Social Investment

2021 ◽  
pp. 187-205
Author(s):  
Julian L. Garritzmann
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Knowledge Economy ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Investment Policies ◽  
Policy Paradigm ◽  
The Social ◽  
Human Skills

This chapter reviews the paradigm and spread of social investment policies, which come in many variants, and discusses them as key elements of the ‘knowledge economy welfare state’. Social investments are policies that aim to create, preserve, and mobilize human skills and capabilities. The chapter discusses the emergence of social investment as a new social policy paradigm, presents different variants of the social investment approach, provides a mapping of social investment policies around the globe, discusses effects of social investment policies, and weighs in on important debates regarding the politics of social investment. The chapter then closes with an outlook on avenues for future research.

Changing labour markets, changing welfare across the OECD: the move towards a social investment model of welfare as a response to competition

2017 ◽  
pp. 33-52
Author(s):  
Naomi Finch ◽  
Dan Horsfall ◽  
John Hudson
Keyword(s):  
Human Capital ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Investment Model ◽  
Labour Markets ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Economic Competition ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Expenditures

This chapter examines in more depth one of the attempts to develop a ‘progressive’ modernisation of welfare: the social investment model. The notion of a ‘social investment welfare state’ has gained increasing ground over recent years, playing an important role in the discourse of international organisations such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and EU. It forms a part of a number of concepts — others include ‘active social welfare’, the ‘new welfare state’ and ‘new risk welfare’ — that might be grouped under the label ‘new welfare’. All are based around a shared view that developed welfare states have begun to place less emphasis on income protection and more emphasis on investing in human capital. Put differently, they stress the growing importance of the ‘productive’ elements of social policy, chiefly on the basis that this may square the circle of maintaining social expenditures while responding to increased economic competition. The chapter then reviews how far reform agendas match the reality of the social investment model theory and, moreover, evaluates the effectiveness of the approach in reconciling social and economic pressures.

When voters favour the social investment welfare state

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 194-205
Author(s):  
Marc Brazzill ◽  
Hideko Magara ◽  
Yuki Yanai
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Investment Strategy ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Investment Policies ◽  
High Productivity ◽  
Developed Economies ◽  
Policy Context ◽  
The Social

AbstractWe investigate when voters favour social investment. Welfare states have transformed their core policies as a result of low economic growth and fiscal pressures. The social investment strategy, such as broader education provision and promotion of women's employment, aims at shifting the economy from the traditional Keynesian welfare state to the high-productivity economy by encouraging long-term and inclusive human capital formation. Social investment is popular among citizens in many developed economies, especially in the EU where governments promote social investment as part of their welfare policy packages. However, in Japan, the term ‘social investment’ is rarely used in policy discussions. Consequently, we ask what levels of voter support social investment policies have in such an environment; which voter characteristics are associated with social investment support; and whether voter support for social investment differs when placed in a broader policy context. To answer these questions, we conducted an online survey with a conjoint experiment. Our data analysis shows that social investment policies are popular among Japanese people, despite a lack of familiarity with the concept of social investment. We find that social libertarians and female respondents are more likely than social authoritarians and male respondents to support social investment. In addition, there is some evidence that higher income voters are favourable to social investment policies. Furthermore, voter support for social investment depends on the policy context. Support becomes weaker when social investment policies are presented in combination with decreasing levels of social security spending. Our results highlight what kinds of social investment policies could be achieved without damaging electoral fortunes.

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.

Taking social investment seriously in developed economies

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anton Hemerijck
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Developing Economies ◽  
Policy Research ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Developed Economies ◽  
The Social

This chapter looks at the new integration of social with economic policy from the developing economies perspective. It will highlight the key social policy instruments in what were seen as ‘pre-welfare state’ economies, before surveying the ‘social policy spring’ occurring notably in Latin America and in Asia. The chapter will draw out the main learnings for social policy research from the new productivist models associated with Inclusive Growth.

Social Investment and Poverty Reduction: A Comparative Analysis across Fifteen European Countries

2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 611-638 ◽  
Author(s):  
OLAF VAN VLIET ◽  
CHEN WANG
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Detrimental Effect ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Investment Policies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Employment Rates ◽  
And Shifts ◽  
The Welfare State

AbstractDespite the fact that employment rates have increased in many European countries since the beginning of the 2000s, poverty rates have stagnated and in some countries even increased. In the welfare state literature, it has been argued that these disappointing poverty trends may be partly attributable to the reforming of traditional welfare state programmes into social investment policies, because the latter are less redistributive. To date, there are only a few systematic comparative empirical analyses which focus on the outcomes of social investment policies. This paper contributes to the social investment literature by empirically analysing the distributional effects of shifts from traditional welfare state arrangements to social investment policies in fifteen European countries for the period 1997–2007. Our results suggest that the detrimental effect of social investment policies, described in some specific cases in the literature, cannot be generalised across a larger group of European countries. However, for European countries other than the Nordic countries, the results provide some evidence for a linkage between stagnating or increasing poverty trends and shifts in expenditures to new welfare state programmes.

scholarly journals Reassessing the ‘Social Investment Perspective’ for ‘Inclusive Growth’: Where do Older Workers Fit?

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 659-674 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Deeming ◽  
Paul Smyth
Keyword(s):  
Older Workers ◽  
Life Course Perspective ◽  
Inclusive Growth ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Investment Policies ◽  
Policy Paradigm ◽  
The Social ◽  
Children And Young Adults ◽  
Capital Development ◽  
And Training

The notion of building welfare around work poses fresh challenges from a life-course perspective, where the situation of older workers has largely been neglected by policymakers committed to the ‘social investment perspective’ – typically constructed as a policy paradigm for ‘human capital’ development in children and young adults (Esping-Andersen, 2002). This article seeks to re-focus attention on the policy challenges relating to the needs of older workers within the new ‘inclusive growth’ agendas that seek to advance equitable opportunities for all. Social investment policies pose a range of issues and challenges for ageing populations that are discussed and examined in detail in this article. If social investment policy is to succeed in ageing OECD societies, it will mean broadening the investment perspective to include the (neglected) education and training needs of older workers to ensure that everyone can contribute to and share in economic prosperity.

A Social Investment Turn in East Asia?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timo Fleckenstein ◽  
Soohyun Christine Lee
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
East Asia ◽  
Family Policy ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Low Fertility ◽  
Female Employment ◽  
Industrial Workers ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Investment Policies ◽  
Employment Participation

The welfare states of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan were built by conservative elites to serve the project of late industrialization, and for this reason the East Asian developmental welfare state focused its resources on those who were deemed most important for economic development (especially male industrial workers). Starting in the 1990s and increasingly since the 2000s, the developmental welfare state has experienced a far-reaching transformation, including the expansion of family policy to address the post-industrial challenges of female employment participation and low fertility. This chapter assesses social investment policies in East Asia, with a focus on family policy and on the South Korean case, where the most comprehensive rise of social investment policies were observed.

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.

scholarly journals Social Investment, Employment and Policy and Institutional Complementarities: A Comparative Analysis across 26 OECD Countries

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
VINCENT BAKKER ◽  
OLAF VAN VLIET
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Positive Association ◽  
Oecd Countries ◽  
Employment Outcomes ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Investment Policies ◽  
Employment Rates ◽  
Marginal Returns ◽  
Welfare State Regimes

Abstract Raising employment has been at the heart of EU strategies for over twenty years. Social investment, by now a widely debated topic in the comparative welfare state literature, has been suggested as a way to pursue this. However, there are only a couple of systematic comparative analyses that focus on the employment outcomes associated with social investment. Analyses of the interdependence of these policies with regard to their outcomes are even more scarce. We empirically analyse the extent to which variation in employment rates within 26 OECD countries over the period 1990-2010 can be explained by effort on five social investment policies. We additionally explore the role of policy and institutional complementarities. Using time-series cross-section analyses we find robust evidence for a positive association between effort on ALMPs and employment rates. For other policies we obtain mixed results. ALMPs are the only policies for which we observe signs of policy interdependence, which point at diminishing marginal returns. Additionally, our analysis demonstrates that the interdependence of social investment policies varies across welfare state regimes. Together, this indicates that the employment outcomes of social investment policies are also contingent on the broader framework of welfare state policies and institutions.

Gender and attitudes toward welfare state reform: Are women really social investment promoters?

2021 ◽  
pp. 095892872097801
Author(s):  
Julian L. Garritzmann ◽  
Hanna Schwander
Keyword(s):  
Demand Side ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Investment Policies ◽  
State Reform ◽  
Career Interruptions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Analytical Step ◽  
Political Realignment ◽  
Welfare Politics ◽  
Welfare State Reform

This article contributes to the study of the demand side of welfare politics by investigating gender differences in social investment preferences systematically. Building on the different functions of social investment policies in creating, preserving, or mobilizing skills, we argue that women do not support social investment policies generally more strongly than men. Rather, women demand, in particular, policies to preserve their skills during career interruptions and help to mobilize their skills on the labour market. In a second analytical step, we examine women’s policy priorities if skill preservation and mobilization come at the expense of social compensation. We test our arguments for eight Western European countries with data from the INVEDUC survey. The confirmation of our arguments challenges a core assumption of the literatures on the social investment turn and women’s political realignment. We discuss the implication of our findings in the conclusion.

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