The right to care? Social citizenship and care poverty in developed welfare states

PurposeThere are clear theoretical, policy and practice tensions in conceptualising social or long-term care as a “right”: an enforceable choice. The purpose of this article is to address the following questions: Do disabled and older citizens have the right to long-term care? What do these rights look like under different care regimes? Do citizens have the right or duty to *provide* long-term care? It is already known that both formal and informal care across all welfare contexts is mainly provided by women and that this has serious implications for gender equality.Design/methodology/approachIn this article, the author takes a conceptual approach to examining the comparative evidence from developed welfare states with formal long-term care provision and the different models of care, to challenge feminist care theory from the perspective of those living in care poverty (i.e. with insufficient access to long-term care and support to meet their citizenship rights).FindingsDrawing on her own comparative research on models of long-term and “personalised” care, the author finds that different models of state provision and different models of personalised care provide differential citizenship outcomes for carers and those needing care. The findings indicate that well-governed personalised long-term care provides the best outcomes in terms of balancing potentially conflicting citizenship claims and addressing care poverty.Originality/valueThe author develops new approaches to care theory based on citizenship and care poverty that have not been published elsewhere, drawing on models that she developed herself.

Greening work: labor market policies for the environment

Jobs are essential for social inclusion, raising taxes, and guaranteeing the financial resilience of (welfare) states. At the same time, the Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Agreement, and the European Green Deal require the greening of our economies and labor markets. This paper assesses how labor market policies can green employment. The paper analyses the potential effects of eight different policy strategies on four dimensions of the Taxonomy of Sustainable Employment: conversion of plants and businesses, environmental labor law, climate decommodification, socio-ecological job guarantee, vocational guidance and retraining, distribution of employment time, alternative income sources, and equalization of income. All eight strategies have the potential of greening employment but feature different intensities in the four dimensions. In the light of environmental crises, the results suggest widening the toolbox of labor market policies for a green and just transition.

A solidarity paradox – welfare state data in global health data economy

Nordic welfare states have well institutionalised practises of gathering health and social wellbeing data from their citizens. The establishment of population registers coincided with the building of welfare state institutions and a social contract relying on solidarity. During the last decade, the significance of Nordic registers and health data has increased and they have become sources of economic value. Recent policies expect registers, health data and biobanks to attract international investments, making Nordic countries world-leaders in the global health data economy. In this article we question the conditions and boundaries of solidarity in the emerging data-driven health economy. We argue that the logics of welfare state and data-driven health economy create a paradox – the data economy is not possible without the welfare state data regime, but the logic of data-driven health economy contradicts the value bases of the welfare state data regime and therefore the justifications for data gathering and use become questionable. We develop the concept of solidarization to describe the process by which individuals are expected to behave in a solidaristic way to support data gathering and related policy processes. We demonstrate the solidarity paradox through a recent legislative and data infrastructure reform in Finland and discuss it in relation to academic literature on solidarity.

Social Provision of Disabled People in Welfare States: the Scope of Social Benefits and Anti-Crisis Regulation. Part 2

The article consists of two separate publications (Part 1 and Part 2) and analyses social security policy towards people with disability at working age in developed welfare states (social-democratic, conservative-corporatist and neoliberal regimes). Part 2 analyses reform strategies of state assistance programmes for disabled people on the basis of international research as well as statistical data of the EU and OECD for the past 30 years, while considering the changes in the economic climate. The article attends for the funding: expenditures for the programmes (as percentage of GDP and per capita) during periods of economic growth, the 2008–2009 crisis and the following decade. The connection between cyclic economic changes and the number of people with disability is considered. The author examines the combination of approaches to anticrisis management and the dynamics of public spending on programmes for people with disabilities as well as on alternative support schemes and social security in general. The author analyses the level of social protection of people with disability: poverty and inequality data based on research data and self-administered health condition evaluation. The article discusses the factors which mitigate the negative effects of the reforms, contribute to the reduction of social tension or, on the contrary, decrease social security in the long-term perspective.

Social Provision of Disabled People in Welfare States: the Scope of Social Benefits and Anti-Crisis Regulation. Part 2

The article consists of two separate publications (Part 1 and Part 2) and analyses social security policy towards people with disability at working age in developed welfare states (social-democratic, conservative-corporatist and neoliberal regimes). Part 2 analyses reform strategies of state assistance programmes for disabled people on the basis of international research as well as statistical data of the EU and OECD for the past 30 years, while considering the changes in the economic climate. The article attends for the funding: expenditures for the programmes (as percentage of GDP and per capita) during periods of economic growth, the 2008–2009 crisis and the following decade. The connection between cyclic economic changes and the number of people with disability is considered. The author examines the combination of approaches to anticrisis management and the dynamics of public spending on programmes for people with disabilities as well as on alternative support schemes and social security in general. The author analyses the level of social protection of people with disability: poverty and inequality data based on research data and self-administered health condition evaluation. The article discusses the factors which mitigate the negative effects of the reforms, contribute to the reduction of social tension or, on the contrary, decrease social security in the long-term perspective.

The World Bank and Healthcare Reforms: A Cross‐National Analysis of Policy Prescriptions in South America

Recent literature on comparative welfare states has recognised the central role international financial institutions (IFIs) play in shaping social policy. Particularly in low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMICs), where constraints often lead to reliance on foreign resources, IFIs can act as agenda‐setters, transferring their ideas to vulnerable governments. The neoliberal model promoted by IFIs at the end of the 20th century reveals their influence on domestic policy in South America. This study analyses the impact of World Bank (WB) prescriptions on healthcare reform legislation in five South American countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Paraguay, and Peru. In doing so, it attempts to answer the following questions: Are LMICs receptive to IFIs’ healthcare system prescriptions? More precisely, have WB policy prescriptions been adopted in healthcare reform legislation in South American countries? If so, in what way? Through content analysis, this study examines domestic healthcare legislation vis‐à‐vis the WB’s prescriptions. The main findings show that countries are receptive to IFIs prescriptions, making them a legitimate source of policy recommendations. Further, the results suggest a correlation between economic development and reliance on foreign resources and the degree to which countries adhere to IFIs prescriptions.