scholarly journals Three Shortcomings of the Social Investment Perspective

2013 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 553-564 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bea Cantillon ◽  
Wim Van Lancker
Keyword(s):  
Capital Investment ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Social Progress ◽  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
The Social

In this article we critically assess the social investment perspective that has become the dominant paradigm in European social policymaking. We identify and discuss some of its shortcomings that may hamper social progress for all. In doing so, we focus on three pillars central to the idea of social investment: social inclusion through work, individual responsibility and human capital investment. We find that the social investment perspective has some serious flaws when it comes to the social protection of vulnerable groups. This is strongly related to the continuing relevance of social class in explaining and remedying social inequalities. We conclude that investment cannot be the only rationale for welfare state intervention and that protecting people should remain equally high on the policy agenda.

The Slow Road to the Social Investment Perspective in the European Union

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shannon Dinan
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Social Dimension ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Research Experience ◽  
Member States ◽  
The Social

The European Union has no unilateral legislative capacity in the area of social policy. However, the European Commission does play the role of guide by providing a discursive framework and targets for its 28 Member States to meet. Since the late 1990’s, the EU’s ideas on social policy have moved away from the traditional social protection model towards promoting social inclusion, labour activation and investing in children. These new policies represent the social investment perspective, which advocates preparing the population for a knowledge-based economy to increase economic growth and job creation and to break the intergenerational transmission of poverty. The EU began the gradual incorporation of the social investment perspective to its social dimension with the adoption of ten-year strategies. Since 2000, it has continued to set goals and benchmarks as well as offer a forum for Member States to coordinate their social initiatives. Drawing on a series of interviews conducted during a research experience in Brussels as well as official documents, this paper is a descriptive analysis of the recent modifications to the EU’s social dimension. It focuses on the changes created by the Europe 2020 Strategy and the Social Investment Package. By tracing the genesis and evolution of these initiatives, the author identifies four obstacles to social investment in the European Union's social dimension.   Full text available at: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v10i1.263

scholarly journals A social investment perspective on labour market policies for vulnerable groups

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-238
Author(s):  
Ides Nicasie
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Model Building ◽  
Capabilities Approach ◽  
Investment Model ◽  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Labour Market Policies ◽  
Positive Effects

This article conceptualises the notion of “social investment’ within the context of social protection and active labour market policies. This paradigm is confronted to the neoliberal ‘making work pay’ paradigm and the conservative workfare doctrine build on the idea that a stronger work ethos needs to be inculcated through reduced rights and more duties. The social investment paradigm advocates generous social protection combined with enabling investments and is thus perfectly congruent with social inclusion objectives. The empirical analysis shows remarkably small effects of both types of policies in the past 15 years: ALMPs have had small positive effects on employment, but also on exits into inactivity. The most positive employment effect of ALMPs is a redistribution of employment opportunities towards older, female and less educated groups. The Re-inVEST research analyses in-depth participatory case studies of policies targeting disadvantaged groups in different European countries, using an ‘enriched’ social investment model, building on a human rights and capabilities approach. The findings indeed show very wide differences in quality – and a lot of room for improvement. In order to improve their effectiveness as well as inclusiveness, the right to decent ALMPs should be put on the policy agenda.

scholarly journals Social Inequalities in a Time of Economic Crisis in Greece

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monika Papa
Keyword(s):  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Social Consequences ◽  
The Body ◽  
Full Time ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Impact

The study maintains the focus at the economic crisis in Greece, in real social terms. The research highlights the evidence between the level of education and poverty, and the impact that children of poor families are facing. The authors are focusing on the lack of social protection in single parent families, as well as the significant increase in the number of unemployed in Greece during the period of the memorandum. Moreover, the lack of an effective social state and the collapse of informal support networks increases the chances of tearing the social fabric and more families going into poverty. The study also underlines the social consequences of the economic crisis that are geared towards issues of social inclusion in societies organized in relation to values and the development of skills logic, and the inability to secure full-time jobs. The absence of social protection factors, coupled with the impact of vulnerability and risk factors, are causing poverty, unemployment, loss of rights and social support, social exclusion, discrimination, deinstitutionality, migration combined with effects on personality, developmental experiences, health of the body and soul. In Greek society, at the time of the economic crisis, there is a lack of a social protection network, and the weakening of the institution of the family. In Greece, it is necessary to approach the "new poor" in terms of politics and economy, so that they can be considered as indispensable social partners of democracy. Unprivileged social groups have to claim their rights, become part of their liberation process, and become faces of a change of personnel and social level with the ultimate goal of social transformation.

scholarly journals Solidarity and Reciprocity in the Social Investment State: What Can be Learned from the Case of Flemish School Allowances and Truancy?

2012 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 657-675 ◽  
Author(s):  
BEA CANTILLON ◽  
WIM VAN LANCKER
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Policy Framework ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Policy Paradigm ◽  
The Social ◽  
Disciplinary Policy ◽  
Policy Shift

AbstractIn this article, we discuss some of the new tensions that are emerging between the different foundations of the welfare state. Several developments have led to the advent of the social investment state, in which people are being activated and empowered instead of passively protected. We argue that this social policy shift has been accompanied by a normative shift towards a more stringent interpretation of social protection in which individual responsibility and quid pro quo have become the primordial focus. Using the Belgian (Flemish) disciplinary policy on truancy and school allowances as a case in point, we demonstrate that this social policy paradigm may have detrimental consequences for society's weakest: they will not always be able to meet the newly emerged standard of reciprocity. This implies an erosion of the ideal of social protection and encourages new forms of social exclusion. As these changes in the social policy framework are not confined to the Belgian case alone, our analysis bears relevance for all European welfare states.

scholarly journals The Slow Road to the Social Investment Perspective in the European Union

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shannon Dinan
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Social Dimension ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Research Experience ◽  
Member States ◽  
The Social

The European Union has no unilateral legislative capacity in the area of social policy. However, the European Commission does play the role of guide by providing a discursive framework and targets for its 28 Member States to meet. Since the late 1990’s, the EU’s ideas on social policy have moved away from the traditional social protection model towards promoting social inclusion, labour activation and investing in children. These new policies represent the social investment perspective, which advocates preparing the population for a knowledge-based economy to increase economic growth and job creation and to break the intergenerational transmission of poverty. The EU began the gradual incorporation of the social investment perspective to its social dimension with the adoption of ten-year strategies. Since 2000, it has continued to set goals and benchmarks as well as offer a forum for Member States to coordinate their social initiatives. Drawing on a series of interviews conducted during a research experience in Brussels as well as official documents, this paper is a descriptive analysis of the recent modifications to the EU’s social dimension. It focuses on the changes created by the Europe 2020 Strategy and the Social Investment Package. By tracing the genesis and evolution of these initiatives, the author identifies four obstacles to social investment in the European Union's social dimension.

The Truncated German Social Investment Turn

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Seeleib-Kaiser
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Family Policy ◽  
First Century ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Political Determinants ◽  
The Social ◽  
State Regime ◽  
Policy Transformations ◽  
Veto Points

Traditionally Germany has been categorized as the archetypical conservative welfare state, a categorization not systematically questioned in much of the comparative welfare state regime literature. For many scholars Germany was largely stuck and unable to reform its coordinated market economy and welfare state arrangements at the turn of the twenty-first century, due to a large number of veto points and players and the dominance of two ‘welfare state parties’. More recent research has highlighted a widening and deepening of the historically institutionalized social protection dualism, whilst at the same time significant family policy transformations, which can be considered as partially in line with the social investment paradigm, have been emphasized. This chapter sets out to sketch the main policy developments and aims to identify political determinants of social policy change in Germany.

Disappointing poverty trends: is the social investment state to blame?

2011 ◽  
Vol 21 (5) ◽  
pp. 450-471 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Vandenbroucke ◽  
Koen Vleminckx
Keyword(s):  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Resource Competition ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The Social ◽  
Working Age ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Post Industrial ◽  
Industrial Societies ◽  
The Eu

Should we explain the disappointing outcomes of the Open Method of Co-ordination on Inclusion by methodological weaknesses or by substantive contradictions in the ‘social investment’ paradigm? To clarify the underlying concepts, we first revisit the original ‘Lisbon inspiration’ and then relate it to the idea of the ‘new welfare state’, as proposed in the literature on new risks in post-industrial societies. We then discuss two explanations for disappointing poverty trends, suggested by critical accounts of the ‘social investment state’: ‘resource competition’ and a ‘re-commodification’. We do not find these explanations convincing per se and conclude that the jury is still out on the ‘social investment state’. However, policy-makers cannot ignore the failure of employment policies to reduce the proportion of children and working-age adults living in jobless households in the EU, and they should not deny the reality of a ‘trilemma of activation’. Finally, we identify policy conditions that may facilitate the complementarity of social investment and social inclusion.

Popular Belief in State Intervention for Social Protection in China

2000 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHACK KIE WONG ◽  
NAN SHONG PETER LEE
Keyword(s):  
Economic Reform ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Economic Restructuring ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
The State ◽  
Economic Consequences ◽  
Attitude Survey ◽  
The Social ◽  
Recent Developments

The paper starts with a brief discussion of recent developments of economic restructuring of the State Owned Enterprises in China and their related reforms in social insurance and social assistance. It then reports the findings of an attitude survey of residents in Shanghai in 1996 towards the social and economic consequences of economic reform. It reveals that, despite the fact that most people feel better off with the reforms, there is still a need for the state to play a role in social protection.

scholarly journals Social Investment in an Age of Austerity: A Comparison of Family Policy Reforms in Four European Countries

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 249-267
Author(s):  
Sonja Blum ◽  
Tatjana Rakar ◽  
Karin Wall
Keyword(s):  
Social Protection ◽  
Family Policy ◽  
Parental Leave ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Crowding Out ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Policy Reforms ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
The Social ◽  
Post War

The focus of this article is on family policy reforms in four European countries – Austria, Finland, Portugal, and Slovenia – between 2008 and 2015. These years were marked by the ‘Great Recession’, and by the rise of the social-investment perspective. Social investment is an umbrella concept, though, and it is also somewhat ambiguous. This article distinguishes between different social-investment variants, which emerge from a focus on its interaction with alternative social-policy perspectives, namely social protection and austerity. We identify different variants along the degree of social-investment: from comprehensive, over crowding out, towards lean forms. While the empirical analysis highlights variation, it also shows how there is a specific crisis context, which may lead to ‘crowding out’ of other policy approaches and ‘leaner’ forms of social investment. This has led to strong cutbacks in family cash benefits, while public childcare and parental leaves have proved more resilient in the investigated countries. Those findings are revelatory in the current Covid-19 pandemic, where countries are entering a next, possibly larger economic crisis. Key words: family policy; crisis; social investment; austerity; case studies denoted as the end of the ‘golden age’ of the welfare state, putting a halt to its expansion in post-war prosperity. Faced with low growth rates and rising unemployment, the recipe chosen by many countries was to ‘relieve’ labour markets. Alongside such measures as early retirement schemes, family policy was a key part of the reform programme and recourse to parental leave

scholarly journals The Impacts of Socioeconomic Crisis in Portugal on Social Protection and Social Work Practices

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (23) ◽  
pp. 13198
Author(s):  
Inês Casquilho-Martins
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Social Problems ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
Social Intervention ◽  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
Structured Interviews

The effects of the international crisis brought economic and financial risks, as well as consequences for human, social and sustainable development. This study aims to analyse the effects of social intervention with families since the 2008 crisis in Portugal. Through a qualitative approach, we conducted semi-structured interviews with social workers (23), to identify the main impacts of the crisis and the adopted social intervention practices. We highlight a new increase in social problems and the growth of vulnerable groups facing an unprepared social protection system. The Portuguese case reveals that the effects of austerity have shown a decline in the welfare and benefits system, leading to worsened social problems, such as increased poverty and unemployment, as well as social inequalities. Social Work was required to respond to these consequences, although organisational contexts and austerity measures constrained practitioners’ autonomy. By reflecting on this critical period, we seek to contribute to better social protection and assistance models in the face of the current and future crisis. In this sense, Social Work practice ensures a means to guarantee fundamental rights and social justice, preparing social workers and social intervention for new challenges in crisis contexts.

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