Comparative Welfare Systems

EUROPE AND THE'AMERICANIZATION'OF BRITISH SOCIAL POLICY

by John Holmwood

Positive or Negative Policy Feedbacks? Explaining Attitudes towards Pragmatic Pension Policy Reforms

by Juan J. Fernández González

Recent decades have seen increased interest in public attitudes towards public pension policies. Most previous... more Recent decades have seen increased interest in public attitudes towards public pension policies. Most previous research, however, relies heavily on dependent variables that fail to reflect the effective alternatives being discussed in most affluent democracies. This paper seeks to improve our understanding of public attitudes towards pragmatic welfare policy options by examining cross-national differences in attitudes towards (a) cuts in old-age pension benefits, (b) increases in social security contributions, and (c) increases in the statutory retirement age. We test predictions of the dominant positive policy feedback theory and the alternative negative policy feedback theory. These approaches argue that policies induce consequences and attitudes that reinforce (positive feedback) or undermine (negative feedback) past policymaking trajectories. Empirical results obtained by multilevel analyses from a sample of 27 European countries are consistent mainly with the negative feedback approach. In countries with higher statutory retirement ages, citizens are more likely to support a postponement of retirement. However, in countries with higher elderly poverty, citizens are less likely to support cuts in pension benefits. In countries with higher social security contributions, citizens are less likely to support further increases in these contributions.

(2006) ¿Cómo y por qué se reforman los Estados de Bienestar? Avances y retos teóricos y metodológicos en la agenda de investigación actual.

by Eloisa del Pino

Zona Abierta 114/115, 1-42 (CON CÉSAR COLINO).

¿Hacia dónde se dirige el Estado de Bienestar? ¿Puede afirmarse que el Estado de Bienestar ha entrado en una nueva... more ¿Hacia dónde se dirige el Estado de Bienestar? ¿Puede afirmarse que el Estado de Bienestar ha entrado en una nueva etapa de reforma? ¿Cuál es la dirección de esta reforma?¿Hasta que punto se está produciendo un desmantelamiento de las estructuras y programas del bienestar? ¿Cómo consiguen los gobiernos generar las condiciones sociales y políticas necesarias y neutralizar los obstáculos que hasta ahora habían inhibido el recorte de los programas de bienestar permitiendo sólo un ajuste de los mismos? ¿Por qué algunos gobiernos han iniciado reformas, en principio, contrarias a las prioridades ciudadanas aún suponiendo que esta actitud podía depararles un posible fiasco electoral? ¿Cómo superan la barrera que constituyen las clientelas generadas alrededor de los programas de bienestar? ¿Cómo neutralizan los problemas de la resistencia e inercia institucional? Finalmente, ¿cómo puede abordarse el análisis de la reforma?
En este número monográfico de la revista Zona Abierta se presentan, con el fin de divulgar la discusión internacional y promover los debates sobre el tema en la Ciencia Política y la Sociología Política en España, algunas de las principales aportaciones de los últimos años sobre la reforma del EB. En el número se incluye una selección del núcleo más básico de la discusión actual sobre los condicionantes de la reforma del Estado Bienestar desde la perspectiva de la Ciencia Política .

Normalising Precarious Work: Gendered Nurses and Primary Teachers Professional Identities in Europe

by Jörg Müller

Paper presented at the 9th Conference of the European Sociological Association, Lisboa, Portugal, 2009.

The following paper explores the gendered impact of welfare restructuring on primary teaching and nursing, drawing... more The following paper explores the gendered impact of welfare restructuring on primary teaching and nursing, drawing upon empirical material across seven European countries. Parallel trends between largely professionalised nursing and teaching and an increasingly deteriorating economic reality puts care workers in situations where they feel highly competent to care yet have to cope with its denial. The resulting teachers and nurses’ responses provides key insights into the gendered nature of these highly feminised albeit different occupations, in that it tends to normalise precarious work. A personal approach to care dominates which furthermore gets exacerbated by the late modern quest for authenticity, thus reinscribing care as an innate, personal virtue that is dissociated from its structural and economic conditions.

The Catcher in the Rye: Understanding Social Entrepreneurship in Europe and United States

by Anamaria Vrabie

Introduction to Social Entrepreneurship
Prof: Michele Kahane
The New School New York
Spring 2011

User and creator of many formulas, Albert Einstein once said that “innovation is not the product of logical thought,... more User and creator of many formulas, Albert Einstein once said that “innovation is not the product of logical thought, although the result is tied to logical structure” (Sanberg n.d.). As social innovation has been portrayed as the formula for alleviating society’s troubles, the logical framework has diverged among several models including “social entrepreneurship”, “social economy”, “social enterprise” and, of course, “social innovation”. This paper is structured as a comparative study of the emergence of the concept of social entrepreneurship in Europe and the United States. First, I analyze how the concept of “social capital” gained so much currency in leveraging the dynamic between the public and the third sector. Secondly, I provide an overview on how different forms of social entrepreneurship are melting down the triangle formed by the public, the private and the third sector. In the third place, I provide a reflection on the strategic development of the concept in the last few years and its role in the overall political economy. While clear differences as well as different schools of thought can be observed between Western Europe and the United States, the conclusion addresses the question of how one can replicate a formula in order to leave room for both the past- the historical, sociological heritage- and the future - creativity and innovation of individuals.

Book Review in: The Northern Review 34 (Fall 2011)

by William Frost

Review of 'The Nordic Model: Scandinavia Since 1945' by Mary Hilson. London, Reaktion Books Ltd., 2008. 234 pp.

2012, « The Historicity of the Neoliberal State », in Social Anthropology, volume 20, n° 1, pp. 80-94

by Mathieu Hilgers

Debate with Loic Wacquant “Three Steps to a Historical Anthropology of Actually Existing Neoliberalism." Social Anthropology, 20, 1, with responses in the next issue: Jamie Peck, Nick Theodore, and Neil Brenner, Stephen Collier, Daniel Goldstein, Johanna Bockman, Don Kalb...

Nutrition, hygiene, and mortality. Setting parameters for Roman health and life expectancy consistent with our comparative evidence

by Geoffrey Kron

In E. Lo Cascio (a cura di), L’impatto della “peste antonina,” (Collana di Pragmateiai) (Bari: Edipuglia) (in press)

Any hypotheses regarding the likely long-term demographic impact of the Antonine plague will have to take into... more Any hypotheses regarding the likely long-term demographic impact of the Antonine plague will have to take into account, not only the cause of the epidemic, but also the underlying mortality and fertility regime of the Roman empire. Health, nutritional status and hygiene have a significant effect upon the virulence of some epidemics, while for others, like the bubonic plague, for example, they are largely irrelevant. But whatever the effect on the morbidity of the epidemic, the underlying mortality regime of the population will have a significant impact on determining both the extent to which the population will be able to absorb this excess mortality, and the extent to which it will or will not recover.

At least since the influential work of Keith Hopkins in the 1960’s, a broad consensus has emerged among ancient historians setting the life expectancy at birth in the Roman Principate and Empire at between 20 and 30 years of age, with most estimates falling on the lower end of this range, often below 25 years. As the trenchant critiques of Tim Parkin and Walter Scheidel have emphasized, however, solid evidence for the calculation of ancient life expectancy simply does not exist. Recent estimates must therefore remain largely educated guesses based on comparative evidence from early-industrial Europe or the contemporary Third World. I intend to argue that at least three strong considerations suggest that the present scholarly consensus is unrealistically low. .

First, a more careful reading of the modern demographic evidence will show that the life expectancies as low as those conjectured for Roman Italy are rarely documented for Western European societies, generally only in brief periods of extreme poverty and stress, or for limited segments of society.

Second, researchers of ancient demography have generally neglected the critical role of nutrition in the modern rise in life expectancy, as argued in a classic, if controversial, work by Thomas MacKeown, and confirmed by the correlation between the secular increase in heights and decline in mortality in modern Europe and North America drawn by Robert Fogel. In fact, anthropometric evidence of ancient heights suggests that Greco-Roman societies enjoyed a significantly higher biological standard of living than the working classes of 18th and 19th century Western Europe. Early industrial life expectancies are therefore likely to represent a floor, rather than a ceiling, for plausible Greco-Roman estimates.

Finally, there is evidence that, in addition to enjoying superior nutritional standards, Greco-Roman populations likely faced fewer health stresses from contaminated drinking water, over-crowding, poor hygiene and sanitation, lack of exercise, and social inequality generally than the poor of the European ancien régime.

The system versus the street: Employment and contracting in the international welfare-to-work industry

by Ian Greer

co-authored with Mark Stuart and Ian Greenwood, working paper

'Activating' the jobless – bringing them into or closer to paid work – has become a government-funded industry. What... more 'Activating' the jobless – bringing them into or closer to paid work – has become a government-funded industry. What are the dynamics of employment relations in this sector, constituted as a mixed market of non-profit, for-profit, and public sector bodies? Drawing on in-depth qualitative research in the UK and Germany, we argue that there is a tension between two levels of bureaucracy: system-level policymaking and planning and street-level service provision. This tension creates varying interorganizational contracting arrangements, which shape the institutional regulation of work. Under ‘marketized’ contracting – i.e. relatively short-term, price-based, standardized, and open to many competitors – frameworks of collective bargaining and worker representation are relatively difficult to apply, leading in extreme cases to a low-wage precarious pattern of employment relations.

Os modelos do modelo social europeu na UE alargada

by Paulo Pedroso

Pedroso, Paulo  "Os modelos do modelo social europeu na UE alargada", Janus 13-14, 2007

Sob o impacte político da queda do muro de Berlim, a mais pesada tendência europeia do final do século XX foi a da... more Sob o impacte político da queda do muro de Berlim, a mais pesada tendência europeia do final do século XX foi a da reunificação. No processo, de que o alargamento da União Europeia é uma das linhas fortes, redescobriram--se afinidades não destruídas pela separação de regimes e construíram-se diferenças nos modos de gerir, do ponto de vista social, a transição para a democracia.

Independentemente das opções políticas subjacentes, um modelo social para ser sustentável precisa de ser demograficamente viável, garantindo a substituição equilibrada de gerações, aproveitando as potencialidades de toda a população, o pleno emprego às pessoas em idade activa, a promoção da igualdade socio económica, erradicando a pobreza e contendo a desigualdade em patamares baixos) e custos financeiros contidos para a sociedade.

Todos os modelos pelos quais a Europa tenta aproximar-se deste modelo social ideal falham em algum dos ângulos de abordagem, embora haja afinidades entre eles no modo como tal acontece e nas dificuldades que cada país enfrenta. Essas afinidades seguem tendências geográficas e socio políticas e é possível identificar os países que se aproximam mais de um ou outro modelo. Em última análise, trata-se do modo como cada modelo procura resolver o trilema da transição para as economias pós-industriais (consolidação orçamental, crescimento económico e emprego, equidade na distribuição de rendimentos)

A typology of caregiving situations and service use in family carers of older people in six European countries: The EUROFAMCARE study.

by Mirko Di Rosa

Di Rosa M., Kofahl C., McKee K., Bień B., Lamura G., Prouskas C., Döhner H., Mnich E. (on behalf of the EUROFAMCARE Group) (2011). A typology of caregiving situations and service use in family carers of older people in six European countries: The EUROFAMCARE study. GeroPsych, 24 (1): 5-18.

This paper presents the EUROFAMCARE study findings, examining a typology of care situations for family carers of older... more This paper presents the EUROFAMCARE study findings, examining a typology of care situations for family carers of older people, and the interplay of carers with social and health services. Despite the complexity of family caregiving situations across Europe, our analyses determined the existence of seven “caregiving situations,” varying on a range of critical indicators. Our study also describes the availability and use of different support services for carers and care receivers, and carers’ preferences for the characteristics of support services. Our findings have relevance for policy initiatives in Europe, where limited resources need to be more equitably distributed and services should be targeted to caregiving situations reflecting the greatest need, and organized to reflect the preferences of family carers.

Youth participation in Finland and in Germany

by Tomi Kiilakoski

This report is a comparative overview of youth participation in Germany and Finland. The project was launched in November 2007 as a bilateral cooperation initiative by the Finnish Ministry of Education and the German Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (BMFSFJ). Following its conclusion the research team, which was part of a wider cooperation project between German and Finnish youth actors, decided to produce a final report. The team consisted of researchers from various institutions in Finland and Germany.

Youth participation and active citizenship are traditionally reported mainly in terms of membership in organizations.... more Youth participation and active citizenship are traditionally reported mainly in terms of membership in organizations. This report attempts to go beyond that. The researchers asked to what extent young people are able to engage in the planning of activities and how strong a voice they have in decision-making. Our analysis concentrates on evaluating what is known about the youth participation scene in Finland and Germany, and analyses how strongly the principle of promoting youth participation is respected by the law and in practical terms. A clear picture of national experiences is crucial when attempting to influence the circumstances through research. The dialogue between the two countries has led to greater mutual understanding by giving the researchers a clearer view of their situation and that of the others.

The State of the Social Investment State in the Field of Employment Policy

by Ian Morrison

2005. With Pascale Dufour.

This article takes issue with a simple history of welfare regimes that divides the post-1945 years into a golden age... more This article takes issue with a simple history of welfare regimes that divides the post-1945 years into a golden age and an era of retrenchment. Rather, we claim that it is more appropriate to describe three moments in liberal welfare regimes. Essential to this reconceptualisation is the observation of a gradual introduction, since the middle of the 1990s, of new social policies that move beyond the realm of “cuts.” They provide new visions of welfare and delineate novel parameters of social discourse and action. We term this the moment of the Social
Investment State in liberal welfare regimes. The Social Investment State is not simply guided by neo-liberal precepts, nor is it even simply a reworking of Thatcherite policies. Instead it is a new form of welfare. In order to understand how the recent period (1995-2003) can be distinguished from the period of austerity (1980-1995), this article presents in chronological order
the reform of the principal instruments of employment policy used in Canada and the United Kingdom. This new model of welfare, however, is not necessarily without negative effects; the
Social Investment State leaves many groups without protection.

Cette article s’oppose à une vision simpliste de l’histoire des régimes d’État providence qui veut que depuis la seconde guerre mondiale, ceux-ci aient connu un “âge d’or” puis une période de “retrait”. Nous soutenons plutôt que les régimes libéraux d’État providence ont connu trois moments historiques.
En considérant l’introduction graduelle, depuis le milieu des années 1990, de nouvelles politiques sociales qui ne s’apparentent pas à des actions de “coupures des dépenses publiques”, nous pouvons caractériser ce troisième moment. Ces nouvelles politiques sociales fournissent de nouvelles visions du bien-être social et produisent de nouveaux paramètres aux discours et aux actions dans le champ social.
Nous nommons cette période “l’État d’investissement social” dans les régimes libéraux. L’État d’investissement social n’est pas uniquement guidé par des préceptes néo-libéraux, ni une
version remaniée des politiques tatchériennes. Il s’agit davantage d’une nouvelle forme d’État providence. Pour comprendre comment la période récente (1995-2003) peut être distinguée de la période d’austérité (1980- 1995), cet article présente en ordre chronologique la réforme des instruments principaux des politiques d’emploi utilisés au Canada et en GrandeBretagne. Ce nouveau modèle de bien- être n’en est pas pour autant dépourvu d’effets négatifs, l’État d’Investissement
social laissant beaucoup de groupes sans protection.

The role of welfare systems in affecting out-migration. The case of Central and Eastern Europe

by Lucia Kurekova

This paper analyses the role of welfare systems in shaping migration patterns in Central and Eastern Europe over the... more This paper analyses the role of welfare systems in shaping migration patterns in Central and Eastern Europe over the transition process and after EU accession. It argues that states have played a crucial role in affecting migration by creating and widening opportunities for potential and actual migrants through welfare system policies. This explains why CEE countries where social spending figures have been lower, unemployment benefit schemes less extensive, and where labour market mismatches remained unaddressed, experienced greater out-migration. Investigating the role of sending states’ institutions in a comparative framework and over time, this paper analyses migration as part of broader social and economic processes and contributes to our understanding of how sending countries’ institutional factors affect out-migration.

Employed or inactive? Cross-national differences in coding parental leave beneficiaries in Labour Force Survey data

by Malgorzata Mikucka

From Job Search to Skill Search: Political Economy of Labor Migration in Central and Eastern Europe

by Lucia Kurekova

Doctoral Dissertation

This dissertation analyzes labor migration patterns in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) during the transition and... more This dissertation analyzes labor migration patterns in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) during the transition and after the accession of these countries to the EU. It addresses the question of why there has been a substantial variation in the degree of labor migration between CEE countries with very similar wage levels and living standards and the West – with high rates of migration from the Baltic countries, Poland, and Slovakia and lower rates among the workers from the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia. The dissertation makes a strong case that economic factors alone, as proposed in the neoclassical framework, fail to explain the diverse migration patterns across the CEE countries. Through analyzing CEE migration patterns in the context of the complex economic and social changes that the countries experienced during the transition from socialism to market economies, this dissertation builds a conceptually more accurate and empirically valid model. The research framework tests two factors that were excluded from the studies that estimated the expected migration flows from CEE prior to the enlargement: the impact of structural change and the role of welfare systems and state policies. These variables are analyzed in a framework that compares across countries and over time, but are also tied closely to two migrant profiles which capture two types of CEE migration over time. The empirical analyses show, first, that the pressures of economic change were distributed unevenly across countries and across populations within them and therefore induced some types of workers to seek migration as an exit option more than others, producing different occupational profiles of migrants across countries and generating different rates of migration. Second, the countries with less generous welfare states faced higher shares of their workers leaving to work abroad. In sum, I find that the CEE countries in which the opportunity structures have been more extensive, generated either by economic structures that are more favorable to the skill set and the preferences of its human capital and/or generous welfare policies, experienced lower out-migration rates. This interdisciplinary work contributes to the theories of migration and speaks directly to the most recent studies that have called to analyze migration as part of broader global processes and social change. The thesis carries out systematic comparative cross-national over time research about migrant sending countries and makes important steps in developing new ways of analyzing home countries’ role in affecting migration.

“Review of Ideology + Welfare” in Limina – A Journal of Historical and Cultural Studies, vol. 13, pp.132-133.

by Sanna Peden

The crusade against out-relief: a nudge from history

by Kim Price

The UK's Coalition Government has begun a series of reforms of the welfare state to tackle the annual deficit at a... more The UK's Coalition Government has begun a series of reforms of the welfare state to tackle the annual deficit at a time of recession. Yet, the language and policy aims seem at times re-animated ideas from the end of the 19th century. In the 1870s, England entered a recession and the Conservatives instigated a policy to cut-back welfare expenditure and diminish reliance on poor law out-relief—non-institutional benefits paid to the poor in their own homes from taxation. The crusade against out-relief included cutting medical extras and payments to lone mothers, widows, the elderly, the chronically sick, and people who were disabled or had mental illness. By removing essential funds for nutrition, housing, and medical care, the crusade lowered the health of many families and increased the number of individuals who could no longer be supported at home. Yet unintentionally, this crusade strengthened the hand of liberal reforms and helped set in motion a reaction at the turn of the century that would ultimately lead to the welfare state and the creation of the National Health Service in the UK.

Restructuring nurses’ worklives and knowledge: case studies from England and Spain.

by Jörg Müller

Norrie, C., J. Müller, I. Goodson, and F. Hernández. (2009) Restructuring nurses’ worklives and knowledge: case studies from England and Spain. International Nursing Review, vol. 56 no. 1, pp. 81-87.

Aim:  To compare the relationship between restructuring of health care and the worklives and professional knowledge of... more Aim:  To compare the relationship between restructuring of health care and the worklives and professional knowledge of nurses in England and Spain.

Background:  Healthcare governance and systems are being modernized across Europe. At the same time European populations are changing in terms of ageing societies, more demanding patients, increased technologicalization and new roles for women. This is changing the positionality of nurses situated between the state and the citizen.

Methods:  This data was produced as part of an EU-funded research project. Data collection methods included literature reviews, national policy summaries and surveys. In addition, life-history interviews and observations were carried out with nurses belonging to different generations in case-study hospitals in England and Spain. Data were analysed using an interpretative, narrative approach. Results juxtapose analysis of global and national policy narratives with individual nurses' worklife narratives.

Findings:  Analysis of the policy narratives position nurses in England and Spain as having moved from traditional to re-framed professionals. Worklife narrative analysis meanwhile demonstrates that in England restructuring narratives have worked their way deep into nurses' lives. In contrast, in Spain there is a large gap between the rhetoric of change and the reality on the ground so narratives can be described as de-coupled.

Towards a History of Medical Negligence

by Kim Price

published in the Lancet: Vol 375 January 16, 2010

This article argues that medical negligence is a subject within history needing further delineation and definition. I... more This article argues that medical negligence is a subject within history needing further delineation and definition. I press for a more subtle, thorough and contextual treatment of medical negligence in the past. US historians have begun this process, but internationally there remains a long way to go. The article begins with the paragraph:

'Health professionals, politicians, and media commentators
are rarely in agreement, except when it is to cite a
“culture of blame” as the greatest cause of litigation in
medical error today. Yet, few stop to question the cultural
tableau of doctor, patient, and lawyer, or reflect on what
current medical jurisprudence means for the practice of
medicine. Blame is the sole form of redress and the legal
counterpoint between aggrieved doctors and patients in
most developed countries. Like it or not, lawyers, doctors,
and patients have all played leading roles in the history of
medical negligence.'