scholarly journals Gendered Labor Market (dis)advantages in Nordic Welfare States. Introduction to the Theme of the Special Issue

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Armi Mustosmäki ◽  
Liza Reisel ◽  
Tiina Sihto ◽  
Mari Teigen
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Gender Equality ◽  
Gender Segregation ◽  
State Policies ◽  
Nordic Countries ◽  
The State ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Friendly Societies ◽  
Welfare State Policies

Gender equality has been named as one of the normative foundations of Nordic wel- fare states. This is reflected in how, year after year, Nordic states rank among the most gender egalitarian countries in the world (see, e.g., World Economic Forum 2020). In Nordic countries, the state has been, and continues to be, a central actor in shaping women’s citizenship, labor market opportunities, and caring roles. Especially publicly funded welfare services and policies that facilitate the reconciliation of work and care have played a major part in advancing women’s labor market participation (see, e.g., Bergquist et al. 1999; Borchorst & Siim 2002; Ellingsæter & Leira 2006; Siim & Stoltz 2015). The institutional framework of Nordic welfare state policies has been central to what has been called the ‘social democratic public service route’ (Walby 2004).One of the important building blocks of gender equality has been the aim of making policies in Nordic countries ‘women-friendly’. More than 30 years ago, Helga Hernes (1987) identified the Nordic countries as ‘potentially women-friendly societies’. She characterized women-friendly societies as those that ‘would not force harder choices on women than on men’ (ibid., 15), particularly in relation to work and care. Hernes also envisaged that woman-friendliness should be achieved without increasing other forms of inequality, such as class or ethnicity-based inequalities among different groups of women.However, achieving gender equality in working life and the sort of women- friendliness that Hernes envisaged at the societal level has in many ways also proved to be challenging, as the ties between the state and gender equality goals are more complex than what they might seem at first glance. Gender disparities have proven persistent also within the Nordic context. When we issued a call for this special issue, we were interested in various forms of gendered labor market (dis)advantage in Nordic countries. Furthermore, we asked how gender segregation, welfare state policies, labor marketpolicies, and various labor market actors interact to produce, maintain, challenge, or change gender equality in the labor market in the Nordic countries and beyond. The five articles presented in this special issue address the issue of gendered labor market (dis)advantages in Nordic countries from several vantage points, focusing on both on ‘traditional’ questions, such as corporate power and sustainable employment, and ‘emerging’ questions such as intersectionality, gender culture, and aesthetic work.

The Welfare State: An Affront to Freedom?

1988 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 757-770 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher John Nock
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
State Policies ◽  
The State ◽  
Individual Liberty ◽  
Classical Liberal ◽  
Per Se ◽  
The Welfare State ◽  
Welfare State Policies

AbstractLibertarian writers such as Hayek, Friedman, Hospers and Nozick have insisted that welfare state policies are, per se, inimical to the classical liberal notion of freedom. The purpose of this article is to test the internal coherence of the libertarian attack upon the welfare state. Special attention is given to Friedman's contentions in his Capitalism and Freedom. It is argued that the libertarian attack upon the welfare state is misguided. Indeed, it is suggested that in order to achieve the type of individual liberty that libertarians wish to secure the state must be assigned a positive welfare role.

scholarly journals Introduction: The Russian Welfare State in a Time of Economic Stagnation

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 291-301 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda J. Cook ◽  
Jørn Holm-Hansen ◽  
Markku Kivinen ◽  
Stein Kuhnle
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Education Policies ◽  
State Budget ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Economic Stagnation ◽  
Final Article

This Special Issue is devoted to Russia’s welfare state during the years of economic stagnation that began in 2013. Twelve experts assess social conditions and reforms in poverty, labor market, pension, housing and education policies. They show that social mobility has stagnated in conditions of deep inequality and just-above-poverty incomes for many. Innovative labor market and anti-poverty policies are hampered by low productivity and wages, both features of an oligarchic economic model that blocks competition and development. Welfare commitments heavily burden the state budget, producing reforms that transfer costs to users. The authors find that popular protests have forced government to partially mitigate these reforms. Putin’s government appears trapped between oligarchic economic interests and popular expectations for welfare. The final article compares China’s comparatively successful welfare trajectories with those of Russia, and proposes an agenda for further research.

Manufacturing Responsibility: The Governmentality of Behavioural Power in Social Policies

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rik Peeters
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
State Policies ◽  
Social Policies ◽  
Moral Imperative ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Psychological Mechanisms ◽  
Conceptual Clarity ◽  
Welfare State Policies

Responsibilisation is commonly associated with a neoliberal transfer of responsibilities from state to social actors. However, it also covers the construction of responsibility where it does not exist yet – where citizens need socialisation to manufacture responsibility so they become economically and socially active, healthy, and productive subjects. This article aims to bring more conceptual clarity in these practices. Based on an analysis of literature on contemporary welfare state policies, three different techniques are discerned: reciprocal governance in welfare state services; training and treatment of vulnerable citizens through support and structure; and choice engineering by working upon the unconscious and psychological triggers underlying decision making. These techniques of behavioural power seek responsibilisation by working upon people's understanding of responsibility as a moral imperative and upon the rational or psychological mechanisms that constitute the choices they make and the attitudes they have.

Linking population heterogeneity with poverty

2014 ◽  
Vol 34 (1/2) ◽  
pp. 47-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Udaya R. Wagle
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Latent Variable ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
State Policies ◽  
Population Heterogeneity ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Operational Strategy ◽  
Data Limitations ◽  
Welfare State Policies

Purpose – This paper aims to examine how population heterogeneity contributes to poverty in 17 high-income Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries during 1980-2005. Design/methodology/approach – The operational strategy involves linking poverty with heterogeneity directly as well as indirectly through welfare state policies as a latent variable in a structural equation framework. Findings – Findings support the widely held poverty-reducing roles of welfare state policies. Ethno-racial and religious diversities are found to positively contribute to welfare state policies and, through them, lower poverty, whereas immigration assumes opposite roles. Research limitations/implications – Data limitations on population and especially ethno-racial and religious heterogeneity caution against definitiveness. Originality/value – The findings are useful in understanding the heterogeneity connection of welfare state policies and poverty.

Means Paternalism and the Problem of Indeterminacy

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Johan Brännmark
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Behavioral Economics ◽  
State Policies ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Empirical Results ◽  
Primary Goods ◽  
Welfare State Policies

Abstract Many contemporary defenders of paternalist interventions favor a version of paternalism focused on how people often choose the wrong means given their own ends. This idea is typically justified by empirical results in psychology and behavioral economics. To the extent that paternalist interventions can then target the promotion of goals that can be said to be our own, such interventions are prima facie less problematic. One version of this argument starts from the idea that it is meaningful to ascribe to us preferences that we would have if were fully rational, informed and in control over our actions. It is argued here, however, that the very body of empirical results that means paternalists typically rely on also undermines this idea as a robust enough notion. A more modest approach to paternalist interventions, on which such policies are understood as enmeshed with welfare-state policies promoting certain primary goods, is then proposed instead.

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