We contribute to the raising of empirical evidence on poverty and material deprivation of children in Austria by analysing the respective consequences of the COVID-19 crisis during 2020 and 2021. The study takes a comprehensive approach and analyses different aspects related to child poverty by addressing different concepts and indicators, socio-economic characteristics of children concerned as well as the impact of policy measures (COVID-induced measures, automatic stabilisers, and hypothetical policies) in its entirety and at the level of individual policy interventions.
We aim to answer the following four main research questions (RQs):
For analysing RQs 1&2, latest EU-SILC 2020-2022-data also covering the crisis-years (incomes 2019-2021) will be used. The prevalence of poverty and material deprivation during the crisis will be measured by traditional indicators related to monetary poverty as well as by an innovative index on material deprivation and social exclusion (employing the six dimensions debts and arrears, financial capacity, health, social interaction and personal relationships, housing and local environment quality, and education and care) which was compiled by the European Centre in a former research project for the City of Vienna.
RQs 3&4 will be investigated by using the tax-benefit microsimulation model EUROMOD/SORESI based on respective EU-SILC input data. To investigate the impact of both already existing automatic stabilisers and COVID-induced policy measures (both in their entirety and by individual [groups of] measures) on counteracting child poverty and losses of disposable income for families with children, in RQ3 we will employ a decomposition analysis based on two scenarios: (1) a COVID-world as in reality, and (2) a counterfactual scenario without the COVID-employment and income shock.