Redistribution revisited: The impact of family membership on rights over resources

Objective: This study investigates the impact of family membership on redistribution. It addresses social inequality in terms of different rights over resources by clarifying how far public redistribution financially advantages or disadvantages families over individuals without recognised family members, as well as particular family forms over others. Background: Understanding redistribution has been a core issue in the social sciences since their very beginning. This study argues and shows that family-related redistribution has been largely neglected but is indispensable to refining our understanding of redistribution. Method: The research question was answered using a three-step procedure: first by focusing on whether family is a redistributive principle of European countries; second, by focusing on differences in redistributive logics by differentiating family forms; and third, by contrasting redistributive regulations and their implementation. The study leverages two techniques of regulation analysis, using regulation data from the European databases MISSOC and EUROMOD, and confronts these results with outcome data drawn from EU-SILC. It covers all relevant forms of public redistribution in relation to the family (i.e. taxes, benefits and financial obligations). Results: The most impactful finding is that, while countries differ in the degree of family-related redistribution (different from established country clusters), the redistributive logics are rather similar (i.e. the family forms that are more or less supported do not differ much among the European countries, here the EU plus the UK). Redistribution in part strongly varies with the family form one lives in, resulting in mostly more, sometimes fewer, resources for families in comparison to individuals without family. In addition, the study of the implementation of redistribution reflects a ‘Matthew effect’ that has not been found in redistribution as regulated. Conclusion: This study shows that when analysis of redistribution and its international variation is limited to the individual, neither redistribution nor country differences can be adequately understood. Consequently, it emphasises the need for more comprehensive analyses in redistribution studies and welfare state analysis.