Comparative Social Policy Europe

Welfare State

Generally understood as a means of redistribution. Redistributes through cash transfers (pensions, unemployment, family benefits, minimum income bens), as well as services (healthcare, education, childcare services)

Social Policy

1. encompasses policies based on 

• Healthcare

• Employment 

• Labor market policies that influence employment

• Family policy

• Disability

• Long-term care 

• Housing

• Policies to address dire poverty

• Education

Normative Dimension of Social Policy

Is the welfare state necessarily benevolent or pro-poor?

Social Citizenship

to live in the full life of a civilized being according to the standards prevailing in society - connected to the institutions of education and social services (T.H. Marshall)

Strict definition of Welfare State

Societies in which a substantial part of the production of welfare in paid for and provided by the state

In the broader definition of welfare state

countries that have reasonably developed social protection systems, where the state is one actor but not necessarily the main actor in financing and providing welfare

OECD average social expenditure as % of GDP

20%

EU average social expenditure as % of GDP

25%

Highest spender for social as % of GDP

France

Titmus

What is Social Policy - 1974

• We should not conflate social policy with altruism, equality, etc. In itself it is not beneficent or welfare oriented, doesn’t imply allegiance too any political party

• Three contrasting models of social policy by Latiffe:

1. The residual welfare model: institutions are temporary, the private market and family make on the most important sources for meeting individuals’ needs

2. The industrial achievement-performance model: social welfare institutions as supplementary to the economy, social needs should be met based on merit, rewards and incentives

3. The institutional-redistributive model of social policy: sees social policy as major integrated institution in society and provides universalist services, principles of social equality

5 theoretical approaches for understanding WS growth and differences

1. Logic of Industrialism

2. Logic of Capitalism

3. Logic of Modernization

4. Power Resources Theory

5. Role of Religion

Logic of Industrialism

the need for a highly organized form of income protection increases as a society becomes industrialized and urbanized, old people increase

Logic of Capitalism

Marxist approach, says that capitalist state tries to fulfill two contradictory functions: accumulation and legitimisation, social policies as the “crutch of capitalism”. Main purpose of transfer payments like social insurance is to reproduce the workforce, income payments to poor are to pacify and cintrol surplus population

Logic of Modernisation

WS as a product of phenomenon of modernisation, which leads to increasing differentiation in growing societies and political mobilisation. Says WS can be analysed in relation to three variables: socio-economic development, political mobilisation of working class, and constitutional structures

Power Resources theory

emphasises the importance of mobilization of workers and social democratic/leftist parties: socialist parties have the strongest support when workers are mobilized.

Role of Religion

Decommodification

refers to the degree of which individuals/families can uphold a socially accepted standard of living independently of market participation, measured by eligibility rules (conditions/ duration of access to benefits), and benefit levels

Social Stratification

how social policies distinguish between classes of people, if they reproduce or overcome status and social differences: the organizational features of a WS that determine the articulation of social solidarity, division of class, etc. measured through expenditure on pensions, poor relief, private health spending, universalism, benefit equality

Esping-Andersen

(1990) The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism

• Important because introduced the concept of a welfare regime

• Tries to define/specify what is a WS on qualitative (states structures) rather than quantitative (money spent on WS) dimensions, the dimensions are

1. Level of decommodification

2. The type of social stratification

3. The welfare “mix” between state, market, family in providing welfare services

Critiques of Esping-Andersen

• Specific countries don’t fit

• Differentiation in states between policy areas

• There should be more thatn three worlds (aka post-communist world)

• Lack of gender dimension

• Typology should not be an end in itself

Three Regimes:

• Liberal Welfare State

• Conservative Corporatist

• Social Democratic

Liberal Welfare state

• Anglo-speaking countries: USA, Canada, UK

• State as a facilitator of the market

• Non intervention in the private sphere of the family

• Aims to alleviate extreme poverty

• Needs-based

• Financed by general taxation

• Means-tested benefits

• Low redistribution

• Makes social stratification worse

• Low level of decommodification

• Medium level of female employment

Conservative-corporatist

• Continental european countries

• State regulates market

• Strong familialism, family should provide welfare

• Aims to maintain income and status

• Social contribution-based (payroll taxes)

• Redistribution through contribution level, proportional benefits

• Managed by social partners

• Eligibility based on employment

• Horizontal redistribution

• Reinforces social stratification

• Medium level of decommodification

• Low level of female employment

Social democratic

• Based on socialism

• Nordic countries 

• Strong state to protect individuals against market and to emancipate them from family

• Aim: redistribution and reduction of inequalities

• redistribution is universal

• Eligibility based on residence

• Benefits are flat-rate and earnings related, but mostly universal services

• Financed by general taxation

• State and local-gov run

• Reduces social stratification

• High level of decommodification

• High female employment

Two-tier social citizenship system

Lewis 1992

Men have acquired social INSURANCE rights as workers, whereas women have acquired social ASSISTANCE rights as mothers

Social Insurance

Earned rights (legitimate), comes from being a workers

Social Assistance

deemed illegitimate because of strong normative assumptions regarding who is deserving or who is not, duties and obligations on the part of the beneficiary, can be easily cut back because not “earned”, thought of as burden on the state

De-familialization

Esping-Andersen

policies that lessen individuals’ reliance on the family and maximize command of economic resources outside the family

First Wave Feminist Critique (70s-80s, USA)

• Production, reproduction, and issue of care: widens analysis of WS beyond economic dimension, considers how it impacts family and reproduction

• Women and families as main providers of welfare

• Womens role as carers has led to their economic subordination and lack of access to social rights

• Need for reconceptualization of value of care work and reproductive labor

• Welfare state as a form of patriarchy: welfare is largely produced by women, but general under control of and in the interests of men and capitalism

Second wave Feminist Critique (nordic, late 80s)

• Emancipatory potential of nordic welfare states

• Comparative analysis: there are considerable differences in between countries in terms of men’s and women’s social entitlements

• Women’s dependence on social assistance varies by country

Newer perspective Feminist critique

• Moving away from analyzing WS as form of patriarchy and more on understanding how gender relations have been socially constructed and supported by different institutions in diff countries

• Has built on work of esping-andersen

Lewis

(1992) Gender and Development of Welfare Regimes

• Male breadwinner model has been seen historically throughout welfare regimes

• Andersen has mae worker in mind when he discusses decommodification, decommodification for women means they carry out more unpaid labor in caring

• Two-tier social citizenship system

• Countries with stronger feminist movements (like britain) often left in worse outcomes

• Many working women excluded from contributory social security system because their earnings are too low

• comes up with three types: strong male breadwinner state, modified male-breadwinner states, weak

Strong male breadwinner states

Lewis

• Ireland and Britain, say that women must enter workforce on same terms as men, but it is still assumed the family will provide childcare

1. Low levels of childcare provision

2. Healthcare and unemployment often covered only for women as dependents

Modified male-breadwinner states

• example of france

1. Stronger female participation in workforce

2. Better family benefits

3. More part time female-work

4. One earner families benefitted over two earner families

Weak male breadwinner states: example of sweden

• example of sweden

1. Changed after WWII, 60s and 70s brought women into workforce

2. Two-earner family the norm

3. Compensated for unpaid work as mothers

4. More maternity benefits, paternity leave

Orloff

(1993) Gender and the Social Rights of Citizenship

• Most feminist research on WS has not been comparative

• Women need programs to compensate for marriage failures and the need to raise children alone

• Andersen's regimes do not fully predict women’s employment patterns

• Sweden has highest sex segregation in occupations

• States reinforce gender hierarchy through

• Privileging full-time workers over part-time or unpaid workers

• Reinforcing sexual division of labor

1. Proposes: access to paid work, and the capacity to maintain and form an autonomous household through

• Secure incomes for full-time carers

• Increase work opportunities and shift domestic responsibilities

Differences between Orloff and Lewis

Lewis’s method is to create new frameworks, aims to uncover gendered debates and assumptions about WS through a historical approach. Orloff’s method is to use mainstream theoretical frameworks to reconstruct the core ideas developed by Andersen so that they include gender dimensions, aims to propose tools for measuring the position of women in a WS

Which states have highest female employment?

Nordic states, switzerland, germany

Which states have lowest female employment?

Turkey, greece, italy have lowest

Native vs Non-native women’s work in EU

Non native born women living in the EU work less than native born women

Redistribution

refers to the reallocations of resources from one group to another, because it taxes and spends, the WS is by definition redistributive, but does not necessarily create more equality

Horizontal Redistribution

reallocating income across the lifecycle: unemployment benefits, family benefits, healthcare. High poverty associated with childhood, family, and old age

Vertical Redistribution

from rich to poor - linked to the progressivity of the tax system

Regressive redistribution

taxes that impose a greater burden on the poor. Include flat rate taxes, sales taxes, capped tax rates

The political logic of the welfare state

Rothstein 1998

to remain in power, social-dem parties cannot rely on dwindling working class constituency but must seek to gain votes of increasing group of middle class voters

The moral logic of the WS

Rothstein 1998

three main elements underpin the moral logic of the universal WS:

substantial justice,

procedural justice, and

the just distribution of burdens.

Requires faith in the legitimacy of the state, trust in gov institutions

Substantive justice

Rothstein 1998

general fairness, treating all citizens with “equal concern and respect” - reframing from “how shall we solve their problem” to “how can we solve our common issue”

Deservingness Criteria: CARIN model

1. Control: focused on how much people are in control over their neediness, level of responsibility

2. Attitude: refers to behavioral aspects: people who are likeable, dociale, compliant seen as more deserving

3. Reciprocity: poor people who have contributed to society before (through work) and are assumed to again are seen as more deserving

4. Identity: those closest to us (residence, kinship, groups) are seen as more deserving

5. Need: greater need seen as more deserving

Procedural justice

Rothstein 1998

in selective WS, need to set up bureaucratic system charged with verifying applicants eligibility (costly, democratic corruption issues), in universal system these legitimacy issues are less prevalent

The just distribution of burdens

Rothstein 1998

all citizens bear the cost of a certain program, all citizens contribute.

Magnet argument

Freeman 1986

more generous WS will attract migrants, who are most likely to need benefits (modest effect in actuality)

Welfare Chauvinism

A political and ideological stance where people supportWS but believe access to migrants should be restricted (exclusionary nationalism).

Alesina and Glaeser

(2004)

• Why are Americans less willing to redistribute than Europeans?

• Some answers:

• Pre-tax income more unequal in USA, but americans not ungenerous, donate much more to charity

• EUropean govs have more proportional representation systems compared to US majoritarian system, more resistant to communist ideas politically

• Institutions explain about one half of difference, racial fractionization explains other half 

• States with lower AA populations have better redistributive policies

• As europe invites more immigrants, tensions may be used to challenge welfare state

Rothstein

(1998) The Political and Moral Logic of the Universal WS

• Swedish system has little progressivity in its tax system and redistributes to all but creates more equality than selective WS with more progressivity and benefits targeted to the poor

• High taxes necessary for strong WS

• The more universal a WS, the better at redistributing

• For system to be redistributive, must cater to both poor and rich, especially as white collar groups have grown since WWII

• For middle class WS often an economic roundabout, but to be electorally effective, but middle group is electorally decisive 

• Services must be of a certain quality

• Some support from middle and upper classes comes from moral component, not only rational self-interest

Welfare State Crisis Economic Dimension

1. slow growth/negative growth makes it difficult to sustain welfare costs, as well as the result of globalisation

2. Life expectancy increasing, fertility decreasing (Old-age dependency ratio expected to continue increasing by a lot)

3. “Growth to limit” or maturation of the WS: most WS haven’t increased the percent of social expenditure of GDP since 2010

4. Pensions and health are the main public social spending (average for pension spending roughly 8% in OECD countries)

Welfare State Crisis Social Dimension

1. Welfare systems not adapted to the new risk structure, originally based on male industrial worker with continuous employment

2. Emergence of new social needs

3. Emergence of new social risks

Resiliency of Welfare State

1. Strong concentrated interest in maintaining SQ

2. Entrenched interest

3. Support remains widespread, difficult for gov to undertake sweeping reforms

Institutional Stickiness

role of path-dependency: institutions, once in place, tend to lock existing policy arrangements into place by strength of veto points in pol. Systems and entrenched interests

Permanent Austerity

changes in global economy, sharp slowdown in economic growth, maturation of fiscal commitments, and ageing population all contribute

Pivotal Voter

Pivotal politics argument: in any situation where policy preferences can be arrayed on a single continuum, there is a pivotal actor whose vote determines whether an initiative moves forward or is blocked, so the pivotal voter weilds disproportionate power and policy outcomes should gravitate towards that location

1. Pivotal voter will be closer to the SQ than the median voter

Pierson

(2001) Coping with Permanent Austerity

• Politics of social policy are under renegotiation, but support for WS remains widespread

• As WS has expanded, so has the number of people it serves

• Benefits of retrenchment diffuse and uncertain

• Modern welfare states strongly path-dependent

• Pay as you go systems like pensions hold WS in place

• Maintenance of SQ may be unreasonable, but restructuring MUST be distinguished from retrenchment or dismantling

• Changes tend to be incremental rather than radical

Process of Restructuring WS

Pierson 2001

• Process of restructuring WS:

1. Recommodification: improving work incentives, restricting alternatives to participation in the labor market

2. Cost containment: inexorable demands of gov budgets result in cost containment strategy, no longer golden age for pay as you go systems

3. Recalibration: 

• Rationalization of systems in line with new ideas about how to achieve desired goals

• Updating: adapting to changing societal demands

• Modernization: correction of incentive incompatible programs

Liberal States Welfare Restructuring

• Support for entrenchment vs modest-restructuring more likely to be half and half

• Priority placed on recommodification, cost containment also other strategy

• Pivotal voter shifted to right

• Requires subsidization: targeted social provision for transition

Social democratic welfare state restructuring

Pierson 2001

• Public opinion strongly supportive of WS, strong union presence

• Focus on cost containment and recalibration of programs within a fixed budget (less need for recalibration than cost containment)

• Little need for updating

• Sustaining middle class allegiance is important

Conservative WS restructuring

Pierson 2001

• Broadly supportive of WS

• Concerns: rising costs for pensions, low fertility, high unemployment among low skilled

• Need to expand employment opportunities

• Cost containment in pensions, healthcare, disability, recalibration

• Central pol issue: whether or not countries could dev. Capacity to initiate and sustain middle coalition of WS restructuring

New Social Risks

Bonoli 2005

1. describes the new risks that have emerged that can help predict who will need the most welfare support. includes

• Long term unemployment

• Possessing low or obsolete skills

• In-work poverty (spread of atypical/precarious work)

• Work-life balance

• Old age dependency

• Single parenthood

New Social Risk bearers

Bonoli 2005

Includes the low skilled, women and especially lone mothers, youth, migrants, and children

Keynesianism

economic paradigm from great depression to the 1980s: slow growth and unemployment seen as issue of insufficient demand, demand-oriented strategy from state, focus in reducing income inequalities, progressive

Neoliberalism

economic paradigm 1980s-, new emphasis on budgetary rigor and wage restraint, unemployment as a supply-side problem, social policies seen as burden on the economy, less income security and more incentives to return to the labor market, ie “any job is a good job”

The Social Investment Perspective

Morel 2013

1. emerged since late 1990s as a critique of neoliberalism and concerning the role of social policy in relation to the economy: aims to adapt WS to postindustrial, knowledge based economy: aims to develop policies that prepare rather than repair (investing in human capital), reduce intergenerational transfer of poverty

• Shares focus with neoliberalism of activation: but focus is on creating quality jobs

• 3 areas of PP part of objective:

• policies that invest in human capital development and help preserve human capital over life course

• policies that make efficient use of human capital

• policies that provide active securities through the life course

Policies that invest in human capital development and help preserve human capital over the life course:

1. Education and training

2. Early childhood education

3. Development of quality jobs

4. Employment growth

5. Capacity for workplace learning

Policies that make efficient use of human capital

1. Policies that help parents combine work and family to raise female employment

2. Enable families to realize desired fertility

3. Childcare services

4. Parental leave schemes

5. Elderly care services

Policies that provide active securities through the life course

1. Provision of active securities (childcare while looking for jobs, helpo w job search)

2. Social bridges (mentorship, community orgs)

3. Generous and well designed flexicurity policies

The Lisbon Agenda

adopted by EU in 2000, aims to create a competitive knowledge based economy in europe with more jobs and social cohesion and sustainable economic growth

Turning Vice into Virtue

 Taking money away from one social security policy, targetting inequities in the WS that are a source of economic inefficiency or substantial public spending, and generates savings that can be turned towards “virtuous” objectives: redistribution income towards poor

Modernizing Compromises

1. similar mechanism to turning vice into virtue but with strong political dimension. contains:

1. Cost containment for old risks

2. Improvments and expansion for NSR riska

The Heckman Curve

rates of return based on human capital investment per dollar invested are highest in preschool, decrease with school and are lowest with job training (i.e. more investment at an earlier age is more effective)

Life Cycle approach to social investment

1. Early childhood: ECEC, family benefits

2. Youth: education, training

3. Prime: work-life balance policies

4. Older: ALMPs, life long learning

5. Old: active aging, healthcare, domiciliary care

Bonoli

2005 The Politics of New Social Policies

• NSRs are created by shifting social dynamics

• Reconciliation of work and family time (NSR group of women as they enter work force)

• Lowskilled workers predominantly employed in manufacturing during postwar years, and the productivity increases from technological advantages allowed their wages to increase

• But now, low skilled individuals work in low-value added services such as retail, cleaning, catering, and so on with little scope for productivity increases

• Job creation in low skll sector is limited

• Key socio demographic characteristics of NSR groups include: being young, being a women, and possessing low skills

• These are also associated with less political participation in western democracies (except for gender anymore)

• NSR new group has low power resources

• Programs targeting NSRs are also less expensive than traditional social security, because childcare only targets a certain demographic, whereas pension is for everyone

Morel

2013 A Social Investment Strategy for the Knowledge-Based Economy

• In new economy, knowledge as driver of productivity and economic growth

• Knowledge based economy thus rests on a skilled and flexible labor force

• In SIP, problem of unemployment is understood as being linked to a lack of adequate skills to fill todays jobs

• For SIp to become effective and emerge as a coherent policy alternatie, it needs to be more clearly distinguished from neoliberalism

• Activation strategy cannot be the same as neoliberals

• Shares with neoliberalism that social spending should be directed towards activating people in order to allow individuals and families to maintain responsibility for their wellbeing via market incomes, rather than passive benefits

• Social benefits should be scaled back to make work pay through positive econ incentives

Critiques of SIP

Morel 2013

1. Focus on investing for future returns means that todays poor are left behind

2. Focus on any job over qual of job

3. Children instrumentalized as citizen-workers of the future rather than citizen-children of the present

Main Instruments of Family Policy

1. Cash benefits

2. preschool/childcare services

3. Tax breaks for married couples/based on amount of children

4. Cash-for-care schemes

5. Family and parenting support services

6. maternal/paternal leave schemes

 Main Aims of Family Policy

1. Reducing family/childhood poverty

2. Narrowing gap in living standards between rich and poor families

3. Pro-natalist (fertility

4. Enabling parents to reconcile work and home

5. Improving child development (ECEC)

6. Fostering gender equality OR discouraging female labor force part.

7. Promoting free choice

8. Setting norms on what a family should look like

Factors of Parental Leave

1. Women perhaps seen as liability in leave is too long

2. Loss of income

3. Conductivity of paternal leave schemes to the leave being taken up

4. How are non standard families affected

5. Can increase gender-based labor market segregation

Early Childhood Education and Care

• Inequalities in access: affordability, difficult application processes, territorial inequalities

• Use is strongly correlated with the mothers educational level in many countries

• High enrollment in sweden (80%)

Adema, Clarke, Thévenon

2020 Family Policies and Family Outcomes in OECD Countries

• family policies can strengthen female labor force participation, but can alsp encourage job segregation and glass ceilings

• Nordic systems have high concentration of women in feminized occupations, and low female representation in managerial occupations

• Cohabitation becoming increasingly popular (unmarried romantic partners)

• Frequency of divorce has risen considerably, divorced single parents are much poorer

• Fertility has changed - 3.17 in 1960 to 1.5 in 2017 in OECD countries

• ECEC = early childhood education and care, support has grown in OECD countries increasingly except denmark and USA

Labor Market Policies

1. a large variety of public policies that impact the demand or supply side of the labor market; policies that incure direct governmental expenditure and are targeted directly to groups facing particular difficulties in the market. Examples: employment protection legislation, minimum wage policies, unemployment insurance, unemployment assistance

• Subdivided into three parts:

• supports (cash transfers like unemployment insurance etc, makes up most of labor market policies),

• services (intermediation work of the public employment service), and

• measures (interventionist policy instruments like training programs and direct creation of jobs)

Flexicurity

Bonoli 2010

1. A strategy for enhancing flexibility and security in the market. Measures include:

• Flexible and reliable contractual agreements

• Efficient ALMPs

• Systematic and responsive life long learning

• Modern social security provisions that contribute to mobility in the labor market

Active Labor Market Policies

1.  aim to increase opportunities for jobseekers and better match jobs. includes

• Incentive reinforcement: strengthen positive work incentives (tax credits) and negative incentives (benefit reduction, conditionality)

• Employment assistance: remove obstacles to employment and facilitate reentry: counseling, childcare provision

• Occupation: keep jobless people occupied to limit human capital depletion: job creation schemes in public sector, non-employment related training

• Human capital investment/upskilling: improve chances of employment through basic education and vocational training

Current labor market

• Unemployment insurance schemes integrated in the 1930s, labor shedding in 80s, activation since mid 90s, and flexicurity and almps since the 2000s

• Right now we are seeing deregulation (atypical work, mini-jobs, weakening employment protection), dualization (insiders v outsiders), recommodification (increased conditionality and sanctions, reduction in unemployment insurance)

Bonoli

2010 The Political Economy of Active Labor Market Policy

• Last two decades important for ALMP development

• ALMPs can be controversial

• Emphasis on ALMPs is supposed to be a characteristic of social-dem welfare scheme, leftist power significantly correlated with spending on ALMPs

• ALMPs viewed positively by employers because they support labor supply

• Researchers say ALMP movements in Sweden were major cross-class compromises that allowed social democrats to pursue their political objectives without endangering profitability of capital

• Harder to create ALMPs in Bismarkian social security scheme

• Some people distinguish between two types of ALMPs:

1. positive/offensive activation: relies on improving skills and empowerment

2. defensive/negative: sanctions, benefits reduction

highest healthcare spending as % of GDP

USA 16.6%

common trends in healthcare

• Physicians much higher in urban areas

• Common trends include increasing competition, more co-payments, more regulation of SHI systems

• Health problems are worse in more unequal countries

• Those who work more physically demanding and lower paying jobs have lower life expectancy

• continued to increase in OECD as % of GDP

Four Main Dimensions of Healthcare Systems

• The mode of access to healthcare

• The services that are guaranteed

• The financing and remuneration mechanisms

• The organization and regulation of the system

The Performance of Healthcare Systems

Pavolini et al 2013

objectives:

1. Social: guarantee equality of access to healthcare for all

2. Medical: ensure highest quality of care and optimum condition of health for the population

3. Economic: control costs and increase in health expenditure

4. Political: guarantee the responsiveness of the system and satisfaction of the population

The Healthcare Quadrilemna

how healthcare systems balance the different values

• Equality and freedom placed on opposite sides

• Viability and quality placed on opposite sides

• NHS systems NHS in middle, SHI in between viability and freedom

Upstream Policies (healthcare)

social policies addressing and reducing differences of income, education, working conditions

Downstream policies (healthcare)

health policies, improvement of equity of access

National Health Systems

funded through general taxation, coverage is universal and usually free at point of use. Long waiting times. Nordic countries, UK, italy, spain, canada, australia

Social Health Insurance Systems

funded through mandatory health insurance contributions usually as a percent of wages, multiple sickness funds providers provide coverage, more copayments. Cost control is difficult. Germany, France, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands

Residual/Liberal Healthcare Systems

limited public responsibility, targeted programs, minimal safety net, lots of private insurance dependence. Countries like US, Ireland to some extent, and some central/eastern european countries