The German Welfare Reforms and Individual Health

In order to improve the competiveness of its labour market, major welfare reforms were implemented in Germany in the last decade. Old schemes of welfare and unemployment assistance were amalgated into a new type of welfare called unemployment benefit II (UB II).  UB II was supposed to be the new basic social security scheme and as such supposed to provide the minimum resources necessary for an individual to meet his or her basic needs. The central aim of UB II was the reintegration of individuals back into the labour market, that had been detached from it. Eligible for UB II receipt are not only long-term unemployed and people that received welfare prior to 2005, but also individuals, where other forms of income are not enough to provide the sufficient resources to meet basic needs.

The aim of this study is, whether UB-II-receipt has a singular effect on health. A negative effect could be caused by the stigma attached to the new welfare program.

In order to analyze this possible association, longitudinal data from the panel study "Labour market and social security" is used. The sample consists out of 12000 respondents aged 18 to 65, who participated up to five years from 2006 to 2011. Subjective health measures are the outcomes of interest. Fixed Effect panel models are calculated to establish a possible association between subjective health, unemployment and UB-II-receipt.