Program Effectiveness Evaluation Indicators of State Social Assistance to Families with Children

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Program Effectiveness Evaluation Indicators of State Social Assistance to Families with Children

Journal Title: Демографія та соціальна економіка - Year 2013, Vol 19, Issue

Abstract

Today, Ukraine faces a sharp demographic problem, aggravated by low level of population incomes and deep-rooted social stratification. The necessity of their solution poses a task for the government to pursue a conducive policy, under which people could effectively perform their professional functions and feel confident in their ability to raise their children with dignity. A key role in this process is performed by the social protection of families with children, the aim of which is not only to provide some primary baby care at its birth, but also support for children in their further life. Assessing the effectiveness of social payments requires regular monitoring in order to determine their effect on the demographic, social and financial situation in the country. No common approach of evaluating the effectiveness of social assistance system has been elaborated so far, and the sphere of social support for families with children belongs to the least explored ones. The paper suggests a system of indicators to evaluate the effectiveness of state social assistance pro- grams for families with children, which includes a set of static indicators, defining the use of the resources, the volumes and coverage of the social assistance programs, their scale and the degree of satisfaction of recipients, as well as dynamic indicators, which allow to assess the impact of changes in social assistance on the dynamics of social, demographic, and financial sectors. Practical application of the developed system of indicators allowed the author to carry out a com- prehensive monitoring of state aid to families with children, as well as to determine its specific functional characteristics. In the course of the research the author ascertained the fact, that in recent years, the Gov- ernment of Ukraine took decisive actions to improve social protection of families with children. The total state assistance funding increased from 7.1 billion UAH in 2007 to 22.3 billion UAH in 2011. Calculated in constant prices the increase constituted 1.8 times. Now the share of funding for public assistance to families with children has reached 1.7 % of GDP. The number of beneficiaries increased by almost 1.5 times during the studied period, exceeding 2.6 million households. The amount of social assistance also increased, in particular, the average payout for childcare below three years grew by 1.4 times. However, the overall level of payments is still very low compared to the cost of living and the average incomes of families. Positive changes in the system of social assistance to families with children caused some improvement in terms of national birthrate, but it is too early to assert that it has caused a positive demographic effect, as the number of families with two or more children has decreased over the past five years from 32.1 % to 24.7 %. Author also argues, that despite the reduction of the rate of poverty among the families with children from 33.8 % to 31.0 %, the number of families, which are constantly forced to deny themselves all essentials but food, has increased from 31.2 % to 34.5 %. These data prove the existence of a high proportion of families, which can not provide their children with decent living and therefore need special attention from the state. In general, the existing system of social assistance to families with children in Ukraine has quite modest influence on the demographic and social processes in the country, causing an ever-growing redistributive state influence on the level of its citizens’ well-being.

Authors and Affiliations

N. V. Fedirko

Keywords

EP ID EP287256
DOI 10.15407/dse2013.01.067
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