The effect of COVID-19 on poverty and material deprivation of children in Austria

DESCRIPTION

In our series of international seminars, in this face-to-face event the main results of the project „The effect of COVID-19 on poverty and material deprivation of children in Austria“, funded by the Jubiläumsfonds of the Austrian National Bank (project number 18785), were presented and discussed. The presentations will be available for download shortly. 

Eszter Zólyomi and Michael Fuchs focused on the following research questions:

• How did the prevalence of atrisk-of-poverty (AROP) and material deprivation of children in Austria develop during the COVID-crisis?
• Are the family characteristics of children concerned somewhat different compared to the situation before the crisis?

Leonard Geyer and Felix Groß-Wohlgemuth provided evidence on the following research questions related to the performance of the Austrian tax-benefit system in mitigating the COVID-induced consequences on market incomes:

• How effective was the Austrian taxbenefit system in preventing an increase in child poverty due to COVID-19?
• How would additional policies to counter child poverty have performed during the COVIDcrisis?

The analyses are based on a secondary analysis of EU-SILC data and on tax-benefit microsimulation (model EUROMOD).

Karin Heitzmann commented the main findings of the project from the perspective of a socio-economist and contextualised them with a view on previously available scientific evidence on the (financial) outcomes of the COVID-crisis on children in Austria.

Katrin Gasior brought in her expertise on comparative social policy research using tax-benefit microsimulation models, in particular related to the situation of vulnerable groups and evidence-based policy making.

The seminar was moderated by Anette Scoppetta.