"Children of austerity: impact of the great recession" with Prof Brian Nolan

Past Event

Date
19 March 2018, 3:00pm - 4:00pm

Location
Lecture Theatre, Oxford Martin School
34 Broad Street (corner of Holywell and Catte Streets), Oxford, OX1 3BD

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This book talk is part of the FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival 2018, the Oxford Martin School is the Festival Ideas Partner

Expert in social policy Professor Brian Nolan explains how children in rich countries were among the main victims of the 2008 financial crisis and the subsequent recession and asks what lessons can be learned.

This is a ticketed event and the tickets are £7 - £12.50. For more information and to purchase a ticket please visit this website: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/date/448017


About the speaker

Brian Nolan is Director of the Oxford Martin Programme on Inequality and Prosperity; Director of the Employment, Equity and Growth Programme at the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School; and Professor of Social Policy at the University of Oxford. He was previously Principal of the College of Human Sciences and Professor of Public Policy at University College Dublin.

His main areas of research are income inequality, poverty, and the economics of social policy. Recent research has focused on trends in income inequality and their societal impacts, the distributional effects of the economic crisis, social inclusion in the EU, top incomes, deprivation and multiple disadvantage, and tax/welfare reform. He has been centrally involved in a range of collaborative cross-country research networks and projects, most recently the Growing Inequalities’ Impacts (GINI) multi-country research project on inequalities and their impacts funded by the EU’s Framework Programme 7.

Recent books include The Handbook of Economic Inequality (2008) which he co-edited with Wiemer Salverda and Tim Smeeding, Poverty and Deprivation in Europe (2011) co-authored with Christopher T. Whelan, The Great Recession and the Distribution of Household Income (2013), edited with Stephen Jenkins, Andrea Brandolini and John Micklewright, and two co-edited volumes from the GINI project in 2013.

About the book

Children of Austerity: Impact of the Great Recession on Child Poverty in Rich Countries: The 2008 financial crisis triggered the worst global recession since the Great Depression. Many OECD countries responded to the crisis by reducing social spending. Through 11 diverse country case studies (Belgium, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the United States), the book, Children of Austerity: Impact of the Great Recession on Child Poverty in Rich Countries, describes the evolution of child poverty and material well-being during the crisis, and links these outcomes with the responses by governments.

The analysis underlines that countries with fragmented social protection systems were less able to protect the incomes of households with children at the time when unemployment soared. In contrast, countries with more comprehensive social protection cushioned the impact of the crisis on households with children, especially if they had implemented fiscal stimulus packages at the onset of the crisis. Although the macroeconomic 'shock' itself and the starting positions differed greatly across countries, while the responses by governments covered a very wide range of policy levers and varied with their circumstances, cuts in social spending and tax increases often played a major role in the impact that the crisis had on the living standards of families and children.