Needs and Risks in the Welfare State

2021 ◽  
pp. 240-258
Author(s):  
Jan Zutavern ◽  
Martin Kohli
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Family Relations ◽  
Population Ageing ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Economic Consequences ◽  
Human Needs ◽  
Normative Concepts ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Normative Considerations ◽  
The Welfare State

Welfare states must respond to the needs and risks that arise from secular transformations such as deindustrialization, tertiarization, digitalization, population ageing, declining fertility, and changing gender and family relations. This chapter shows that understanding the impact of needs and risks on welfare states requires both empirical and normative considerations: examining the socio-economic consequences of these transformations as well as the normative underpinnings of needs- and risk-based claims to social policy. We first discuss the normative concepts of human needs and risks and the marks they have left on prominent theories of the welfare state, and then move to the empirical side, taking stock of the current socio-economic challenges for a range of welfare states, and of their manifestation in today’s employment and family-related need and risk profiles.

The Persistence of Poverty under Welfare States and the Prospects for its Abolition

1992 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Walker
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
New Right ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Main Factor ◽  
The Welfare State

This article examines the relationship between poverty and the welfare state and attempts to answer the question as to why poverty has persisted under all welfare states. Several major reasons for the persistence of poverty are advanced, and the author argues that the main factor underlying the failure to abolish poverty is the conflict between economic policy and social policy. The challenge to welfare states from the New Right is examined—particularly the contention that welfare states themselves create poverty and dependence—in the light of evidence of the impact of the Thatcher government's policies in Britain. Finally, the author proposes an alternative approach to the abolition of poverty, one that is based on the integration of economic and social policy.

Fulfilling basic human needs: the welfare state after Beveridge

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Diamond
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Social Security Systems ◽  
Security Systems ◽  
Human Needs ◽  
Advanced Economies ◽  
The 2008 Financial Crisis ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Post Industrial ◽  
The Welfare State

Traditional welfare states with their origins in the Beveridge report of 1942 have struggled to respond adequately to new structural pressures and challenges that have arisen in the advanced economies over the last seventy years, especially in Britain. These include changes in demography and the structure of family life, alongside the emergence of a post-industrial economy marked by the loss of skilled manufacturing employment and regions of the UK adversely impacted by the process of deindustrialisation. As the pressures on the welfare state have increased, so existing social security systems have struggled to address a diversity of unmet human needs. The purpose of this chapter is to consider the implications of these changes for contemporary social policy in the developed capitalist countries, paying particular attention to the policy landscape in the UK in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and austerity. The chapter addresses why the crisis and great recession have not led to a more radical recalibration of policy, and examines the emerging models of ‘relational welfare’ that seek to respond to a series of criticisms of the role of states and markets in welfare provision.

scholarly journals Workshop: The changing politics of ageing and welfare state: Connecting politics with realities

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (Supplement_4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Older People ◽  
Health Systems ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Health Financing ◽  
Population Ageing ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Active Ageing ◽  
Modifiable Factors ◽  
The Welfare State

Abstract Societies are ageing, in Europe and elsewhere. This is an effectively unprecedented development in human history and one that many think could pose a real threat to welfare states’ political bases and sustainability. In some countries this has been taken as evidence that the welfare state will become unsustainable, and in others that the welfare state has been turned to serve the interests of the elderly at the expense of the young. The purpose of this workshop is to present the new evidence on how and why political systems respond to the challenges of ageing and health. Research indicates that the extent that population ageing creates difficulties for economies, public finances, and health systems is complex and, importantly, conditional on a host of modifiable factors. Furthermore, a focus on divides between generations distracts us from other, important, inequalities within generations. Not only does science have a part to play in busting many ageing-related ‘myths’, but there is also a key role for policy intervention. This workshop, based on findings from the European Observatory’s “Economics of Healthy and Active Ageing” study brings together research on why population ageing is often (erroneously) viewed cataclysmically from a health financing perspective, and reviews relevant policies that may improve health system financial sustainability. The workshop will have 5 presentations followed by debate on why countries may or may not prioritize policies that support the health of older people. Presentation #1 sets out the problems and broad trends on costs and projections associated with older people and ageing societies, drawing on the other parts of the series, as well as intergenerational transfers. It then lays out the framework for the rest of the presentations. Presentation #2 expands on the first presentation by looking at country contexts. The focus will be on the politics and consequences of ageing in southern and central-eastern Europe. Having established the problem, Presentation #3 will determine how different publics understand and frame ageing and health, what priorities do publics identify, and why. Presentation #4 will look at political manifestos and voting patterns to see how/if public opinions are translating into changes in government that want to tear down the welfare state and blame it on ageing. Lastly, Presentation #5 will address the core issue obscured by intergenerational accounting: to what extent are the politics of ageing actually being shaped by, and reproducing, social inequalities? Debate including audience members will be facilitated by an expert from the Observatory. Key messages Excessive focus on the costs of ageing is a distraction from real inequalities and an obstacle to better policy. Institutional and policy responses play a crucial role in determining how health systems, economies and societies more broadly are affected by population ageing.

scholarly journals The main factors of the recent development of European welfare states: Swedish case

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleksei Chekmazov ◽  
Vladyslav Butenko
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Main Role ◽  
Swedish Model ◽  
Main Factors ◽  
The Impact ◽  
European Welfare States ◽  
The Welfare State

This analytical essay is devoted to identifying the features of the formation and development of the Swedish model of the welfare state. The authors study the factors that played the main role in the development of the Swedish model. The authors also assess the impact of the 2008 economic crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic on the Swedish welfare state.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. xxx-20
Author(s):  
Daniel Béland ◽  
Kimberly J. Morgan ◽  
Herbert Obinger ◽  
Christopher Pierson
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Welfare State Regimes ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Near Future ◽  
Second World ◽  
The Welfare State

This synoptic introduction guides the reader through the major themes in this comparative analysis of the developed welfare states. It first outlines the origins of the welfare state and its development down to 1940. It then considers the impact of the Second World War on social policy and traces the apparent successes of expanding welfare state regimes in the thirty years that followed the war. It then assesses the critique and challenges that arose for this welfare state settlement from the mid-1970s onwards and the idea of a ‘crisis of the welfare state’. These challenges were simultaneously ideological, political, economic, and demographic, and are sometimes seen to have created new circumstances of ‘permanent austerity’. The contemporary welfare state faces a set of challenges very different to those which arose after 1945 in which the near-future context is set by the continuing impact of the Great Recession after 2008 and the new world of social policy created by COVID-19.

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.

Introduction: Twenty Five Years of the Welfare Modelling Business

2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Powell ◽  
Armando Barrientos
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Policy Research ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Comparative Political Economy ◽  
Subsequent Work ◽  
Welfare Capitalism ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Breaking Work ◽  
The Welfare State

Gosta Esping-Andersen's (1990) The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism has become one of the most cited works in social policy (over 20,600 Google Scholar citations; 20 October 2014). This path-breaking work, with its identification of three distinct forms of welfare capitalism in high income countries, has become the basis for a whole academic industry described as the Welfare Modelling Business (Abrahamson 1999; Powell and Barrientos 2011). According to Headey et al. (1997: 332), it has become a canon in comparative social policy against which any subsequent work must situate itself. Abrahamson (1999) notes that, since the publication of the book, every welfare state scholar has referred to Esping-Andersen's tripolar scheme. Scruggs and Allen (2006: 55, 69) remark that it ‘is difficult to find an article comparing welfare states in advanced democratic countries (or a syllabus on social policy) that does not refer to this seminal work’, and ‘it is hard to overstate the significance of the impact of The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (TWWC) on comparative studies of the welfare state’. Its seminal status is evidenced by the extent to which it continues to be cited in articles on comparative welfare states. It also remains required reading for most (graduate) students of comparative political economy and social policy (Scruggs and Allen, 2008). Kröger (2011) claims that, with few exceptions, comparative social policy research is shaped by welfare regime analysis. Arts and Gelissen conclude that TWWC is a defining influence upon the whole field of comparative welfare state research (2010: 569). Danforth (2014) writes that the ‘three worlds’ typology has become one of the principal heuristics for examining modern welfare states. In short, TWWC is a ‘modern classic’ (Arts and Gelissen, 2002).

21. The Welfare State

2020 ◽  
pp. 376-394
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: the functionalist approach, the 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.

The Politics of Welfare in Turkey

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erdem Yörük
Keyword(s):  
Social Security ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Assistance ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Welfare State

This chapter examines the political dynamics that have shaped the transformation of the Turkish welfare system since the 1960s. Over the years, income-based social assistance policies have supplanted employment-based social security policies, while the welfare state has significantly expanded. To explain why and how the Turkish welfare state has expanded during neoliberalism and why social policies have shifted from social security to social assistance, the chapter focuses on the rivalries between mainstream parties and the impact of grassroots politics, as well as the political mechanisms that mediate and transform structural pressures into policies. The chapter illustrates that political efforts to contain the political radicalization of the informal proletariat and to mobilize its electoral support have driven the expansion of social assistance policies during the post-1980 neoliberal period. State authorities now see the informal proletariat as a more significant political threat and source of support than the formal proletariat whose dynamism drove the expansion of the welfare state during the pre-1980 developmentalist period. The chapter provides a historical analysis of the interaction between parliamentary processes and social movements in order to account for the transformation of welfare provision in Turkey. It concludes by locating Turkey in a larger context, in which other emerging markets develop similar welfare states as a response to similar political exigencies.

Is the Future American? Or, Can Left Politics Preserve European Welfare States from Erosion through Growing ‘Racial’ Diversity?

2005 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 661-672 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER TAYLOR-GOOBY
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Political Support ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Social Spending ◽  
Open Market ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Welfare State

The welfare state is the distinctive contribution of Europe to the modern world. Other places do market capitalism better, and democracy, art and culture at least as well. However, the future of the European welfare state is in question, as a result of economic globalisation, pressures from population ageing and other social changes and the dominance of an EU primarily committed to creating an open market to rival that of the US. An important recent critique of the welfare state project argues that social cohesion and diversity are simply incompatible – with the implication, that as Europe grows more diverse, welfare states will wither. An influential variant of this argument uses statistical modelling to support the argument that greater ethnic diversity accounts for the failure of the US to develop political support for a welfare state on European lines (and implies that Europe's future is American). This article demonstrates that the model used fails to take into account the significance of left politics in European countries. The evidence is that the left substantially counteracts the impact of greater diversity on welfare states in Europe. The case that increased migration will undermine popular commitment to social spending is not proven.

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