The Puzzle of Dutch Welfare Solidarity and the Politics of Old Age Pension Reform (1945-1975)

During the first three decades of the post-war period, the Netherlands developed a system of welfare provision that by most standards belonged to the most equitable and solidaristic in the world. It did so under the patronage of Christian democratic governments, which are generally viewed as being predisposed to rejecting solidaristic welfare reform. The purpose of this article is to explain why the Dutch Christian democrats came to adopt such a solidaristic welfare stance during the formative post-war period of welfare state expansion. Rather than attributing this stance to electoral or strategic considerations, this article focuses on the formative role of the Christian democratic labour union movement in persuading these parties to gradually adopt a more solidaristic welfare stance.In de eerste drie decennia van de naoorlogse periode ontwikkelde Nederland een stelsel van sociale voorzieningen dat naar de meeste maatstaven tot het meest rechtvaardige en solidaristische ter wereld behoorde. Dit stelsel kwam tot stand met steun van christendemocratische regeringen, waarvan over het algemeen wordt aangenomen dat zij geneigd zijn solidaristische welzijnshervormingen af te wijzen. Het doel van dit artikel is om te verklaren waarom de Nederlandse christendemocraten een solidaristische welvaartskoers zijn gaan varen in de naoorlogse periode, een tijdvak dat gekenmerkt werd door uitbreiding van de verzorgingsstaat. In plaats van deze houding toe te schrijven aan electorale of strategische overwegingen, richt dit artikel zich op de christendemocratische vakbeweging. Deze speelde een invloedrijke rol in het overreden van christendemocratische partijen om geleidelijk een meer solidaristische welvaartshouding aan te nemen.

A Box to Put the Baby in: UK Parent Perceptions of Two Baby Box Programmes Promoted for Infant Sleep

Between 2016 and 2019, two different infant sleeping-box interventions were implemented in England: (1) shallow polypropylene baby boxes were distributed via a feasibility study to families with Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) risk factors; and (2) a commercial–health system partnership scheme distributed cardboard baby boxes to new mothers in particular locations. We conducted parent evaluations of both interventions at the time of implementation. The views of 79 parents receiving polypropylene boxes and 77 parents receiving cardboard boxes were captured using online questionnaires and telephone interviews. Participants provided feedback on education received about using the box, their perception of the box design and materials, their experiences of using the box they received, and whether they would recommend it to others. Parents appreciated that both boxes provided a portable space to place their baby near them anywhere in the home, discouraging other riskier practices. The polypropylene box was rated more favourably regarding transparency, hygiene, and portability outside the home. A minority of parents found the idea of putting their baby in any box unappealing; however, younger mothers and smokers particularly appreciated the ability to safely co-sleep with their babies using the shallower box. Overall, the versatility of the polypropylene box scheme was more positively evaluated than the cardboard baby box scheme, which, stripped of its social value as part of a larger welfare provision, had minimal value for parents that received it.

Social Development and Revolution in Iran

The scholarship about the consequences of social revolutions contends that social revolutions boost state capacity and strengthen the state’s developmental projects. Social justice and addressing the needs of ordinary citizens also were central themes in the discourse of the Iranian revolution and the Islamic Republic that emerged as the post-revolutionary regime with the fall of the monarchy in Iran. In this essay, I assess the performance of the post-revolutionary state in Iran according to different development indicators. Specifically, I compare the record of the post-revolutionary regime with the pre-revolutionary regime. My examination of various indicators relating to health, education, poverty, income inequality, and housing presents more of a mixed result than the overall improvement that previous scholarship anticipated and that the post-revolutionary regime had promised. Furthermore, the evidence points to declines in some important areas of development and welfare provision. Based on this analysis, I propose directions for future research about the developmental outcome of revolutions.

The precarious inclusion of homeless EU migrants in Norwegian public social welfare: Moral bordering and social workers’ dilemmas

This article discusses public social welfare provision to homeless EU migrants in Norway. Most of these migrants have no or weak affiliations with the formal labour market, resulting in restricted rights to public social assistance. Drawing on the concept of precarious inclusion, I suggest that rather than being simply excluded from public social welfare, homeless EU migrants are included in the welfare state but in fragile and insecure ways through provisions directed at safeguarding bodily survival. I understand these limited inclusionary policies and practices as forming part of the Norwegian state’s management of ‘undesired’ migrants. Building on interviews with social workers in the public social welfare administration, I reflect on how assessments of cases involving homeless EU migrants signal hierarchical conceptions and differentiation of human worth within Norway’s borders and how territorial belonging emerges as a prerequisite for ‘deservingness’ in social workers’ accounts.

Poverty by Design: The Role of Charity and the Cultivated Ethical Citizen

Across numerous countries with advanced welfare states, governments have relied on a hybrid of publicly funded and delivered welfare services and voluntary charity to meet the needs of people in poverty. Driven by austerity and economic downturns, many scholars agree that governments are increasingly relying on charity as a response to poverty. Taking Australia as a case study, this article demonstrates how the decayed welfare state is not just about outsourcing welfare provision to charities, but also a part of a broader project to cultivate a society in which social problems are responded to through spontaneous, community-led initiatives, powered by the ethical commitment of everyday citizens. We show how this project produces poverty through welfare state retrenchment, whilst simultaneously cultivating charity through material and symbolic support from the state. This results in the construction of charity as an end in itself, with little consideration given to its effectiveness in alleviating poverty.

Measuring the Generosity of Parental Leave Policies

In order to investigate and compare welfare states or specific welfare programmes, scientists, opinion‐makers and politicians rely on indicators. As many of the concepts or objects studied are somewhat abstract, these indicators can often only be approximations. In comparative welfare‐state research, scholars have suggested several approximating indicators to quantitatively measure and compare the generosity of public welfare provision, with a special focus on cash benefits. These indicators include social spending, social rights and benefit receipt. We present these indicators systematically, and critically discuss how suitable they are for comparing the generosity of parenting leave policies in developed welfare states. Subsequently, we illustrate how the operationalisation of leave generosity by means of different indicators can lead to different rankings, interpretations and qualifications of countries. Hence, indicator choices have to be considered carefully and suitably justified, depending on the actual research interest.

Measuring returns on social investment beyond here-and-now redistribution: A commentary on Parolin and Van Lancker’s response article

Social policy research is truly interdisciplinary with academics from very different theoretical perspectives working together in fervent open-mindedness towards diverse methodological approaches. The exploration of social investment (SI) welfare provision is a clear example of this spirit of interdisciplinary engagement, having stirred up critical scholarly reception and debate over the past decade. On the one hand, some colleagues underscore the potential of SI policies to improve life chances. On the other hand, some researchers voice concerns about perverse unintended consequences of SI. The most worrying scholarly critique of SI is the conjecture that SI policies reinforce rather than alleviate inequality and poverty, because of the operation of so-called Matthew effects (MEs). Parolin and Van Lancker’s commentary on our article ‘The social investment litmus test: family formation, employment and poverty’ falls within the purview of the ME critique, with some extension to other shortcomings discussed in the literature. These criticisms certainly deserve engagement, and we are grateful to the editorial board of the Journal of European Social Policy for inviting us to do so fully. In our commentary, we commence with the multidimensionality of 21st-century welfare state provision. Subsequently, we turn to the welfare state’s carrying capacity, which we maintain needs to be taken into consideration for leveraging positive feedback mechanisms between the micro and the macro level of welfare provision. By so doing, we elaborate on the implications of our research approach for understanding MEs, with insights as to how they are exacerbated or mitigated through policy (in-)complementarities. We then discuss the importance of considering synergies between policies for an improved understanding of SI returns and possible source(s) of MEs. Finally, we turn to the misconception that capacitating SI policies and compensatory consumption-smoothing and poverty alleviation are somehow in competition with each other, and discuss the normative orientation underlying SI welfare provision.