the chapter reviews existing social policies and recent attempts to find better ways of allocating public resources for those most in need in particular families with children it concludes with a summary of the main challenges and suggests reform avenues to develop a social protection system which would support the workingage population more effectively the subsequent sharp economic slowdown in did not generate a significant increase in overall poverty rates as labour market adjustments involved reduced working hours rather than layoffs chapter and because pension payments increased almost by since chapter