In Search of Security: Migrant Workers' Understandings, Experiences and Expectations Regarding ‘Social Protection’ in Ireland

2009 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 157-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
VIRPI TIMONEN ◽  
MARTHA DOYLE
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Protection System ◽  
Migrant Populations ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Welfare State

AbstractWhile both migration and welfare states are popular topics of research, the intersection between them is rarely studied. In this article, we present the findings of a study that explored migrant workers' conceptualisation of ‘social protection’ and their relationship with the Irish welfare state. The main foci of analysis for the purposes of this article are the migrant workers' understandings, experiences and expectations regarding their social protection and the welfare state. While our findings hint at the presence of many migrant workers who are very poorly anchored into and even completely detached from the Irish welfare state, they also reveal complex and ambivalent attitudes towards component parts of the social protection system. While the findings presented here stem from a qualitative study in a single country, we hypothesise that similar patterns can be identified among the migrant populations in other, particularly liberal, welfare states.

scholarly journals Social innovation as a policy response to restructure the welfare state

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 269-276
Author(s):  
Doğa Başar Sariipek ◽  
Gökçe Cerev ◽  
Bora Yenihan
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Social Innovation ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
The State ◽  
Welfare Provision ◽  
Civil Society Organisations ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
Social Risks ◽  
The Welfare State

The focus of this paper is the interaction between social innovation and restructuring welfare state. Modern welfare states have been reconfiguring their welfare mixes through social innovation. This includes a productive integration of formal and informal actors with support and leading role of the state. This collaboration becomes significantly important since it means the integration of not only the actors, but also their capabilities and resources in today’s world where new social risks and new social challenges have emerged and no actor can overcome these by its own. Therefore, social innovation is a useful tool in the new role sharing within the welfare mix in order to reach higher levels of satisfaction and success in welfare provision. The main point here is that this is not a zero-sum competition; gaining more power of the actors other than the state – the market, civil society organisations and the family – does not necessarily mean that the state lost its leading role and power. This is rather a new type of cooperation among actors and their capabilities as well as their resources in welfare provision. In this sense, social innovation may contribute well to the debates over the financial crisis of the welfare state since it may lead to the more wisely use of existing resources of welfare actors. Thanks to social innovative programs, not only the NGOs, but also market forces as well as citizens are more active to access welfare provisions and social protection in the broadest sense. Thus, social innovative strategies are definitely a solid step taken towards “enabling” or “active” welfare state.

The Changing Shapes of Latin American Welfare States

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evelyne Huber ◽  
Zoila Ponce de León
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Debt Crisis ◽  
Healthcare Services ◽  
Safety Net ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Cash Assistance ◽  
The Welfare State

Latin American welfare states have undergone major changes over the past half century. As of 1980, there were only a handful of countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, and Uruguay) with social policy regimes that covered more than half of their population with some kind of safety net to insure adequate care during their old age and that provided adequate healthcare services. With few exceptions, access to social protection and to healthcare in these countries and others was based on formal employment and contributions from employees and employers. There were very few programs, and those few were poorly funded, for those without formal sector jobs and their dependents. The debt crisis and the ensuing neoliberal reforms then damaged the welfare state in all countries, including these leading nations. Deindustrialization, shrinking of the public sector, and cuts in public expenditures reduced both coverage and quality of transfers and services. Poverty and inequality rose, and the welfare state did little to ameliorate these trends. With the turn of the century, the economic and political situation changed significantly. The commodity boom eased fiscal pressures and made resources available for an increase in public social expenditure. Democracy was more consolidated in the region and civil society had recovered from repression. Left-wing parties began to win elections and take advantage of the fiscal room which allowed for the building of redistributive social programs. The most significant innovation has been expansion of coverage to people in the informal sector and to people with insufficient histories of contributions to social insurance schemes. The overwhelming majority of Latin Americans now have the right to some kind of cash assistance at some point in their lives and to healthcare provided by their governments. In many cases, there have also been real improvements in the generosity of cash assistance, particularly in the case of non-contributory pensions, and in the quality of healthcare services. However, the least progress has been made toward equity. With very few exceptions, new non-contributory programs were added to the traditional contributory ones; severe inequalities continue to exist in the quality of services provided through the new and the traditional programs.

The Scandinavian Origins of the Social Interpretation of the Welfare State

1989 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Baldwin
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Initial Development ◽  
Sufficient Power ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Cost ◽  
The Welfare State

If a question can be mal posée, surely an interpretation can be mal étendue. This has been the fate of the social interpretation of the welfare state. The cousin of social theories of bourgeois revolution, the social interpretation of the welfare state is part of a broader conception of the course of modern European history that until recently has laid claim to the status of a standard. The social interpretation sees the welfare states of certain countries as a victory for the working class and confirmation of the ability of its political representatives on the Left to use universalist, egalitarian, solidaristic measures of social policy on behalf of the least advantaged. Because the poor and the working class were groups that overlapped during the initial development of the welfare state, social policy was linked with the worker's needs. Faced with the ever-present probability of immiseration, the proletariat championed the cause of all needy and developed more pronounced sentiments of solidarity than other classes. Where it achieved sufficient power, the privileged classes were forced to consent to measures that apportioned the cost of risks among all, helping those buffeted by fate and social injustice at the expense of those docked in safe berths.

2. Before the welfare state

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Garland
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Moral Economy ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Social Provision ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
The Welfare State

Welfare states emerged in western nations at the end of the 19th century and were fully established in the middle decades of the 20th. But collective social provision in one form or another has been characteristic of societies throughout human history. ‘Before the welfare state’ outlines pre-capitalist societies and explains the social roots of welfare, the expanding role of the state, the end of the old Poor Laws, and the reaction against laissez-faire. By the end of the 19th century, the question of social provision was caught up in a struggle between two opposing principles: the logic of free-market liberalism versus the logic of moral economy and social protection.

Welfare State and Economic Efficiency

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre Pestieau ◽  
Mathieu Lefebvre
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Economic Performance ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Gdp Growth ◽  
Recent Period ◽  
Social Burden ◽  
The Social ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
The Cost ◽  
The Welfare State

The main purpose of this chapter is to tackle the issue of whether or not the welfare state is responsible for the decline in economic performance. At the micro level, social protection brings distortion in the choices of contributors and of beneficiaries. Yet, the empirical evidence indicates that the cost of these distortions is rather limited. At the macro level, one cannot infer much from a negative relation between the social burden and GDP growth. Given that, we reach three conclusions. First, the welfare state is likely to have modified the preferences of individuals. Second, the decline in economic growth and pressured public finance calls for its partial retrenchment. Finally, most of the work on the effect of the welfare state on growth and employment deals with a relatively short and recent period. A longer run view might be useful.

The Welfare State in Europe

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre Pestieau ◽  
Mathieu Lefebvre
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Situation ◽  
Large Degree ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
The Social ◽  
Equity And Efficiency ◽  
Responsibility Of Government ◽  
Social Divide ◽  
Roll Back ◽  
The Welfare State

Although in Europe there continues to be a large degree of consensus that it is the responsibility of government to ensure that nobody who is poor, sick, disabled, unemployed or old is left deprived, there are mounting calls to roll back spending on the welfare state. Two main charges are raised: that it fails to achieve some of its main objectives, and that it is responsible for a decline in economic performance. Another charge is that it was conceived in a period very different from the present one and is not anymore adapted to the current realities. In this book, we intend to provide a balanced and informed analysis of these charges as well as some thoughts regarding the prospects of the welfare state in an increasingly integrated world. Written by two economists whose concern is both equity and efficiency, this book gives a set of answers to a number of important questions regarding the current social situation of European countries, the performance of the welfare states and the reforms that should be undertaken. It shows that the overall performance of the European welfare states as regarding its main objectives is satisfactory. There are differences across countries, with the Nordic countries leading the pack, but these differences seem to decrease. The book finally deals with an issue that is left unresolved and calls for some fundamental changes in social policies, namely the social divide that has been on the rise in Europe over the past decades and that hampers social cohesion.

Quality of Government and Welfare State Support

2021 ◽  
pp. 722-736
Author(s):  
Staffan Kumlin
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Public Services ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
State Support ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
The Welfare State

Abstract: Research on citizens’ support for government redistribution, social protection, and public services (shorthand: welfare state support) has been late to examine quality of government explanations. Slowly but surely in the 2000s, however, scholars have compensated a previous neglect. This literature provides examples of how research on welfare state attitudes is expanding beyond the much-studied rich Western welfare states. In terms of substantive questions, scholars increasingly seek to answer questions such as: Are citizens’ assessments of various “quality of government” aspects positive or negative across space and time? Are assessments multi- or unidimensional? What aspects of quality of government do citizens assess? Are evaluations rooted in relevant information and objective facts? Finally, how do quality of government factors affect normative support for the welfare state and its constituent policies and aspects?

Wohlfahrtsstaat und Interessenorganisationen im Wandel

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Labour Unions ◽  
Interest Representation ◽  
Social Risks ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Welfare State

Interest groups within the context of changing welfare states have gained widespread attention within the social sciences. Welfare states and interest groups are being faced with new challenges (e.g. in the context of several changes, such as new social risks). Schwache Interessen (weak interests) (such as poorly qualified ones) are also gaining more attention. This book discusses several different fields of interest representation in the welfare state. It analyses in what way constellations of interest representation have changed in modified welfare state environments. Several different organisations are analysed, including labour unions, the employers’ association and political parties. Moreover, the book also takes umbrella organisations of municipalities, social courts and educational policymakers into account. Until now, they have gained little attention from scholars. With contributions by: Lena Brüsewitz, Imke Friedrich, Sascha Kristin Futh, Tanja Klenk, Ulrike A.C. Müller, Frank Nullmeier, Sabine Ruß-Sattar, Friedbert Rüb, Wolfgang Schroeder, Benedikt Schreiter, Michaela Schulze, Florian Steinmüller, Christoph Strünck, Felix Welti

Systems, Fiddling and Strangers: Young People on the ‘Welfare State’

2003 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 91-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian McIntosh
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Young People ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Social World ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Qualitative Approaches ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One ◽  
The Welfare State

This paper is concerned with young people's understanding of the welfare state; who and what is it for, and what is their relation to it? It is argued that such qualitative research into these questions is not common. Exploring these issues increases our knowledge of the presence that ideas and discourses about welfare states have in young people's understanding of the social world. Qualitative approaches such as the one adopted in this paper can tap into meanings and perceptions that young people have in relation to the welfare state that can be glossed over with more quantitative concerns with ‘attitudes’.

21. The welfare state

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kees van Kersbergen ◽  
Philip Manow
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Christian Democracy ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Social Doctrine ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
Functionalist Approach ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Welfare State

This chapter examines the emergence, expansion, variation, and transformation of the welfare state. It first considers the meaning of the welfare state before discussing three perspectives that explain the emergence of the welfare state: functionalist approach, class mobilization approach, and a literature emphasizing the impact of state institutions and the relative autonomy of bureaucratic elites. It then describes the expansion of the welfare state, taking into account the impact of social democracy, neocorporatism and the international economy, risk redistribution, Christian democracy and Catholic social doctrine, and secular trends. It also explores variations among developed welfare states as well as the effects of the welfare state and concludes with an analysis of the challenges and dynamics of contemporary welfare states. The chapter shows that the welfare state is a democratic state that guarantees social protection as a right attached to citizenship.

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