025
Keywords	Unemployment, Unemployment benefits, Social protection programs, Health, Realist review.

Files

Published Journal Article (617 Kb)
PDF

Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Copyright Statement
© 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).