瑞典社会保障制度改革及其对我国的启示

1950～1960年代,福利国家在西欧和北欧得到了充分地发展。其中,瑞典以其福利最广泛和最优厚而闻名于世,获得了＂福利国家橱窗＂的称号。1970年代后期,以瑞典为代表的福利国家出现了过度福利的问题,相继进入＂福利国家危机时代＂。经过一系列的改革,瑞典取得了积极的成效。我国国情与瑞典不同决定了我们不可能建立一个完全瑞典模式的社会保障体系,但是瑞典的一些经验和做法对于完善我国的社会保障制度有着重要的借鉴意义。     

Culture: The Missing Variable in Understanding Social Policy?

This paper questions the intuitive assumption that twentieth-century public welfare states have reflected the wider culture in which they operate. It is argued that the postwar welfare state was a "modernist" project designed to change mass culture. As a result, social policy analysis has tended to ignore the wider culture as both a source and context for welfare. At the beginning of the twenty-first century new patterns of risk and postmodern cultural formations are supporting eclectic policy-making which is more in tune with cultural majorities. This signals the end of the systematic welfare state.     

Financial crisis and the developmental states: A case study of Hong Kong

Studies taking a mediation perspective have highlighted how the actual impact of economic globalisation is mediated by institutions that include welfare regimes. Some have examined how the welfare systems of East Asian developmental states have changed and adapted since the Asian financial crisis of 1997/1998. Using Hong Kong as a case study, this article examines how the developmental state of Hong Kong mediated the impact of the global financial crisis of 2008, particularly on disadvantaged groups. Hong Kong's welfare regime has provided insufficient support to ‘non‐productive’ groups despite incidents of social crisis. The government's welfare responses have been characterised by long‐term strategies to improve the competitiveness of the economy, and short‐term measures to boost the spending power of the general public. Measures targeted at disadvantaged groups have been piecemeal and minimal. The government's approach towards crisis management after 2008 has been similar to that taken after the 1997/1998 financial crisis.     

The End of the Welfare State?

This paper critically examines claims of a new consensus on welfare and the end of the welfare state. We first review the concept of welfare consensus, concentrating on the idea of welfare pluralism, in particular the relatively neglected distinction between national minimum (base) and extension ladder (superstructure). We then examine these concepts in the 1990s under Conservative and New Labour governments. Important changes to welfare pluralism are noted. There have been changes in the character of means-tests, with the national minimum replaced by a series of residual minima, which represent fundamental changes to structural incentives governing the social division of welfare and work. The line between state and non-state provision has been blurred and there have been moves to achieve universalism in the private sector. It is possible to tentatively classify Labour's principles and fledgling policies into three categories: essential continuity with the Conservatives, reversing Conservative policies and extending Conservative policies. However, it is difficult to detect the degree of consensus because a new flexible language is beginning to pervade social policy, with the result that the welfare state is being redefined, notably in areas of full employment, citizenship and conditionality. It is possible to detect, in our terms, moves towards turning Beveridge inside out and from the "Marshall" towards the "Beveridge" welfare state. It is clear that the welfare state is being redefined, but reports of its death have been much exaggerated.     

Welfare Reform and Asset Accumulation: Asset Limit Changes,Financial Assets,and Vehicle Ownership*

Objective. Over the past decade, federal and state governments have substantially liberalized asset limits in welfare. This article examines whether this policy change promotes asset accumulation among the target population of actual and potential welfare recipients. Methods. Utilizing household data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics as well as state data, this study employs a difference‐in‐difference approach in order to determine whether state asset limits affect the target population's financial and vehicle asset accumulation. This study develops a new policy measure that considers the time period following the adoption of liberalized asset limits. Results. Analysis results suggest that increased asset limits may have successfully encouraged the target population's asset accumulation. The earlier a state raised its asset limit, the more likely welfare recipients were to accumulate financial assets and to possess bank accounts. Conclusion. It is recommended to liberalize asset eligibility rules to promote long‐term economic advancement of poor households.     

Social investment effects of public education,health care,and welfare service expenditures on economic growth

The purpose of this study is to theoretically and empirically examine whether public spending in education, health care, and welfare service operates as a fruitful investment in welfare states, which has been implied in the literature of social investment arguments. Based on comprehensive review of existing literature, this study suggested a tripartite mechanism of social investment effect of such spending, that is “enhancement of human capital,” “support for labor force participation,” and “job creation.” To find the empirical evidence, a pooled time‐series cross‐section analysis was conducted with the data of 15 advanced welfare states from 1980 to 2015 using estimation technique of fixed‐effect model. The results confirmed that public spending in education, health care, and welfare service had a positive medium‐term as well as long‐term effect on economic performance, while cash‐type welfare spending had an obscure or no visible effect on economy. Government consumption that is a proxy and control variable of size of the welfare state showed a positive effect on real GDP in the medium term but a negative effect in the long run. In conclusion, this study suggests that reinforcing social services should be recognized and dealt with as essence of social investment strategy.     

"Work for those that can, security for those that cannot":The United Kingdom's new social security reform agenda

Following its election victory, the Labour government embarked on a programme to reform fundamentally the United Kingdom's post-war welfare state. The reforms are outlined in a number of government policy consultation papers and are intended to address neo-liberal concerns about the welfare state, although neo-liberal panaceas have been rejected in favour of a "third way". Strongly influenced by Mead, Layard, Giddens and Field, the government's welfare reform package is premised on a conception of citizenship that emphasizes equally the importance of "entitlements" and "obligations", especially the obligation to work. We argue that this reform approach is inherently flawed: it presumes that the poor are without work because they lack appropriate incentives, not because they lack jobs that will lift and keep them out of poverty. We argue that the government's welfare reform strategy is contradictory: while it aims to ameliorate poverty, the emphasis on obligations and compulsion may have the effect of reinforcing existing economic and social divisions. In approaching the second millennium, there is a clear need for a robust interventionist approach to welfare which emphasizes the right to a satisfactory standard of living.     

How divided is the attitudinal context for policymaking? Changes in public attitudes to the welfare state,inequality and immigration over two decades in Britain

If public attitudes towards the welfare state, inequality and immigration are becoming increasingly polarized, as recent political events might suggest, the space for progressive social policies is more constrained. Using data from the British Social Attitudes Survey (BSA) spanning 23years, we analyse trends in these attitudes, examining whether there has been divergence between those who have been more and less exposed to disadvantage through changes in the economy and the welfare state across more than two decades. Taken in this longer term context, and examining characteristics not previously considered in relation to public attitudes such as lone parenthood and disability, we find little evidence of polarization in attitudes to welfare, inequality and immigration and even some evidence of attitudinal gaps narrowing. We conclude that given this lack of division, there may be greater room for more pro-welfare and progressive policies than the prevalent narrative of polarization suggests.     

How to Design a "Liberal" Welfare State: A Comparison of Canada and the United States

My aim in this paper is to show how differences in the programmatic design of two otherwise "liberal" welfare regimes have generated substantially different patterns of welfare state retrenchment and distributive outcomes since the 1970s. Welfare regimes are distinguished by the principles and rules that regulate transactions between the three institutional nuclei from which individuals derive their "welfare" in modern capitalist societies—the state, the market, and the family. Liberal regimes are characterized by a preference for market solutions to welfare problems. While Canada and the United States both represent paradigmatic instances of the liberal regime type, there are long-standing differences in methods both of financing and distributing benefits. Differences in programme design led to substantially different retrenchment strategies from the end of the 1970s, which in turn produced dramatically different distributive outcomes: rising inequality and poverty rates in the United States compared to relative stability in the distribution of income among Canadian families.     

The Retrenchment of the Welfare State in Latin America: The Case of Argentina

According to the conventional approving account of the transformations which have been taking place in public policy and in markets in Latin America, Argentina constitutes one of the most successful examples of wide-ranging and rapid change. Certainly the experience of Argentina offers an excellent case-study of what in the literature is termed " the retrenchment of the welfare states"; that is those institutional transformations associated with the "neoconservative revolutions" of recent years. In this paper I analyse the characteristics of Argentinian welfare state retrenchment, distinguishing between two fields of analysis: (1) "systemic retrenchment" which is linked to changes in the "referential environment" of social policy institutions, especially changes in the economic, fiscal, labour market and politico-institutional contexts: (2) "programmatic retrenchment" which refers to changes in the institutional ordering of specific social policies. Finally I draw conclusions in respect of the strategies adopted for the retrenchment of the welfare state in Argentina and discuss probable prospects for the future.     

Has the Nordic Welfare Model Been Transformed?

The Nordic welfare model is undergoing a fundamental transformation. Using Denmark we show how a universal welfare state model is gradually being transformed into an emergent multi‐tiered welfare state. Whereas the Danish pension system's having become multi‐tiered in the 1990s, with private schemes – collective and individual – supplementing public schemes is well documented, scant attention has focused on more recent developments in other areas of the welfare state. This article shows how the multi‐tiered welfare state spread in the 2000s to policies for families, the unemployed and the sick. Although Denmark still offers universal coverage in core welfare state areas, the increased use of occupational and fiscal welfare as well as changes in public schemes has gradually transformed the nation into a multi‐tiered welfare state that is more dualistic and individualistic, with participation in the labour market becoming still more important for entitlement to benefits. These profound changes have taken place in such a way that although core characteristics are still in place, new structures and understandings of the welfare state are also developing. Thus classical typologies need revision, so that they include more focus on this combination of universality and institutional attachment to the labour market. Moreover, measures of what welfare comprises should include not only public but also private elements.     

THE INTELLECTUAL ORIGINS OF ‘WELFARE DEPENDENCY’

‘Welfare dependency’ has become a key term in policy debate in the United States and, more recently, Australia. In this article I explore the intellectual origins of the term, looking specifically at the writings of George Gilder and Charles Murray, two commentators whose (often polemically presented) ideas were influential within the Reagan Administration and have been at the forefront of a conservative renewal in welfare debate generally. Although others have subsequently refined some of their arguments and proposals, the authors' central claim that welfare causes dependency and thus unemployment and poverty – and that welfare reform therefore needs to focus on changing the behaviour of welfare recipients rather than providing employment opportunities – has had a lasting political impact, in Australia as much as in the US.     

The Spatial Strategy of Equality and the Spatial Division of Welfare

In this paper we argue that little is known about either the geographical objectives or the spatial outputs of the welfare state. Conclusions of geographical inequality are problematic for three main reasons. First, the geographical aims of the welfare state, "the spatial strategy of equality", are unclear. Second, the geographical distributional paradigm is rarely placed in the wider context of local and national welfare states, and the tension between spatial equity and local autonomy is ignored. Third, the geography of welfare, "the spatial division of welfare" is often based on simplistic and confused evidence. Much of the existing work implicitly takes a centralist perspective, assuming that all geographical inequalities are defects. Issues of local government, local politics and local welfare states are ignored. All detected inequality may not be "bad", and greater spatial equity may not necessarily be "good". The spatial division of welfare should not be examined in an analytical vacuum, isolated from the wider contextual issues of national and local services and the trade-off between local autonomy and territorial justice. If the "default value" is that all detected geographical variations are assumed to be defects, then the arguments for localism are doomed to failure.     

Doing The Right Thing: Labour's Attempt to Forge a New Welfare Deal Between the Individual and the State

This paper explores the rhetoric behind the Labour Government's welfare reforms. Recent publications and statements emanating from the new administration indicate the extent to which Labour feels comfortable with notions of communitarianism and stakeholding. The influence and (potential) impact of these two concepts upon welfare policy is explored through the works of Macmurray, Etzioni, Hutton and, in spite of his departure from Government, Field. The paper argues that in attempting to create a welfare system based largely on conditions of work, set firmly within a framework of self-help and individual responsibility, Labour's reform agenda is concerned with the establishment of a new moral order for welfare in which individuals are urged to "do the right thing": that is, to take control of their own welfare and ultimately to be responsible for meeting their own needs whenever possible. The Government presents this attempt to forge a welfare settlement between the individual and the state as both new and inclusive. However, it is concluded that such claims are contentious as the Government's "new" approach echoes old individualistic ideas about the causes and solutions to poverty, and may also result in the exclusion of some citizens from publicly financed welfare.     

Anticipating modernity: the Jewish ‘welfare state’ in biblical and medieval times

The impact of religion on social policies and its role in the development, structuring and functioning of welfare states has only recently attracted significant attention. Studies of the relationship between religion and the welfare state have given little consideration to whether the religious precepts and values of the major religions, and the ways of life which they have shaped, are consistent with the idea of the welfare state. This paper shows that the elements of the definition of the modern welfare state were reflected in Jewish communal life as either prescribed by Jewish law (halakha) or lived during both ancient and medieval times, and that communal life was ‘welfare‐state‐like‘. In doing so this paper demonstrates that the idea of the welfare state is consistent with Judaism.     

The Middle‐class in the German Welfare State: Beneficial Involvement at Stake?

The working‐class is typically regarded as the driving force of welfare state development. Yet, some argue that the middle‐classes' beneficial involvement in the welfare state is crucial for its financial sustainability and popular legitimacy. Against this backdrop, we investigate how recent welfare state reforms in Germany which affect the status of the middle‐class are viewed and discussed by this group. Germany is a particularly interesting case because its welfare state is seen to be centred on the desires of the middle‐class, especially through its focus on status maintenance and horizontal redistribution over the life‐course. However, the move from status maintenance to minimum income support in unemployment provision and the strengthening of private old age provision challenge this assumption. Thus, we ask how the German middle‐class views the emerging abandonment of the principle of status maintenance and the shift from collective to individual responsibility. Based on qualitative material from focus groups, we find that individual responsibility is generally supported, but that the state is still assigned responsibility for providing basic levels of social security. Furthermore, for those groups seen as less capable of acting individually responsible (e.g. the poor or long‐term unemployed) the ‘inducement’ of – or assistance for – individually responsible behaviour by the state is demanded. Overall, while the principle of ‘individual responsibility’ seems to find some resonance among the middle‐class members interviewed, they still try to balance individual and collective responsibility.     

The Transferability of Welfare Models: A Comparison of the Scandinavian and State Socialist Models in Relation to Finland and Estonia

In this paper, two examples of the close relationship between a national social welfare system, and explicit transnational influences are discussed. Both the state socialist and Scandinavian models have a recognized structure independent of the particular countries in which they have been implemented, although they are both associated with a home base, Russia and Sweden respectively. Our examples, Estonia and Finland, faced both common and specific national problems following 1991, which led to rapid change in each country's economic situation and pressure on their respective welfare systems. There were elements of continuity and discontinuity with the main tenets of their respective welfare models, and both structural factors and cultural diffusion will be explored to understand the origin of these changes. The paper could be seen as a case study of welfare changes in the "borderlands" where "old empires meet". The countries were chosen because they are peripheral to what were rival spheres of influence and because they see themselves as having much in common. We also expect changes to occur more rapidly in peripheral areas.     

Squaring the welfare circle and government ideology: Greece and Spain in the 1990s

This article examines the "squaring the welfare circle" thesis and its usefulness to our understanding of welfare developments in Greece and Spain in the 1990s. The welfare state in both Greece and Spain was expanded considerably in the early 1980s by the newly elected socialist governments, only to hit the buffers of diminishing resources and rising demands in the late 1980s as well as the hostile neo-liberal welfare ideology. The process of welfare expansion was halted in the 1990s, labour market deregulation was encouraged and containment of welfare expenditure became the dominant aim of government policies. This article concentrates on the actual policies of governments in the 1990s rather than on the rhetoric of political parties. It concludes that governments of both the Left and the Right in both countries attempted to "square the welfare circle" mainly through reductions in the supply of welfare. This general conclusion is country-specific and may not apply to other countries involved in welfare restructuring. While recognizing the significance of institutional factors to welfare reform, the article concentrates on the outcomes of reforms rather than on the political process leading to them.     

The Development of State Welfare in the Asian NICs with Special Reference to Taiwan

This paper explores Taiwan's welfare development from its specific politico-economic situation. Although education and public health are well developed in Taiwan and social insurance is expanding to cover more and more Taiwanese people, the govenmental welfare effort is still too low to meet the welfare needs of the public. This is especially so given our discovery that military servicemen and related groups receive over 70% of the welfare expenditure of the central government while the disadvantaged receive only around 3%. Furthermore, political crises are often accompanied by a significant growth in social expenditure, implying that the purpose of state welfare is to maintain the stability of the Taiwanese state rather than to protect the well-being of Taiwanese people. Political isolation forces the Kuomintang (KMT) to secure Taiwan's role in the international community via economic growth. The development of state welfare cannot be allowed to have a negative effect on this highest priority. The limited resources, therefore, are allocated to economic goals as well as to the KMT–state apparatus in order to keep the KMT in power. However, the democratization of Taiwanese politics since the 1980s has forced the KMT to consolidate its legitimacy from the people and the improvement of social welfare is one measure for this purpose. Whether or not Taiwan becomes a Western-style welfare state through the expansion of state welfare in the near future, it furnishes a useful example with which to examine existing welfare theories.