Welfare Reform and Social Investment Policy

Social investment policies have enjoyed prominence during recent welfare reforms across the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) world, and yet there is insufficient long-term strategy for their success. Reviewing labour market, family and education policies, this book analyses the emergence of social investment policies in both Europe and East Asia. Adopting a life course perspective and examining both public and private investments, the book addresses key contemporary policy issues including care, learning, work, social mobility and inequalities. Providing original observations, the book explores the roads and barriers towards effective social investment policies, derives practical social policy implications and highlights important lessons for future policymaking.

2021 ◽  
pp. 291-314
Author(s):  
Jooha Lee

This chapter features an investigation of a mode of governance in the operational policy domain between different welfare regimes, which has been rarely analysed in comparative welfare studies. It illustrates a mode of governance that must be conceptualised in three dimensions: the vertical dimension, involving central–local (or inter-governmental) relations, and the two horizontal dimensions, operating at the centre (central–central), and the periphery (local–local). On this basis, the chapter provides a comparison and contrast between England and Korea's approaches to the governance of long-term care for the elderly with a special focus on co-governance and coordination at the three dimensions. By examining the governance of long-term care in England and Korea, the chapter reveals that the operational policy domain matters greatly in delivering the intended outcomes of social investment strategies.


2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (5) ◽  
pp. 442-459 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kati Kuitto

This article contributes to the ongoing debate on the forms and characteristics of social investment policies and their potential trade-off with social security schemes by assessing developments of welfare spending profiles in 23 European welfare states in the 2000s. I argue that if a social investment turn has indeed occurred, it is not necessarily at the cost of the ‘old’ compensatory policies. Instead, social investment policies and their relation to compensating welfare policies alter with regard to policies targeted at different life-stages and to the type of welfare regime. Therefore, the results attest to a path-dependent trend within the welfare regimes, the Nordic countries remaining clear forerunners in terms of both level and dynamics of social investment policies. European social investment strategies manifest mainly in policies targeting childhood and youth, while a trade-off between social investment and compensating policies is evident in working-age policies to some degree.


Pedagogika ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 70 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Branislav Pupala ◽  
Ondrej Kaščák

This article analyses the neoliberal transformation of ECEC in five selected countries (Germany, Slovakia, Indonesia, Nepal, and Kenya). Both the Global South and the Global North are represented. The countries were selected either because of the authors’ involvement in research in the respective country or because of their long-term personal experience of that particular system of ECEC. The knowledge the authors acquired enabled them to delve deeper into the question of the point at which ECEC systems encounter neoliberal education policy and to describe the different ways in which the countries have adapted to the new policies. The article shows that neoliberal education policies require different types of adaptation and that these may have very different effects on the system of ECEC – from a change in concept to system convergence and practical resistance or total governance of the ECEC sector. The article contributes to a more granular understanding of the effect of the economising discourse on the ECEC sector. Keywords: ECEC, social investment approach, EU, Germany, Slovakia, Indonesia, Kenya, Nepal, Global North, Global South


2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 659-674 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Deeming ◽  
Paul Smyth

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.


Author(s):  
Timo Fleckenstein ◽  
Soohyun Christine Lee

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.


Author(s):  
Ethan J. Leib ◽  
Stephen R. Galoob

This chapter examines how fiduciary principles apply to public offices, focusing on what it means for officeholders to comport themselves to their respective public roles appropriately. Public law institutions can operate in accordance with fiduciary norms even when they are enforced differently from the remedial mechanisms available in private fiduciary law. In the public sector, fiduciary norms are difficult to enforce directly and the fiduciary norms of public office do not overlap completely with the positive law governing public officials. Nevertheless, core fiduciary principles are at the heart of public officeholding, and public officers need to fulfill their fiduciary role obligations. This chapter first considers three areas of U.S. public law whose fiduciary character reinforces the tenet that public office is a public trust: the U.S. Constitution’s “Emoluments Clauses,” administrative law, and the law of judging. It then explores the fiduciary character of public law by looking at the deeper normative structure of public officeholding, placing emphasis on how public officeholders are constrained by the principles of loyalty, care, deliberation, conscientiousness, and robustness. It also compares the policy implications of the fiduciary view of officeholding with those of Dennis Thompson’s view before concluding with an explanation of how the application of fiduciary principles might differ between public and private law settings and how public institutions might be designed or reformed in light of fiduciary norms.


2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
M Poldrugovac ◽  
J E Amuah ◽  
H Wei-Randall ◽  
P Sidhom ◽  
K Morris ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Evidence of the impact of public reporting of healthcare performance on quality improvement is not yet sufficient to draw conclusions with certainty, despite the important policy implications. This study explored the impact of implementing public reporting of performance indicators of long-term care facilities in Canada. The objective was to analyse whether improvements can be observed in performance measures after publication. Methods We considered 16 performance indicators in long-term care in Canada, 8 of which are publicly reported at a facility level, while the other 8 are privately reported. We analysed data from the Continuing Care Reporting System managed by the Canadian Institute for Health Information and based on information collection with RAI-MDS 2.0 © between the fiscal years 2011 and 2018. A multilevel model was developed to analyse time trends, before and after publication, which started in 2015. The analysis was also stratified by key sample characteristics, such as the facilities' jurisdiction, size, urban or rural location and performance prior to publication. Results Data from 1087 long-term care facilities were included. Among the 8 publicly reported indicators, the trend in the period after publication did not change significantly in 5 cases, improved in 2 cases and worsened in 1 case. Among the 8 privately reported indicators, no change was observed in 7, and worsening in 1 indicator. The stratification of the data suggests that for those indicators that were already improving prior to public reporting, there was either no change in trend or there was a decrease in the rate of improvement after publication. For those indicators that showed a worsening trend prior to public reporting, the contrary was observed. Conclusions Our findings suggest public reporting of performance data can support change. The trends of performance indicators prior to publication appear to have an impact on whether further change will occur after publication. Key messages Public reporting is likely one of the factors affecting change in performance in long-term care facilities. Public reporting of performance measures in long-term care facilities may support improvements in particular in cases where improvement was not observed before publication.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
VINCENT BAKKER ◽  
OLAF VAN VLIET

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.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 2506
Author(s):  
Hongpeng Guo ◽  
Shuang Xu ◽  
Xiaotong Wang ◽  
Wen Shu ◽  
Jia Chen ◽  
...  

In recent years, the unsustainable behaviors of straw utilization have led to waste straw being one of the sources of agricultural non-point source pollution. Studying the resource utilization of crop straw is conducive to expediate the development of ecological and green agriculture. More importantly, it has long-term significance for the recycling of agricultural waste, improving the quality of rural life, and the employment of farmers. Based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB), taking the representative survey questionnaire of farmers in Jilin Province, China as the sample, the structural equation model (SEM) was constructed to study the main factors that drive the utilization behaviors of straw resources of farmers and to explore the driving mechanism of the farmers behaviors in Jilin Province. The results show that the behavioral attitude and subjective norms of farmers in Jilin Province not only indirectly affect their actual behaviors through behavioral willingness, but also has significant direct effects on their behaviors. The most critical factors that affect the willingness of farmers to utilize the straw resources in Jilin Province are subjective norms and moral responsibilities. The subjective norms of farmers have a direct and significant positive impact on their willingness and behaviors. Behavioral attitude and perceived behavior control have a significant positive impact on their willingness. The behavioral willingness has a significant positive impact on their actual behaviors. This study provides guidance for the utilization of straw resources policy implications.


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