The interplay of welfare state policies with supply-and demand side factors in the production of marginalised part-time employment among women in Germany

2019 ◽  
pp. 245-264
Author(s):  
Birgit Pfau-Effinger ◽  
Thordis Reimer
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Supply And Demand ◽  
State Policies ◽  
Demand Side ◽  
Part Time ◽  
Welfare State Policies

The interplay of welfare state policies with supply- and demand-side factors in the production of marginalised part-time employment among women in Germany

2019 ◽  
pp. 245-264
Author(s):  
Birgit Pfau-Effinger ◽  
Thordis Reimer
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Supply And Demand ◽  
Supply Side ◽  
Demand Side ◽  
Public Firms ◽  
Part Time ◽  
Marginal Employment ◽  
Employment Of Women ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Traditional Structures

In the early 2000s, Germany's Red-Green government introduced a new type of marginal employment in the form of 'Minijob' legislation. In the context of the dualisation strategy of the German welfare state, Minijob legislation has supported firms in extending the secondary segment of marginal jobs. However, Minijobs are associated with particularly low social security and high poverty risks, and these positions are primarily staffed by women. Therefore, the extension of the Minijob system has contributed to the persistence of traditional structures of gender inequality. This empirical study examines how demand and supply side factors interact with welfare state institutions and politics in the production of marginal employment of women in part-time jobs. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we used logistic regression to analyse women's risk of working in Minijobs based on family, educational, biographical and workplace characteristics. The research results identify both supply side and demand side factors as being significant in shaping a situation whereby married women with small children and lower levels of education who work in small, non-public firms are particularly exposed to the risks of marginal employment in Minijobs.

WELFARE STATE POLICIES AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF CARE ARRANGEMENTS

2005 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 321-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Birgit Pfau-Effinger
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
State Policies ◽  
Welfare State Policies

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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