Swedish Family Policy – Continuity and Change in the Nordic Welfare State Model

The main question addressed in this regional issue is whether or not the Nordic welfare states can still be considered a distinct welfare regime cluster given recent changes, such as the introduction of more private elements into the welfare state. The Nordic welfare states are often described as emphasizing full employment, economic and gender equality, and universal access to cradle‐to‐grave welfare state benefits and services. In the case of Sweden, often pointed to as the model of a social democratic welfare state, such elements remain intact in most aspects of the welfare state, even given the challenges presented by the global neo‐liberal economic paradigm since the 1970s. One way to determine whether or not the Nordic welfare states remain a distinct cluster is to provide an in‐depth examination of various welfare state policies in each Nordic country. To contribute to this analysis, an investigation of family policy in the Swedish context will be provided. Even given recent challenges, such as the introduction of private for‐profit childcare providers and a home care allowance, I argue that Swedish family policy has remained largely social democratic in its underlying goals, and thus acts to support the case for a distinct Nordic welfare regime cluster.     

East Asian welfare model refocus? A case study on economic support for the elderly living alone in Taiwan

This article argues that the concept of the East Asian welfare regime can be further developed by examining the changing role of the family in welfare provision. Beginning with a brief literature review of the East Asian welfare model, the family has been regarded as the main welfare provider among East Asian societies. Nevertheless, from a policy‐centred perspective, the oversimplified picture of the East Asian welfare model does not reveal how families actually perform in welfare provision or how the dynamic change in the welfare mix for vulnerable groups under the welfare regime has been accommodated. This article presents a case study and shows that while most elderly people in Taiwan still live with their children, who are also their main means of support, a significant number of them are living alone and that much of the economic support they used to receive from nongovernmental organisation now comes from the state.     

Welfare regime change – or lack of change – in unemployment compensation

Drawing on theoretical accounts of institutional change, this study explored the politics of welfare regime transformation in regard to Turkey's unemployment compensation system. By using the institutionalist approach, the study shows that the process of welfare regime change was one of “institutional layering” of unemployment insurance (UI) over severance pay. Also, the study demonstrates that the economic bureaucracy played a key role in pushing the establishment of UI (state‐centric approach) in contrast to the class‐based organizations that focused their struggles on the severance pay scheme (power‐resource perspective). However, the economic bureaucracy preferred a rudimentary UI design, which prevented UI from undermining the vested interests behind the severance pay scheme. Furthermore, subsequent attempts at the reformation of the severance pay scheme were not successful because the social welfare bureaucracy lacked the capacity to develop a policy alternative to resolve the stalemate between the societal actors. Lastly, the study used the successful severance pay reform experiences of South Korea and Austria to locate the Turkish case within a broader comparative framework.     

Comparing Formal Unemployment Compensation Systems in 15 OECD Countries

This study contributes to the welfare regime literature by analyzing unemployment compensation programmes – unemployment insurance (UI)/assistance (UA) programmes and redundancy pay schemes – of welfare state/occupational welfare regimes. It covers 15 countries of the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) selected from Southern European, Liberal, Continental‐corporatist and Social Democratic country clusters. In contrast to the common argument that Southern European countries have underdeveloped formal unemployment compensation systems, this study argues that they (especially in Spain, Portugal, and to some extent Italy) are comparable in strength to those in Continental‐corporatist countries if occupational welfare programmes – notably redundancy pay – are considered alongside welfare state programmes for unemployment protection. The study also outlines the characteristics of redundancy pay schemes in the four country clusters and shows how different redundancy pay schemes are linked to UI/UA schemes in these clusters.     

New challenges for the welfare state: The emergence of youth unemployment regimes in Europe?

In this article we discuss the emergence of ‘youth unemployment regimes’ in Europe, that is, a set of coherent measures and policies aimed at providing state responses to the problem of unemployment and, more specifically, youth unemployment. We classify these measures and policies along two main dimensions: unemployment regulations and labour market regulations. Using original data, we show how seven European countries locate on these two dimensions as well as within the conceptual space resulting from the combination of the two dimensions. Our findings show cross‐national variations that do not fit the traditional typologies of comparative welfare studies. At the same time, however, the findings allow for reflecting upon possible patterns of convergence across European countries. In particular, we show some important similarities in terms of flexible labour market regulations. In this regard, the recent years have witnessed a trend towards a flexibilisation of the labour market, regardless of the prevailing welfare regime.     

Institutions and the gender wage gap: How production and welfare regime moderates the effect of family policy

The aim of this study was to determine whether the effects of work and family reconciliation policy on the gender wage gap are moderated by institutional contexts of production and welfare regime. Using time‐series analysis for 13 countries from 1981 to 2015, the study revealed a strong association between childcare and a lower gender wage gap in the Coordinated Market Economies (CMEs)/social democratic welfare states but not in Liberal Market Economies (LMEs)/liberal welfare states. The study also found that the impact of leave generosity on the gender wage gap in CMEs/social democratic welfare states is less salient than in CMEs/continental welfare states. This study highlights the extent to which family policy affects the gender wage gap hinges on how each country organises its market coordination and welfare institutions and pushes the current literature forward to a question of ‘what kinds of’ family policy matters in ‘which’ production and welfare regimes.     

Challenging scalar fallacy in state-wide welfare studies: A UK sub-state comparison of civil society approaches to addressing youth unemployment

Here we make an original, empirical contribution to debates on welfare pluralism, the mixed economies of welfare and territorial rescaling by comparing civil society approaches to tackling youth unemployment in England, Scotland and Wales. Our core finding is that academic and policy literature's frequent characterisation of the UK as a single Liberal welfare regime is based on methodological nationalism privileging state-wide analyses. In short, a scalar fallacy pervasive in international welfare studies. In the context of the global rise of meso-government and so-called ‘stateless nations’ pressing for greater autonomy, our case-study challenges the dominant paradigm. Our analysis shows the liberal characteristics of work-first policy orientation and marketised civil society are concentrated in England then tempered by devolved (social) policy. Based on contrasting, left-of-centre and civic nationalist governing traditions, grounded in multi-level electoral politics, we show the devolved nations taking a different approach to Westminster, partially eschewing the market and incorporating collectivism and co-production.     

Lithuania's children's policy in the period of transition

The article investigates the welfare regime of the free Lithuanian Republic from the perspective of children's policy. The main principles of the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child – child protection, child provision and child participation – serve as indicators for the level of child orientation. The article analyses legal and institutional issues related to the implementation of the Convention in Lithuania in the first decade of Independence 1990–2001. Furthermore, it compares Lithuanian policy with the three welfare regimes identified by Esping-Andersen. Our results indicate that Lithuanian policy shows a low level of child orientation and that the Lithuanian welfare regime does not correspond to any of the welfare regimes in Esping-Andersen's typology. Lithuania still shows traits from the former Soviet regime. The new liberal extreme market orientation is not modified by social support institutions, and is combined with conservative ideologies on women and family.     

Welfare state regimes and family policy: a longitudinal analysis

The primary aim of the article is to access the extent to which welfare state regimes support distinct family policies across OECD (Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development) countries and over time. Focusing in particular on the work of Esping‐Andersen we address the following questions: (i) What is the relation between de‐commodification and de‐familialisation? (ii) Are there distinct welfare state regimes that support different levels of family policy? (iii) To what extent have levels of support for family policy differed over the last decades toward divergence or convergence among OECD welfare states? Using data from the OECD Social Expenditure database (1980–2001), we find that the degree of de‐familialisation through welfare state regimes parallels the de‐commodification scores. However, the findings indicate a degree of instability in the relationship between levels of support for family policy and welfare state regimes over the last decades. We conclude by discussing how the findings speak to the changing character of welfare regimes and the implications of a longitudinal perspective.     

Welfare and the unemployment crisis: Sweden in the 1990s

In the 1990s Sweden went through a deep economic recession accompanied by a massive increase in unemployment and a rapidly growing budget deficit. The crisis had large repercussions for the welfare of many citizens and it generated cutbacks in virtually all social policy programmes. This halted a welfare-state expansion that had been going on for decades. It also caused great concern about the state of welfare of the nation. In 1999 the Swedish Government appointed a 'Welfare Commission', a team of academic researchers who were assigned the task of drawing up a balance sheet for the development of welfare in the 1990s. The Commission delivered its final report in October 2001. This article is a condensed account of one of the more central issues for the Commission; namely, how the unemployment crisis affected already socially and economically vulnerable groups. Looking at the development over the entire decade, three groups stand out as particularly disadvantaged in terms of individual welfare resources: young adults, immigrants and single mothers. The downturn for these groups was especially accentuated in terms of employment and income. Young people and immigrants trying to get into the labour market during the crisis years faced the problems of newcomers to the systems of social protection. The poor economic development for single mothers could essentially be attributed to the shortage of work in general and of full-time work in particular that followed from the unemployment crisis. As a consequence, the importance of selective benefits increased and the relative size of all public transfers – despite rationing measures – stayed fairly unchanged. The results highlight the great influence of macroeconomic conditions and policy making for the welfare of vulnerable groups in society.     

Confusion behind the dikes

Twenty years ago Dutch society was hit by a serious rise of unemployment that put the Dutch welfare state to the test: Should the welfare state be able to preserve full employment and prevent unemployment from becoming high and chronic as in the 1930s? And should the welfare state be able to prevent mass poverty as in the 1930s? The answers are well known. The ‘Dutch welfare state has not been able to forestall persistent high unemployment and, in fact, has more or less produced a dual society (Zweidrit-telgesellschaft, sociéte à deux vitesses), although without producing mass poverty. This article goes into three issues related to these developments. A bird's-eye view is presented of the unemployment trajectory of the 1970s, 1980s and the first half of the 1990s. The position of the Netherlands relative to other countries in Europe is unfolded. Some issues concerning the effects of chronic unemployment on the functioning of the Dutch political economy are presented.     

The Workfare Illusion: Re-examining the Concept and the British Case

This article contends that workfare programmes pursued by various OECD countries since the mid‐1990s do not amount to a fundamental change in policy. The limited potential of workfare is due to the fact that it fails to transcend the constraints of earlier forms of ‘active’ responses to unemployment. Furthermore, it suffers from specific policy‐making disadvantages not shared by these responses. The article opens with a survey of relevant academic debates on the subject. It then places workfare in a broader context by identifying its functional reach, as compared to other active policy responses to unemployment such as active labour market policy (ALMP). The third section analyses workfare policies in the United Kingdom, as developed since 1997, by re‐examining the British New Deal employment programme. That review demonstrates that workfare policies either depend on their ‘fit’ with the existing policy‐making heritage, or that they remain merely symbolic. The article concludes by suggesting that the potential of workfare to effect change in responses to unemployment continues to be of limited significance. In other words, capitalist employment and welfare systems continue to be characterized by incremental adaptation rather than by fundamental regime change as suggested by the critics of workfare.     

Varieties of Liberalism: Canadian Social Policy from the 'Golden Age' to the Present

The dominant welfare regimes approach, like the historical-institutionalism on which it draws, predicts path-dependent responses to contemporary challenges. According to this, Canada's social policy regime clearly belongs to the (mainly Anglo-American) 'liberal' family, where markets and families retain a key role, supplemented by modest state supports. Yet, as some have recognized, there are important differences among liberal regimes and within a particular welfare regime over time. There are, in other words, 'varieties of liberalism'. This article argues, moreover, that in the contemporary period Canadian welfare reform has been characterized by warring principles for redesign. While some have sought to deepen the postwar social project, the main trends have been neo-liberal restructuring and, more recently, policies inspired by 'inclusive liberalism', though less deeply than under Blair's government in the UK. The continued existence of such alternatives suggests the need for a more nuanced conception of path-dependent change, consistent with recent revisionist trends in historical-institutionalism.     

Social policy and poverty in post-totalitarian Europe

This article attempts to compare the social policy models of the west with social policies in post-totalitarian central and eastern Europe. It is argued that historical roots as well as recent developments make post-Communist social policy similar to the two major models in the west: the institutional redistributive model and the industrial achievement or performance model. The present problems of mass unemployment and growing poverty cannot be solved without a major reform of social policy, including state intervention and control. The residual social safety net and a strong market orientation are unlikely to be able to reduce poverty and unemployment. However, it is also argued that the strong role of the state and organized labour in both of these European welfare systems creates an obstacle to the future of social policy in the countries of central and eastern Europe. The state is viewed with great scepticism and organized mass social movements are weak in most of these countries. It will take time to develop such agents that can support the development of state social policy, and it may not even be accepted that the route of interventionist state welfare characteristic of western Europe is desirable.     

Adaptation to Labour Market Change in France and the UK: Convergent or Parallel Tracks?

France and the UK are markedly different welfare states, both in terms of regime type and in terms of the varying degree of state responsibility for reconciling work and family life. One recent theoretical strand suggests that welfare states will tend to grow more similar since they face broadly similar pressures. This paper discusses the policy responses in France and the UK to labour market pressures resulting from enhanced international competition, technological development and family change during the past decade. These responses are set in the context of European debates about the desirability of greater flexibility, up‐skilling and the activation of unemployed people, about the childcare needs of women workers and about the importance of paid work in reducing poverty and inequality. The analysis shows that trends to convergence are limited.     

Which Welfare States are Most Likely to Survive?

This paper considers the major shocks to which modern welfare systems are having to adapt. These include the growing inequalities of rewards for those in work, the growing scale of unemployment, global economic pressures, the ageing of populations and the combination of fiscal constraint with rising consumer expectations. It discusses how different kinds of welfare state are responding to these pressures and looks especially at the policies of the new Blair government. The paper concludes by suggesting that these issues are taking the UK to a distinctive welfare regime position.     

Continental Drift: On Unemployment Policy Change in Bismarckian Welfare States

This article analyses the development of unemployment policies over the past 20 years in four continental European countries: Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands. It shows that, far from being as ‘frozen’ as many analysts have suggested, each of these Bismarckian welfare states has in fact seen considerable change in this policy sector in recent decades. In Belgium, France and Germany, significant changes in unemployment policy reforms have unfolded gradually, through an accumulation of small changes. This finding offers some support to recent theorizing on the potential for policy changes that are both incremental and transformative. However, while such processes have led to shifts in unemployment policy that are far from negligible, the article also argues that they fall short of those seen in this policy sector in other welfare institutional contexts as well as in the Netherlands, where substantive reforms have in the last decade been complemented with changes to the institutional framework for unemployment policy. Through its analysis of the relationship between the institutional features of these welfare states and the possibility frontier of unemployment policy reform, the article develops a nuanced perspective on the scope for and resistance to social policy change in continental Europe.     

Social policy and health: transition countries in a comparative perspective

T. Ferrarini, O. Sjöberg. Social policy and health: transition countries in a comparative perspective Int J Soc Welfare 2010: ??: ??–??© 2010 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and International Journal of Social Welfare. This article analyses the development and design of unemployment insurance and family policy benefits and their links to health outcomes in Estonia, Poland, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Hungary from the mid‐1990s. Comparing these six transition countries with long‐standing welfare democracies reveals important similarities and differences in policy and health. Unemployment benefit schemes resemble corporatist schemes in important respects, however, with lower coverage and average benefits. Subjective wellbeing is also comparatively low among both employed and unemployed in the transition countries. Several transition countries have mixed family policy strategies that simultaneously support dual‐earner families and traditional gender roles. One clear exception is Slovenia, which has a highly developed dual‐earner support. Family policy generosity is related to lower rates of poverty, infant mortality and child injuries. The article demonstrates the fruitfulness of institutional analyses of the link between social policy and population health in a broader welfare state context.     

Alike but not alike: Welfare state and unemployment policies in Southern Europe. Italy and Portugal compared

Although Italy and Portugal are considered to be part of the same welfare state family – the Southern European one – analysis of a key component of the welfare state, namely, unemployment policies and regulations, reveals a different evaluation. A comparative analysis of a series of specific indicators of Italian and Portuguese unemployment regimes shows that they represent two different models. Portugal appears to be a more inclusive system, closer to continental or Northern European countries than it is to Italy, or at least representing a hybrid system that combines characteristics of continental European welfare states with characteristics that are more typical of Southern European welfare states. Italy, on the contrary, is much more clearly a Southern European welfare state.     

Reversing the Negative Experience of Unemployment: A Mediating Role for Social Policies?

This article examines why unemployment is often experienced in a profoundly negative way, and explores the potentially mediating role of social policies. Three dominant theories of unemployment are described, which are often treated as competing, mutually exclusive explanations of the deleterious effects of unemployment. Subsequently, and through drawing upon a qualitative study of unemployed people, it is argued that all three theories are of worth and can be synthesized into a broader explanation of the experience of unemployment as an overarching process of loss. Three forms of loss are identified: loss of agency; loss of the functions of paid work; and loss of social status. The article then explores how these forms of loss can be both ameliorated and intensified through social policy interventions. Concluding, it offers policy recommendations to increase the efficacy of social policies in reversing the negative experience of unemployment, with the conclusion that this will require significant reform of the UK welfare state.