scholarly journals Worlds of welfare collide

2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-44
Author(s):  
Gráinne McKeever ◽  
Mark Simpson

The post-2007 financial crisis has brought renewed interest in a European Unemployment Benefit Scheme (EUBS) as a manifestation of solidarity between citizens of different Member States and an economic stabiliser in the event of future asymmetric shocks. The EU-wide benefit would operate in tandem with existing national unemployment benefits. This creates challenges of compatibility given the diversity of approaches to social security within the Union, based on at least four philosophies of welfare: liberal, conservative, social democratic and southern European. This article examines potential legal, operational and political difficulties associated with marrying a EUBS that is at heart a conservative system of social insurance to the UK’s liberal welfare state. Few legal obstacles exist and although the addition of a new, earnings-related benefit to an already complex mix of social protection would raise significant operational issues, these need not be insurmountable. However, fundamental ideological differences would have rendered the EUBS as proposed politically ill-matched with the UK even absent the June 2016 vote to leave the EU. A contributory income maintenance benefit is a poor fit with a residual, largely means-tested national system whose role is limited to offering protection against severe poverty while maintaining work incentives and minimising costs.


Author(s):  
Stefanos Papanastasiou

This chapter offers an empirical exploration of extreme poverty trends and patterns in the EU from a welfare regime perspective. Extreme poverty is operationalized as severe material deprivation, that is, the enforced inability to pay for a certain amount of goods and services. The empirical findings indicate that extreme poverty is low in the countries of the Social-democratic welfare regime and high in the countries of the South-European and the Liberal regime, whereas the countries of the Conservative-Corporatist welfare regime place themselves in-between.



Management ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 204-214
Author(s):  
Andrzej Czyżewski ◽  
Anna Matuszczak

Summary The purpose of this article was to show that the existence of ASIF, as an important element of the social insurance system for farmers in Poland is not unique on a European scale. There were shown relationships ASIF with the budget and the characteristics of social insurance of farmers in selected countries of the European Network of Agricultural Social Protection Systems (ENASP)



Equilibrium ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beata Bieszk-Stolorz ◽  
Iwona Markowicz

The purpose of the article is to present the analysis of the influence of unemployment benefit on the duration of registered unemployment spells. The authors made a hypothesis that the very fact of receiving the benefit extends the job seeking time and determines the intensity of unemployment exit. The power of this influence varies depending on a subgroup the unemployed person belongs to. The study was conducted on the basis of data from the Poviat Labour Office in Sulecin. The data were collected as a part of the European Union project implementation. The analysis covered two periods of time – before and after Poland’s accession to the European Union and the subsequent changes in legal regulations concerning unemployment benefits. The authors observed separate cohorts of the unemployed registered in 2001 and 2005. The closing dates of the observations were: the end of 2003 and 2007, respectively. Also, the authors examined whether the EU projects implemented after 2004 had an effect on the length of the unemployment spells as well as on the intensity of the unemployment exit. The study confirmed the research hypotheses. The fact of claiming the unemployment benefit prolonged the unemployment spells in both periods of observation. The loss of the right to the benefit increased the probability of de-registration in each sub-group.



Author(s):  
Hanan Haber

What does the state do to prevent consumers from losing access to basic services in the market due to financial hardship, and under what conditions will this occur? Bringing together the literature on regulatory governance and the welfare state, this article compares regulatory regimes that prevent loss of access to services in the UK, Sweden, and Israel in housing credit, electricity, and water, as well as to the electricity and housing credit sectors in the EU, from the early 1990s to the 2010s. The article finds that regulation to address this issue was introduced in all but the Swedish cases. This highlights the significance of the welfare state context in addressing these issues through regulation, as more residual welfare regimes are associated with more social protection through regulation.



2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-44
Author(s):  
Margarite Helena Zoeteweij-Turhan

The Seasonal Workers Directive, harmonising Member States’ laws regarding the entry, residence and certain labour rights of seasonal workers, entered into force in 2014 and should be implemented by Member States (except for the UK, Ireland and Denmark) by 30 September 2016. According to Article 23 of the Directive, in principle, third-country nationals coming to a Member State as seasonal workers are entitled to equal treatment with nationals of the host Member State. However, what does ‘equal treatment’ mean when there are almost no nationals doing seasonal work for comparison? Also, the Directive allows Member States to diverge from the principle with regard to family and unemployment benefits and education and vocational training. Furthermore, the Directive does not provide for family reunification, even though seasonal workers are allowed to work for periods of up to nine months per year in the host Member State. Considering the limitations to the principle of equal treatment, and the broad measure of discretion given to the Member States in the implementation of the Directive, can the Directive really improve the precarious position of seasonal workers? What is to be expected of the effectiveness of the Directive? Could the Directive also be attractive for application by countries (inside the EU or outside) that are not bound by the Directive? This article will try to answer these questions by critically analysing the Directive, setting it in historical perspective and comparing it other EU legal instruments on labour migration, focusing particularly on the content of a select number of rights. The article furthermore discusses the issue of gender equality in the (effects of the) EU regulation of labour migration. It finally also addresses the question of the attractiveness of the Directive for adoption by States that are not bound by it, in particular Switzerland, where the seasonal worker has remained a hot topic after officially having ‘disappeared’ from the radar in 2002.



2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 219-241 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Schoukens ◽  
Alberto Barrio ◽  
Saskia Montebovi

With atypical work gaining popularity, platform work seems to combine all the elements which, by deviating significantly from the standard employment relationship, challenge social security systems. After an overview of the features of the standard employment relationship and the different ways in which non-standard forms of work diverge from them, the article focuses on the nature of platform work. It then analyses how platform work is regulated in five European social security systems (i.e. Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Belgium), and how this regulation may fare when analysed under the lens of the recent European Commission’s proposal for a Council Recommendation on access to social protection for workers and the self-employed. The article concludes by highlighting the need for further adaptation of social security systems to the specific features of platform work, and by noting the risks of a regulatory approach towards this new form of work being dominated by the exclusion of low-paid work from the scope of labour-related social insurance schemes.



2017 ◽  
pp. 80-90
Author(s):  
Kateryna Slyusarenko ◽  
Maryna Sadovenko

Introduction. Reform of the social policy is one of the most important issues not only for individual the EU Member States but for the EU as a whole. The economic integration in the absence of adequate social protection means the growth of inequality, insecurity and marginalization among EU citizens. Areas of solving economic and social problems, which worsened in recent years because of military action in Syria and Ukraine and exit of the UK out of the EU (Brexit), should be aimed at preserving the EU single market, reforming the labour market and social policies. Purpose. The article aims to assess the trends and problems of implementation of government social policy and social protection in the EU and to identify areas of social policy reforming. Results. The classification of social policy models has been proposed. Analysis of current trends in social protection has been carried out. The spending for social protection in the EU has been estimated. On the basis of research the problems in EU social policy have been outlined. The ways of its reforming have been determined.



Author(s):  
Helga Špadina

Abstract This chapter focuses on migrants’ access to social protection in Croatia by providing an in-depth analysis of social entitlements in the area of family benefits, pension insurance, unemployment benefits, health care and social welfare benefits. By highlighting the partial harmonization of the national social legislation to the EU acquis, the chapter puts forward the still limited scope of social rights of EU nationals, even several years after Croatia’s accession to the EU. Non-EU nationals have even more limited access to social rights, and they do not enjoy the full scope of family benefits, the right to social housing or other specific social rights, including unemployment benefits and contributory pensions. The chapter also sheds light to on-going discussions on reform of the social system in Croatia, with possible changes of the entitlement to the national pension and family benefits reform.



Author(s):  
Alessio Bertolini ◽  
Daniel Clegg

AbstractImmigration policies and immigrants’ rights to social protection in the UK have evolved dramatically over the past few decades, due to changing immigration flows, the UK’s membership of the European Union (EU) and participation in the European Single Market, and increasing anti-immigration sentiment, which culminated with the decision to leave the EU in January 2020. In this chapter, we argue that, at present, access to social protection is hierarchically structured depending on the interplay of three key variables: benefit type, immigration status and residency status. British citizens residing in the UK and immigrants with a permanent leave to remain have access to full social protection. So do generally European Economic Area (EEA) immigrants with the right to reside, though the precise basis of the right to reside is important in determining the types of benefits the person is entitled to. Migrants with a temporary leave to remain are excluded from most non-contributory benefits, as generally are British citizens living abroad, though those residing in EEA countries and those residing in a country with which the UK has a social security agreement are still entitled to a limited range of benefits. Many changes in access to social protection, especially as regards EEA immigrants in the UK and British nationals living in the EEA, are likely to stem from the UK leaving the EU, though these changes are currently being negotiated and, at present, no definitive post-Brexit regulatory framework is available.



2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Ciuriak ◽  
Ali Dadkhah ◽  
Jingliang Xiao
Keyword(s):  
The Uk ◽  


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