Family Transfers and Child Poverty in Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal

The paper examines the effect of family transfers on child poverty in Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal. Family transfers are defined as to include non-contributory child benefits, contributory family allowances and tax credits or allowances. The drive to reduce child poverty is of particular interest in southern Europe, where public support to poor families with children is often meagre or not available at all. The paper uses the European cross-country microsimulation model, EUROMOD, to assess the distributional impact of existing family transfers and to explore the scope for policy reforms, before it concludes with a discussion of key findings and policy implications.