Means Paternalism and the Problem of Indeterminacy

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.

Long-Term Care

This chapter describes and analyses the current state of long-term care and long-term care policies around the world. In the first part, after briefly retracing historical developments, the chapter examines the ways in which welfare state policies address long-term care. It studies regulation, finance, and delivery of long-term care. In the second part, the interconnectedness of welfare state policies, the role of families, non-profit, and for-profit market sectors, as well as novel arrangements between state, market, and family, in particular migrant care work, move to the centre of analysis. The third part focuses on major challenges and perspectives for long-term care systems and for long-term care research. Starting from a discussion of future long-term care needs and costs, it addresses the role of families in long-term care, workforce issues, financial sustainability, the quality of care, and the role of technological advancement for long-term care. With increasing needs and the changing contexts in which care is organized, long-term care has become a key concern of welfare state development in the twenty-first century.

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

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.

Welfare State Policies

Denmark is a welfare state. Arguably, the development of the welfare state over the last 120 years is one of the most striking features of Danish history and society. An indication of Hegel’s famous phrase that ‘the owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk’, the crisis of the welfare state in the 1970s sparked an interest in understanding both the welfare state’s historical development as well as the changes that took place in the present. This chapter starts with defining the main characteristics of the Danish welfare state, followed by an outline of its historical development (organized around four historical phases) until the end of the ‘golden age’ in the 1970s. First, the following sections discuss the crisis of the Danish welfare state and the main challenges confronting the Danish welfare model since the 1970s. Second, they offer an overview of the main trends of policy change over the last four decades. Developments over the last 3–4 decades have triggered an ongoing academic and public discussion on the nature of the changes: are these changes taking place within the paradigm of the classic Danish welfare state, or are they leading towards a new paradigm?

Is There a Relationship Between Welfare-State Policies and Suicide Rates? Evidence from the U.S. States, 2000-2015

Suicide is one of the leading causes of death in the United States. The rise in suicide rates is contributing to the recently observed decline in life expectancy. While previous research identified a solid association between economic strain and suicide, little attention has been paid to how specific welfare policies that are designed to alleviate economic strain may influence suicide rates. There is a growing body of research that is using an institutional approach to demonstrate the role of welfare-state policies in the distribution of health. However, this perspective has not been applied yet to the investigation of suicide. In this study, I combine these approaches to analyze the association between two specific policies, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), and overall and gender-specific suicide rates across the 50 U.S. states between 2000 and 2015. I estimate two-way fixed-effects longitudinal models and find evidence of a robust association between one of these policies – SNAP – and overall and male suicide. After adjusting for a number of confounding factors, higher participation in SNAP is associated with lower overall and male suicide rates. Increasing SNAP participation by one standard deviation (4.5% of the state population) during the study period could have saved the lives of approximately 31,600 people overall and 24,800 men.