The outcomes for the income situation of the Europe 2020 social target group (persons at risk of poverty, materially deprived persons, persons in households with no or low work intensity) should be estimated. The estimation is carried out via the user-friendly microsimulation model SORESI. This Policy Brief describes the most important features of the SORESI model and presents a policy reform example related to the increase of the family allowance.

Quota systems for private and/or public enterprises or institutions exist in the majority of EU countries. Their target is to stimulate labour demand by committing employers to employ a certain share of employees with disabilities. Typically, the stipulated share ranges between 2% and 7% of the workforce. In most countries the degree of fulfilment ranges between 30% and 70%. According to available empirical data, quota systems only lead to small net employment gains. While already employed persons who become disabled and can be included are more likely to remain employed, quotas only provide small incentives to hire disabled people.

Preventing avoidable unhappiness should be given priority as a policy goal – even more so than maximizing happiness. Using a cross-sectional multi-country dataset with 57 thousand observations from 29 European countries, we show that unhappiness varies a great deal more across social groups than (high levels of) happiness does.

In this Policy Brief Pieter Vanhuysse presents a simple four-dimensional snapshot indicator of intergenerational justice (IJI) in practice for Austria and 28 other OECD countries. Three of the IJI dimensions measure policy outcomes that leave legacy burdens towards younger and future generations: the ecological footprint created by all generations alive today; early-life starting conditions as measured by child poverty levels; and the public debt burdens on the shoulders of currently young generations. A fourth dimension presents a measure of welfare states’ overall pro-elderly bias in social spending.

Provides an overview of research activities and publications in 2013 and 2014.