scholarly journals Waiting for Godot? Welfare Attitudes in Portugal before and after the Financial Crisis

2016 ◽  
Vol 65 (3) ◽  
pp. 535-558 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mónica Brito Vieira ◽  
Filipe Carreira da Silva ◽  
Cícero Roberto Pereira

Do attitudes towards the welfare state change in response to economic crises? Addressing this question is sometimes difficult because of the lack of longitudinal data. This article deals with this empirical challenge using survey data from the 2008 European Social Survey and from our own follow-up survey of Spring 2013 to track welfare attitudes at the brink and at the peak of the socio-economic crisis in one of the hardest hit countries: Portugal. The literature on social policy preferences predicts an increased polarisation in opinions towards the welfare state between different groups within society – in particular between labour market insiders and outsiders. However, the prediction has scarcely been tested empirically. A notoriously dualised country, Portugal provides a critical setting in which to test this hypothesis. The results show attitudinal change, and this varies according to labour market vulnerability. However, we observe no polarisation and advance alternative explanations for why this is so.

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomáš Sirovátka ◽  
Martin Guzi ◽  
Steven Saxonberg

This article tests several hypotheses for explaining the link between welfare-state performance and satisfaction with democracy. In conducting our multilevel analysis, we combine data from the European Social Survey 2012 special module on democracy with data on contextual and institutional conditions, including those on welfare-state regimes. Our results show that a discrepancy between desired policy goals and perceived policy outcomes in connection with the welfare state (i.e. the policy deficit) influences citizens’ perceptions of how well democracy in their country works. Social policies which citizens see as reducing poverty correlate positively with satisfaction with democracy. We also find evidence that satisfaction with democracy depends on the type of welfare regime, as well as on changes in economic conditions that arise due to financial crisis.


2017 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 201-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timo Toikko ◽  
Teemu Rantanen

AbstractThis study examines the relationship between the welfare state models and social political attitudes. The data are based on the sixth round of the European Social Survey. The study revealed a mechanism of how the relationship between concrete and abstract attitudes differs between the welfare states. In the Anglo-Saxon and Nordic welfare states the relationship is a positive one, which indicates that the welfare state has a broad support among citizens. In the Continental, Eastern and Southern welfare states the relationship is a negative one. This means that the less satisfied citizens are with governmental measures, the more positive their attitudes are regarding protecting citizens against poverty. Also the study showed that the welfare state model directly influences citizens’ concrete attitudes and indirectly influences abstract poverty attitudes. In this sense, the welfare state model is seen more as an attitudinal perception than an actual social policy.


2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 875-897 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Kevins

Abstract This article examines how labour market vulnerability and social policy interact to shape generalized trust. Drawing insights from the literature on dualization, I suggest that: (1) labour market outsiders will have lower levels of generalized trust due to their increased risk exposure; and (2) active labour market policies, by conditioning labour market vulnerability, can reduce the impact of outsiderness on trust. Leveraging within-country cleavages between insiders and outsiders therefore allows us to assess one possible mechanism behind the welfare state’s generation of trust, while at the same time holding cultural context and broader trust levels constant. Analysis of data from the 2008–2014 waves of the European Social Survey then provides evidence of the impact of outsiderness on trust and the ability of social policy to moderate that effect. The investigation thus sheds light on both an additional consequence of dualization and a mechanism linking the welfare state to generalized trust.


Acta Politica ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dimitri Gugushvili ◽  
Laura Ravazzini ◽  
Michael Ochsner ◽  
Martin Lukac ◽  
Orsolya Lelkes ◽  
...  

AbstractWelfare opinion research has traditionally viewed migration as a potential hazard for welfare solidarity. In this article, we argue that while increased presence of foreigners can indeed make some people less supportive of public welfare provision in general or trigger opposition to migrants’ social rights, the link between migration and solidarity is not universally a negative one. Instead, many people can combine support for migration with high preferences for comprehensive social protection; others can endorse migration while they are not particularly supportive of an all-encompassing welfare state. Based on this line of reasoning we construct a taxonomy of four ideal types of welfare solidarity that are present in contemporary European welfare states. To illustrate the usefulness of this heuristic tool, we apply Latent Class Factor Analysis to European Social Survey round 8 data. We find that the majority of Europeans (56%) combine strong support for both migration and the welfare state (extended solidarity). However, exclusive solidarity is also widely spread as over a quarter of respondents (28%) oppose migration while expressing strong support for the welfare state. People who oppose migration and have relatively low preference for the welfare state (diminished solidarity) represent a small minority (5%). A little more than a tenth (11%) of Europeans endorse migration, but express relatively low support for the welfare state, which we assume to be a reflection of cosmopolitan solidarity. Despite considerable variation in the incidence of the four solidarities across countries, the preference structure is the same for all. Further, we find that at the individual level, the propensity to hold one of these types of solidarities is influenced by social trust, citizenship and country of birth, financial situation, education, and residence type. However, the extent of migration and social spending do not appear to be related with the propensity of holding either type of solidarity as the liberal’s dilemma and the welfare chauvinism theories would predict.


2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 107-122
Author(s):  
Marko Grdešić

According to welfare chauvinism, access to the welfare state should be reserved for the native population, whereas immigrants are seen as a drain on resources. The curious aspect of welfare chauvinism in Europe is that it is more prevalent in the East. Why is this the case? This article uses the European Social Survey (ESS) and the Life in Transition Survey (LITS) in order to locate the most robust individual-level determinants of welfare chauvinism for countries of both Eastern and Western Europe. The results suggest that there is no support for the socioeconomic explanation of welfare chauvinism. There is support for the cultural capital explanation of welfare chauvinism, but only for Western Europe. Finally, there is support for the theory that higher levels of trust lessen the likelihood that a person adopts welfare chauvinism. This finding holds for both Eastern and Western Europe.


2008 ◽  
Vol 91 (3) ◽  
pp. 345-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Senik ◽  
Holger Stichnoth ◽  
Karine Van der Straeten

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
MARIUS R. BUSEMEYER ◽  
ALEXANDER H. J. SAHM

Abstract Rapid technological change – the digitalization and automation of work – is challenging contemporary welfare states. Most of the existing research, however, focuses on its effect on labor market outcomes, such as employment or wage levels. In contrast, this paper studies the implications of technological change for welfare state attitudes and preferences. Compared to previous work on this topic, this paper adopts a much broader perspective regarding different kinds of social policy. Using data from the European Social Survey, we find that individual automation risk is positively associated with support for redistribution, but negatively with support for social investment policies (partly depending on the specific measure of automation risk that is used), while there is no statistically significant association with support for basic income. We also find a moderating effect of the overall size of the welfare state on the micro-level association between risk and preferences.


2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 33-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Fleischmann ◽  
Ferry Koster ◽  
Pearl Dykstra ◽  
Joop Schippers

To sustain the welfare state, several EU countries agreed to take measures aimed at increasing the labor market participation of older workers (European Commission 2001). In this study, we developed a framework integrating individual, work, and institutional characteristics in order to explain the labor market participation of older workers. While prior studies focused mainly on individual characteristics, the present analysis investigated the impact of work and institutions more closely using the European Social Survey. Multilevel analyses across 21 countries showed that work characteristics increased the benefits from work, hence increasing the likelihood of participation among older workers, and that the generosity of institutions discouraged older workers to remain in the labor market.


2015 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 105-129
Author(s):  
Maciej D. Kryszczuk

This article is devoted to methods of measuring the diversification of occupations and their use in analyzing complicated processes such as the ‘informationalization’ of work and the changes in socio-occupational structures currently being noted. The article’s comparative analyses were based on data from the first edition of the European Social Survey of 2002 and concern 15 selected European countries, including Poland. The following research questions were raised in connection with one aspect of the concept of an information economy: (a) has the percentage of employees engaged in ‘information occupations’ increased with the spread of the internet? (b) does a more computerized society also have a higher percent of information producers among persons who are vocationally active? (c) is the level of occupational diversification connected with the spread of the internet and if so, to what degree? At the end, the authors point to the necessity of giving deeper thought to the idea of the ‘end of work’, which is a kind of reversal of the pro-market logic of developing the labour market and technological unemployment.


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