Fiscal Policy and Child Poverty in Belarus

This article develops a child-specific fiscal incidence analysis to quantify the child poverty reduction impacts of public spending and taxes in Belarus, a country with a much higher (and rising) incidence of poverty among children but a clear fiscal commitment towards eradicating child poverty. Our analysis shows that the overall fiscal system in Belarus effectively reduces poverty among children. However, the complexity of social assistance in Belarus leads to a remarkably wide range of impacts on monetary child poverty. The focus on certain households (with children ages 0-2) comes at the expense of households with other vulnerable children (households with multiple children, one parent households and households in rural councils). Policy simulations suggest that increasing access to the means-tested targeted social assistance for all poor households with children and removing the current 6-month restriction would lead to a complete elimination of child poverty at a very low additional fiscal cost.