The Swedish Welfare State and the Emergence of Female Welfare State Occupations

The Swedish welfare state has, during the twentieth century, developed into the primary guarantor of health and social services as well as economic security. As the welfare state has developed, a new group of professions has emerged which can be described as welfare state professions. In this paper I will point out a few central aspects of how female‐dominated welfare state professions have emerged and developed within the framework of the Swedish welfare state's expansion. These ideas will then be demonstrated on two female‐dominated occupations, nurses and occupational therapists, which have developed in close association with the expansion of the welfare state. The results indicate that the emergence of a centrally planned welfare state and the occupational groups' organizational resources have been of crucial importance for the professional development of female‐dominated health and care occupations in Sweden. The welfare state has opened up new professional fields and created a stable labour market, which has provided good conditions for professional organizing. The state has also been quick to establish relationships with occupational groups whose professional competence has been deemed to be suited to the welfare political context. However, the state's interests in professional matters have often been in conflict with those of the professions themselves, regarding, for example, education, sub‐specialization and certification. One conclusion that can be drawn is that the Swedish welfare state has acted both as an engine and a brake regarding professional development and status.     

Before the Welfare State: Public Health and Social Policy

Les changements apportés en matière de politique sociale de 1880 à 1920 ont joué un rôle déterminant dans l'établissement et la nature de l'État-providence. La santé publique était au premier rang de cette evolution. L'État a commencéà pénétrer dans les foyers par de nouveaux moyens, comme les programmes de visite à domicile lancés durant cette période. Dans notre étude, nous décrivons ces nouveaux programmes dans le contexte d'une transformation plus globale des politiques sociales, qui a amené l'État à assumer de nouvelles res-ponsabilités dans le domaine de la natalité.
Social policy developments in the period 1880–1920 played a crucial role in shaping the foundations of the welfare state. Public health was at the forefront of these developments, introducing new home visiting programmes that brought the state into the household in new ways. This paper sets these new programmes in the context of a broader transition in social policy in which the state began to assume new responsibilities in the reproduction of the population.     

Social Changes and Welfare Reform in South Korea: In the Context of the Late-coming Welfare State

The Korean welfare state is facing diverse pressures and challenges due to changing economic, social, and demographic circumstances: prevalence of the service economy, labor market flexibility, weakened family function and increase of untraditional families, lowest fertility rate and the most rapid ageing of the population among OECD countries, and so forth. These challenges, which indicate new types of social risks, have been stimulating a series of discussions on welfare reform in Korea. The old social risks such as retirement, ill health, poverty, and unemployment have not disappeared because of insecure or inadequate welfare, and now these risks are even intertwined with the so-called new social risks. Thereby the Korean welfare state is facing complicated reform tasks. This study attempts to analyze the structure and context of these challenges in Korea, and to explore the various driving forces that have formulated Korean welfare reform in recent decades. Through the above analyses, this study will shed light the characteristics of welfare reform in Korea as a late-coming welfare state.     

National Information Infrastructure Policy and the Future of the American Welfare State: Implications for the Social Welfare Policy Curriculum

The development of the information society will have important future ramifications for the U.S. economy and for the social welfare system. The nature of work, work organizations, government, and other institutions will be changed by the growth of the information sector. An important part of this sector will be the National Information Infrastructure, or “Information Superhighway.” This network will help to determine the winners and losers in the new economy and will have major consequences for the evolution of social policy. These ramifications are explored and implications for social work education are discussed. The article argues that social service programs need to deal realistically with the oncoming changes, and that social work education will have to prepare students to function within this new social welfare system.     

The Welfare State and inequality in the 1980s

A travers une etude surtout du systeme de transferts fiscaux, nous tentons de comprendre le r6le redistributeur de 1'Etat canadien dans les annees contemporaines. Nous faisons l'inventaire des facteurs qui ont module la structure des politiques sociales diveloppee disle debut des annees soixante-dix. Nous evaluons les modes de pression majeurs au cows des dix dernikres annCes en vue d'un changement dans les outils de redistribution, pourensuite mesurer I'impact de ces pressions sur la substance des politiques sociales et surle r d e redistributeur de I'Etat. Dans notre article, nous identifions un mouvement evident vers une plus grande inCgalitC dans les revenus du marche. Cependant, aucune des pressions structurelles ou ideologiques recentes sur I'Etat indique clairement une attCnuation des buts redistributeurs; les reactions ont CtC plut6t multi-directionnelles et ont tendu vers un accroissement. Au milieu des annees quatre-vingts, les changements de politiques n'avaient pas vraiment altC:C I'impact global des systkmes de transferts fiscaux, qui continuaient i neutraliser I'inPgalitC croissante au niveau des revenus du marche, suite i la plus profonde crise Cconomique des dernikres decennies. On est force de conclure quetoute interpretation des politiques sociales comme instruments de stabilite socio-politique a encore force de loi au Canada. This paper examines the redistributive role of the Canadian state in the contemporary period, focussing in particular on the tax-transfer system. The paper surveys the factors that shaped the structure of social policy that had developed by the early 19705, examines the major pressures for change in redistributive instruments during the last ten years, and then analyses the impact of those pressures on both the substance of social policy and the overall redistributive role of the state. The paper identifies clear movement towards greater inequality in market incomes. However, none of the structural or ideological pressures on the state in recent years points unambiguously towards a dramatic retreat from redistributive goals, and the policy response has tended to be multi-directional and for the most part incremental. At the mid-point of the 19805, policy changes had not significantly altered the overall impact of the tax-transfer system, which continued largely to neutralize the growing inequality in market incomes inherent in the deepest economic crisis in over four decades. This evidence suggests that interpretations of social policy as an instrument of social and political stability in Canada retain considerable force.     

Ethnic Organizations and the Welfare State: The Impact of Social Welfare Programs on the Formation of Indochinese Refugee Associations

The expansion of the welfare state during the 20th century has altered the conditions shaping the formation of ethnic organizations. Drawing upon research in the divergent fields of social policy, immigrant communities, and social movements, this article argues that social welfare programs promote or suppress ethnic organizations depending on how they affect an ethnic community's institutional completeness. This welfare state channeling theory is contrasted with ethnic competition and resource mobilization explanations for the formation of ethnic organizations. An analysis of 800 Indochinese refugee associations finds that public assistance has no effect on the prevalence of these organizations, but that privatization of federal social service expenditures does, thus partially supporting the welfare state channeling theory.     

Contesting the Welfare State in a Neo-Conservative Era

With the triumph of neo-conservatism, the Left has faced a number of dilemmas. The example of Britain is used to show that while the Left has attempted to remain critical of the liberal welfare state without giving support to Right attacks, it has also learned to be more concerned with issues of individual choice and state control in social welfare than it has in the past. Analysis of the problems of the "old welfare state" and an understandmg of the roots of the ideological successes of the Right provides one basis for a new progressive politics of social welfare.     

Attitudes Toward Intergenerational Redistribution in the Welfare State

Which motivations explain attitudes toward intergenerational redistribution? This study presents two perspectives. The first one is demographic aging where individuals’ attitudes are influenced by short- and long-term self-interest. The second perspective is socialization into a certain institutional context where people internalize the reciprocity and the deservingness norms. Besides investigating the impact of these motivations, the empirical analysis assesses their relative importance for explaining attitudes toward intergenerational redistribution. The ordinary least-squares regression draws on data of the “Attitudes Toward The Welfare State” survey that was conducted in 2008 in Germany. The study investigates the working age group’s attitude toward relative governmental spending for older people. The empirical analysis yields that people are motivated by long-term self-interest and hold the state responsible to protect them from the perceived future risk of old-age poverty. Also, norms of reciprocity and of deservingness are important to support intergenerational redistribution, whereas the latter seems to be the relatively most important motivation. We can take this as a sign of intergenerational cohesion that is relevant against the background of accelerating demographic aging and resulting pressure on institutions of intergenerational redistribution.     

Welfare State and Social Enterprise in Transition: Evidence from Serbia

This paper analyses welfare regime changes in Serbia and their impact on social enterprise development in the last two decades. We cover the period of significant transition-related reforms within the welfare state, with important implications on the position of these enterprises. Using data gathered from the qualitative field research, our study shows that there are two broad groups of factors that are important for development of the new generation of social enterprises, those that emerged in the last decade with an idea to foster entrepreneurial spirit and expanded into new domains other than those providing assistance to the marginalized groups. First, their decision to enter the social economy sector still depends on the environment created by the state. Secondly, their sustainability is affected by the factors typically found in any other enterprise of comparable scale like business skills, capacity to form networks and partner with relevant stakeholders.     

Home Ownership, Social Insurance, and the Welfare State

Home ownership has potentially significant consequences for welfare state policy. High owner-occupancy rates may function as private insurance where social spending is low (a substitution effect). Alternatively, state income redistribution policies could raise the number of home owners (an income effect). Cross-national time-series data show that social spending is negatively related to home ownership, and mediates the positive relationship between income inequality and owner-occupancy rates. This suggests that owner-occupancy acts as a form of social insurance over the life course. Future welfare state researchers should consider the issue of home ownership in analyses of inequality and the social safety net.

Welfare State,family and the market's SINS in the EU

Our purpose is to show that a well-designed Welfare State is a fundamental fiscal policy instrument which allows mending of the main shortcomings of the market mechanism, i.e. lack of Stability, Inequality, disregard of Needs, lack of economic Security: in short, we call them the market's SINS. We show how the family is the main agent for an effective Welfare State, as the firms are for the market. We use detailed data on all the European countries to characterize the different models of welfare within Europe. A cross-section analysis shows that the main goals are better achieved when the social protection benefits focus on the functions of family and children, sickness and health care, because they induce the greatest poverty reduction. We show that for families with children the better working arrangement – which is associated with higher GDP per capita and lower inequality – is one parent working full-time and one parent part-time. We quantify the cross-section variability related to the age structure for the function of pensions. For a sample of seven major European countries we measure the degree of pro-cyclical or countercyclical relationship between social protection expenditures and GDP per capita from 1995 to 2010. In Germany, a Keynesian economic policy in 2009 is associated with a sharp rebound in 2010. We measure the relationship between Welfare State benefits and public budget, given as a constraint. We show a possible relationship between social protection benefits and family savings.