Přehled o publikaci

To ensure the financial needs of parents immediately after the birth of a child, the state social support benefit - childbirth benefit- - is paid. Its existence, conditions and amount is a social incentive for citizens and is part of the social security and family policy of every modern welfare state. Its form and organisation are subject to individual adjustment by each government in reflection of the socio-economic, cultural and political situation in a given country. Although the European Union as a whole represents a unifying element in a number of national economic applications, it is in the case of birth grants that significant differences can be identified. It is the description and comparison of these disparities that is the subject of this paper. The synthesis and analysis of the birth benefit in the 27 EU countries is a surprisingly methodologically difficult topic that has not been treated analogically so far. The results of the comparative analysis show that not all EU countries have childbirth benefits and, if they do, the conditions under which they are provided differ, while there are also differences in the level of the benefit provided. In response to the results of the descriptive-comparative analysis of the “childbirth benefit” in EU countries, the question arises whether the childbirth benefit can be perceived as a financially motivating instrument of family policy and influence population growth in society, and whether favouring this benefit for families with more children will not create socio-economic problems and a higher burden on the state in the area of state social support benefits.