Welfare capabilities: Evaluating distributional inequalities and welfare policy in advanced democracies

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 293-305
Author(s):  
Adam Hannah ◽  
Jeremiah Thomas Brown ◽  
Andrew Gibbons
Keyword(s):  
Welfare Policy ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Preliminary Evaluation ◽  
Welfare Policies ◽  
Policy Regimes ◽  
Material Resources ◽  
Better Life Index ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Capability Approach ◽  
The Welfare State

While the welfare state literature has made great advances in describing and explaining policy, comparatively less time has been spent systematically examining the outcomes of those welfare policies. Prominent debates have largely centred on the extent to which welfare states have been retrenched and whether they can be effectively classified by regime type. This article argues that while such debates have resulted in valuable theoretical and empirical advances, there is both a need and an opportunity to focus more closely on the outcomes of welfare policy. We propose using the ‘capability approach’ as an evaluative framework to consider differences in outcomes across mature welfare states. The approach, as operationalised here, regards the real-world opportunities that individuals hold, rather than only the material resources provided to them, as being essential to understanding their welfare. The article uses a new capabilities-oriented measure of welfare to make a preliminary evaluation of the outcomes associated with different types of welfare policy regimes. The measure emphasises distributional inequalities associated with the domains of health, education and the economic conditions experienced by individuals. We apply it to 18 advanced welfare states using data sourced from the 2016 wave of the OECD’s (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) Better Life Index.

scholarly journals Software-Sorted Exclusion of Asylum Seekers in Norway and Finland

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Funda Ustek-Spilda ◽  
Marja Alastalo
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Foreign Born ◽  
Welfare Policies ◽  
Democratic Regimes ◽  
Welfare Systems ◽  
Made In ◽  
The Welfare State

As James Scott writes, to be able to govern, administrative bodies need to make objects of government legible. Yet migrant persons do not fall neatly into the categories of administrative agencies. This categorical ambiguity is illustrated in the tendency to exclude asylum seekers from various population registers and to not provide them with ID numbers, which constitute the backbone of many welfare states in Europe. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Norway and Finland, and in Eurostat and UNECE, we study how practices of population registration and statistics compilation on foreign-born persons can be beset by differential and at times contradictory outlooks. We show that these outlooks are often presented in the form of seemingly apolitical software infrastructures or decisions made in response to software with limited, if any, discretion available to bureaucrats, statisticians, and policymakers. Our two cases, Norway and Finland, are considered social-democratic regimes within Esping-Andersen’s famous global social policy typology. Using science and technology studies and specifically “double social life of methods,” we seek to trace how software emerges as both a device for administrative bookkeeping and also for enacting the “migrant” categories with particular implications for how the welfare state comes to be established and how welfare policies come to be implemented. We note that even if all statistical production necessarily involves inclusions and exclusions, how the “boundaries” are set for whom to include and exclude directly affects the lives of those implicated by these decisions, and as such, they are onto-political. This means that welfare policies get made at the point of sorting, categorizing, and ordering of data, even before it is fed into software and other administrative devices of government. In view of this, we show that methods enact their subjects—we detail how the methods set to identify and measure refugee statistics in Europe end up enacting the welfare services they have access to. We argue that with increasing automation and datafication, the scope of welfare systems is being curtailed under the label of efficiency, and individual contexts are ignored.

scholarly journals Solo Parents: Mother-Work and/or Other Work? Libreal, Conservative and Solidaristic Policies

1970 ◽  
Author(s):  
Celia Briar
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Welfare Policy ◽  
Collective Responsibility ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Ideal Types ◽  
Welfare Policies ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Community Responsibility ◽  
Policy Direction

In recent years, New Zealand has been following the American lead in expecting solo parents (in practice mainly mothers) to move off state benefits and rely upon a combination of their own earnings from paid employment plus contributions from the absent parent. However; whilst this policy direction is fast becoming the greater norm in the 'residual' welfare states of the English speaking nations, there are greater variations in Europe. For the purposes of this paper, three broad classifications in welfare policy towards mothers are used: liberal (prioritising individual responsibility), conservative (a focus on family and community responsibility) and solidaristic (state/collective responsibility). These are of course 'ideal types', and the welfare policies of all nations examined contain elements of all three approaches to welfare. The paper assesses the extent to which each of these approaches provides solo mothers with genuine options regarding paid I unpaid work, and freedom from poverty.

A nation of bureaucrats or a nation of workers? Welfare benefits as nation-building modernization tools in interwar Romania

2021 ◽  
pp. 095892872110357
Author(s):  
Sergiu Delcea
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
Welfare Policies ◽  
Economic Problems ◽  
Welfare Benefits ◽  
National Question ◽  
The Welfare State

As one of the most potent hypothesis in political economy, the negative impact of ethnic diversity on the provision of public goods made the welfare state–nation state isomorphism seem a one-way connection. Against the grain of existing studies I argue, through a case-study of interwar Romania, that welfare states are constructed to proactively (re)build the nation, rather than retroactively emanate from it, once established. Rather than an ahistorical ethnolinguistic fractionalization, the article takes nationhood as historically fluid and contested because through institutionalized action, elites can and do proactively revamp the political arena, redistributing coalitions of winners and losers based on exogenously given criteria. The article therefore shows that nation forgers typically internalize the global social question through the topoi of local socio-economic problems construed as a national question. Because elites can pick and choose who becomes part of the national compact, the politicization of the perception of incomplete nationhood provides a sufficient ideational thrust for welfare policymaking, irrespective of pre-existing national solidarities. Consequently, welfare policies are typically layered as remedial or compensatory policies designed to foster a specific social mobility, deemed in a top-down fashion to be completing the nation.

Wedded to Welfare? Working Mothers and the Welfare State in Communist Poland

Slavic Review ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 76 (2) ◽  
pp. 455-480 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piotr Perkowski
Keyword(s):  
Working Mothers ◽  
Maternity Leave ◽  
Institutional Care ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Equal Opportunities ◽  
Welfare Policies ◽  
East European ◽  
Welfare Benefits ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Welfare State

Using Poland as example, the article explores the operation of east European communist welfare states, with particular attention paid to benefits offered to working mothers. By exploring a number of diverse sources, I analyze the evolution and the meaning of institutional care and maternity leave in the life of professionally-active women. Studying a variety of factors that shaped the welfare policies of the time, including post-war industrialization, consumption, the demographic panic, and the struggling economy of the twilight years of communism, I attach particular importance to the early 1970s, when Poland saw a particular shift in gender-equality discourse. Welfare benefits played a key role in communists states, serving as a guarantee of equal opportunities or, in the case of mothers, as a tool for potentially facilitating employment. In time, however, they became chiefly tools designed to control the population and female fertility.

Historical Context

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Welfare Policy ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Social Welfare Policy ◽  
Charitable Organizations ◽  
Welfare Policies ◽  
Assistance Programs ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
The Welfare State

The chapter explores the origin of social welfare policies in welfare states in Western democratic countries. It traces the state of poverty in most Western democracies before the Great Depression of 1930s, and states' interventions with welfare social assistance programs previously handled by communities, churches, and charitable organizations. The chapter, therefore, examines the historical context of social welfare policy, the nature of the welfare state regime, modern welfare state approaches to social welfare policy, and the market and global economies and the welfare state.

Federalism and the Racialization of Welfare Policy

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 474-501
Author(s):  
Christopher Ojeda ◽  
Anne M. Whitesell ◽  
Michael B. Berkman ◽  
Eric Plutzer
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Welfare Policy ◽  
State Legislators ◽  
Classification Model ◽  
Racial Classification ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Work Requirements ◽  
Welfare Policies ◽  
Policy Regimes ◽  
Temporary Assistance

Considerable research shows that welfare policies are stricter in states with large African American caseloads. We challenge the universality of this claim by extending Soss, Fording, and Schram’s Racial Classification Model to account for the multidimensionality of policy, the constraints imposed by federal funding, and state legislators’ ideological goals and racial stereotypes. Examining the work requirements, sanctions, time limits, and exemptions in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program (TANF), we test our hypotheses using the most detailed measures of state welfare policy yet examined. Consistent with our theory, we show that policy is more generous on some dimensions and less generous on others as the size of the African American caseload increases. This pattern reveals a complexity in welfare policy previously overlooked by research showing only negative effects. The results have important implications for theories addressing race in the context of TANF and other complex policy regimes.

Unlocking the Social Trap: Inequality, Trust and the Scandinavian Welfare State

2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Svenja Gärtner ◽  
Svante Prado
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Market Outcomes ◽  
Welfare Policies ◽  
Collective Goods ◽  
Dynamic View ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Social Trap ◽  
The Welfare State

Recent research suggests that economic inequality thwarts attempts to establish a welfare state. The corollary of this view is that today's welfare states had witnessed an equality revolution already before the rise of social policies aiming at redistribution. The paper brings this insight to bear on the creation of the welfare state in Sweden, for many the very model of a universal welfare state, and enquires into whether equality really predated the formation of universal welfare policies in the 1950s. We present evidence on inequality based on labor market outcomes and corroborate the view that there has been a sharp reduction in inequality during the 1930s and 1940s. Hence Sweden underwent a true equality revolution prior to the establishment of the welfare state. A leveling of incomes is a necessary precondition for the rise of the universal welfare state, we suggest, because of trust, which correlates negatively with inequality. High trust levels solve the problems associated with collective goods and boosts support for universal solutions of income security. The paper provides a narrative in which the formation of institutions, the removal of large income differentials, and the creation of higher trust levels interacted in the 1930s and 1940s to form the foundation for the welfare state in the 1950s. It adopts a dynamic view of trust by departing from the assumption that trust arises endogenously as a concomitant to changes in the underlying fundamentals like income inequality and redesigned institutional frameworks.

Varieties of Electoral Dilemmas: Partisan Jousting over Welfare States and Immigration in a Changing Europe

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberly J. Morgan
Keyword(s):  
Great Recession ◽  
Party System ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Electoral Campaigns ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Welfare State

This chapter examines the dilemmas that parties face in the welfare democracies as they attempt to respond to shifting constituencies, the rise of new issues, and steadily growing rival parties on the periphery of the party system. Based on an analysis of parties’ positions on immigration and the welfare state in sixteen countries using data from the Comparative Manifesto Project, and a closer look at electoral campaigns in Britain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and Sweden, the chapter shows how pushing too far with market reforms or austerity policies opens up the center-left and center-right parties to electoral challenges, in particular during the Great Recession from 2008–12. The rising salience of immigration on political agendas across the continent, on the other hand, puts pressure on the center parties while fueling the growth of radical right-wing parties.

scholarly journals “First the Grub, then the Morals”? Disentangling the Self-Interest and Ideological Drivers of Attitudes Towards Demanding Activation Policies in Belgium

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
FEDERICA ROSSETTI ◽  
KOEN ABTS ◽  
BART MEULEMAN ◽  
MARC SWYNGEDOUW
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Welfare Policies ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Structural Variables ◽  
Welfare Attitudes ◽  
Using Data

Abstract Following the shift towards an activating role of the European welfare states, there is increasing scholarly interest in public support for demanding activation policies that impose obligations on welfare recipients. Borrowing the classical theoretical frameworks used in welfare attitudes research, we aim to disentangle the effect of self-interest and ideological beliefs on support for demanding activation. Using data from the Belgian National Election Study (2014), we find that support for demanding activation is strongly related to authoritarian dispositions, work ethic and rejection of egalitarianism. For the social-structural variables, we find direct as well as indirect (that is, mediated by the ideological dimensions) effects. Controlling for ideology, social categories that are potentially most affected by welfare obligations – i.e. those currently unemployed, with a previous experience of unemployment and low-income individuals – are more likely to oppose demanding policies, which can be interpreted as a self-interest effect. The effects of educational level, conversely, are primarily mediated and should be understood in terms of ideological preferences rather than self-interest. Our results indicate that, when analysing support for specific welfare policies, attention needs to be paid to the interplay between self-interest and ideological preferences.

Individual Attitudes toward the Welfare State: A Test of the “Crowding Out Hypothesis” across European Countries

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Durmus A. Yuksek ◽  
Ozgur Solakoglu
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Crowding Out ◽  
Welfare Policies ◽  
Crowd Out ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Welfare State

Abstract Although numerous studies have confirmed the relationship between welfare states and social capital, their arguments have been contradictory. Some argue that strong welfare states crowd out social capital, while others consider the welfare state as a stimulator of social capital. However, research focusing on both the arguments simultaneously and considering whether or not welfare states can both make and break social capital is almost unavailable. Also, individual attitudes toward the welfare state have mainly been the neglected part of this research tradition. Concordantly, findings of this study suggest that regardless of the strength of the civil society, a welfare state can both crowd out and crowd in social capital. While the comprehensiveness of the welfare state plays a part in stimulating or rather unlikely destroying social capital, it is actually the particular design, implementation of the welfare policies, and legitimacy of the state officials that make or break social capital.

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