Welfare State Changes and Outcomes – The Cases of Portugal and Denmark from a Comparative Perspective

It is well known that welfare states ensure a certain level of social protection affecting levels of well‐being and the extent of inequalities in society. Changes within crucial domains of social policy, such as education, health, or social protection, have, therefore, a major effect upon individuals' opportunities. In this article I compare the effects of these changes in two countries from the mid‐1980s to the financial crisis of 2008. Portugal that was a latecomer in welfare state development and Denmark was at the forefront of de‐commodification and universalization of social rights. The conclusion of this article is that income inequality has been steadily increasing in Danish society; while in Portugal, despite improvements in many social domains (healthcare, poverty alleviation, unemployment protection), problems of inequality remain deeply embedded in the country's social and institutional structures.     

中国社会养老的文化分析

本文关注福利文化对社会养老制度和实践的影响,从文化视角审视中国现代社会养老项目的发展,揭示了老年社会福利模式与特定社会政策制定者对社会福利概念的理解和传统福利文化之间的关系。限定主义的价值观和公民权利意识的缺失阻碍着中国老年社会福利模式从剩余性到制度性的转变,抑制了社会福利在缩小老年群体内阶层差异方面的作用,促使了福利资源分配的不公。尽管人口老龄化和福利国家的文化扩散正在促使中国老年社会福利呈多元化发展趋势,多元福利体系的最终建立还有赖于社会公众和政策制定者对个人和国家关系的重新解读。     

The Pro‐Elderly Bias of Social Policies in Israel: A Historical‐Institutional Account

Accelerated population ageing and high voting turnout rates among elderly voters in recent decades have led many social scientists to predict increasing pro‐elderly biases in the social policies of mature welfare states. This article investigates and empirically estimates the evolving age orientation of social policies in Israel, which is a comparatively young society that has nevertheless aged significantly since independence in 1948. We present a historical and qualitative overview of the development of policy efforts towards different age groups and develop an Elderly/Non‐elderly Spending Ratio at four points in time between 1975 and 2005. We argue that in its first five decades, the Israeli welfare state uniquely combined a broadly universalistic and citizenship‐based outlook with a number of significant particularistic spending biases towards specific subgroups. But from the second half of the 1990s onwards, the pro‐elderly policy bias of the Israeli welfare state has strongly increased. These findings support Lynch's thesis for 21 OECD countries, which posits that a shift from a universal to a more occupationally based institutional model of welfare will result in a higher pro‐elderly bias of social spending.     

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。     

论社会转型期城市社区福利的模式变迂

计划经济时代中国城市建立了与单位制相适应的传统社区福利模式,该模式以单位福利制为主体、民政福利和社区福利服务为补充,满足了当时城市居民的基本生活需求。随着中国进入体制转轨和社会转型期,传统社区福利模式面临着严峻的挑战。中国将要建立的社区福利模式是一个社会化、开放型的福利体系,它以社会化福利机构和项目为主体、以经过改造的国家福利和职业福利为补充。     

Narrowing of Public Responsibility in Finland, 1990–2010

Public responsibility in Finland has narrowed in the last 20 years while the sphere of the private sector has been increased. The economic crisis of the early 1990s was not the cause, but an accelerator of public sector/welfare state retrenchment in Finland. Based on which, it was easy for the advocates of neo‐liberal reforms to argue that the changes were a must. The welfare state programmes however, are popular among the Finnish population and therefore large one‐time cutbacks have not been possible beyond the immediate aftermath of the economic crisis. This article looks into three different methods through which the Finnish welfare state has been gradually cut since then: (1) by not raising income transfers along with the rising cost of living and wages; (2) by reducing funding of public services; and, on the other side of the coin (3) through regular tax cuts contracting the revenue side. Welfare state retrenchment in Finland has therefore been achieved in a subtle fashion through slow gradual weakening of social programmes on one hand, and through cuts in revenue on the other that have left proportionally more in the hands of the wealthier. These combined movements have resulted in a drastic reversal in the trend in income inequality in Finland.     

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.     

风险社会视阈下新生代农民工社会福利刍议——基于上海市闵行区九星村的实证分析

国家的现代化建设所引导的是科技的创新与产业的升级,城市化的进程得以加速推进,人们的生活水平也进一步提高。在社会取得卓越发展的同时,现代化、工业化的到来也促使了社会风险的集聚,这类风险的出现是现代文明的直接后果,由此风险社会的存在形式成为了一种特殊的社会形态。城市化进程催生了新生代农民工群体的产生,他们基于自身发展和理想目标的实现,大量涌入城市之中,成为了游离于城市与农村之间的边缘群体,新生代农民工是社会风险形成的间接缔造者,同时他们又不得不面对社会风险对自身所造成的影响,涉及了生活、学习、教育、就业等诸多方面。国家现有的社会保障体系,实现了新生代农民工多种权利的保障。其中,作为公民基本权利获取路径的社会福利制度,对于处在风险社会中心的新生代农民工而言显得尤为重要。针对于这类群体的社会福利制度构建,所需要凸显的是主体现实需求的满足,诸如：福利服务制度、职业福利制度、社区福利联合体,一系列制度的建立与完善有利于增强新生代农民工抵御社会风险的能力,对于新生代农民工最终实现市民化有着重要的理论与实践意义。     

A conceptual approach to the creation of public–private partnerships in social welfare

All societies are confronted with complex, often difficult to overcome, challenges associated with changing population demographics. These challenges have placed increasing demands on society for social protection. Individual citizens, politicians, and scholars alike all are searching for the ideal configuration of the welfare mix, that is, a combination of various institutions that can offer the best possible combination of essential goods and services for everyone in every society. Key Practitioner Message: ● The organization of the public–private welfare partnership as viewed from a conceptual perspective; ● The unique contextual and contemporary social forces that shape public–private partnerships in modern welfare state practice; ● Contrasts in the origins and nature of public–private partnerships between two of the world's most populous countries whose histories, traditions, values, and norms differ fundamentally from one another. Even so, considerable learning regarding welfare state formation in different societies is possible through the application of the Public–Private Development Mix to the analysis of welfare state formation in these two contrasting societies.     

Safety nets in (the) crisis: The case of Greece in the 2010s

This paper deals with the question of how the social safety net in Greece responded to, and was transformed by, the social emergency of the 2010s. The outbreak of the Eurozone crisis caught Greek welfare woefully unprepared for what was to come. Thereafter, as the recession fuelled the “demand” for social protection, the austerity reduced its “supply.” Nevertheless, this is not a straightforward case of austerity predictably causing welfare retrenchment or dismantling. Stringent budgets and policy inertia did result in reduced provision and diminished capacity to protect. Yet significant progress towards a less parochial and more effective social safety net also took place. The paper is an attempt to bring out the complexity and contradictions of recent developments. It concludes that the system of social protection that has emerged from the crisis is undoubtedly leaner, less robust in core policy areas such as pensions and health, but also more effective in protecting against extreme poverty than ever before.     

The Korean welfare state: a paradox of expansion in an era of globalisation and economic crisis

When the Asian financial crisis took a heavy toll on Korea in the late 1990s, policy makers responded by extending welfare policy. For many analysts, this was a paradoxical move, marking a fundamental reconfiguration of the social policy system. This article contests that interpretation. It examines the changes made to Korean social policy in recent years, and considers their impact on the Korean welfare state. It notes both that welfare extensions have been comparatively limited, and that they have often formed part of wider attempts to boost labour market flexibility. It thus concludes that limited expansion of the Korean welfare state is chiefly an attempt to bolster industrial competitiveness and economic growth. For now, Korea retains the productivist social policy orientation that has long characterised it. It also concedes, however, that in the future underlying social change, notably a rapidly ageing population, may prompt policy makers to make significant changes to the Korean welfare state.     

Charity Development in China An Overview

While benefiting from the wealth generated by economic reform, China has also faced increasing social and environmental problems. With the restructuring of state enterprises, the previous occupational-based welfare system has been abolished. To decentralize the state's role in social protection while tackling social problems, the Chinese government has tried to experiment with different social measures to diversify welfare financing and provisions. Included in the social experiments are non-governmental organizations and charities. This paper provides a critical analysis of the social context of China since its economic reform, which, we argue, paves the way for the current development of NGOs and charities. This overview of current development of NGOs and charities in China also highlights existing structural problems.     

日本地域福利体制研究

二战后,高速经济增长促进了日本福利国家体制的形成。但进入20世纪90年代后,经济发展停滞与人口老龄化加剧,使福利国家体制面临严重挑战。地域福利作为代替福利国家的新的理念登场。日本开始探索从福利国家体制到地域福利体制的转变。地域福利以居民为福利主体,调动社会福利协会等福利组织,形成新兴的"地域共同体",及时有效地为地域社会中需要帮助的对象提供多样化的福利服务。本文主要分析了地域福利的形成过程及地域福利的理念及内容、地域福利实施体制,并对地域福利的核心老年人地域福利进行了阐述。地域福利作为一种协作模式,将对中国发展社区福利也具有启示作用。     

The Great Recession and Welfare State Reform: Is Retrenchment Really the Only Game Left in Town?

By 2010, when the Greek sovereign debt crisis changed into an existential crisis of the euro, all developed democracies entered a phase in which they had to consolidate their budgets, typically implying a politics of austerity. The scholarly literature, as well as the popular press, suggests that – consequently – welfare retrenchment and cost containment became the only games left in town. In this article, we study the welfare state reform measures taken between 2010 and 2012 in four countries characteristic of mature welfare state regimes (liberal, UK; conservative, Germany; social democratic, Denmark; and hybrid, the Netherlands) to examine empirically whether austerity has indeed become the only item left on the policy menu. Our analysis reveals that retrenchment features prominently on the agenda everywhere, but nowhere by itself. While compensation for income loss is rare since 2010, this still happens. More unexpectedly, reforms in line with a social investment agenda (like expansion of child care or active labour market policies) are still being pursued in all our four cases.     

Risk and its Management in Post-Financial Crisis Hong Kong

In the 1970s and up until the financial crisis occurred in the late 1990s, Hong Kong prospered in a relatively stable social, economic and political context. Since the financial crisis, however, its population has been increasingly exposed to risk: there has been job uncertainty and decreasing capacity for self‐reliance, leading to a growing reliance on public welfare and on families at a time when both are under pressure. The old welfare policies, unable to cope with the new risks, have been replaced by neo‐liberal reforms, redistributing the roles and responsibilities of the individual and the state, with a greater burden falling on the former. Individuals are required to be prudent to manage risk. While these reforms have relieved some of the burden on the state, both new social risk groups and ‘net taxpayers’ considered themselves to have borne disproportional costs. Society is facing serious problems resulting from ineffective old welfare policies, new social risks due to new policies, and the political upheavals arising from increased social conflicts and weakened social cohesion and solidarity. A further complication is that there is no acceptable platform or agent to negotiate a compromise between the polarized groups. This article argues that reliance on publicly funded risk coping strategies or on neo‐liberal risk prevention and mitigation strategies is not a desirable and sustainable policy. A commonly accepted political platform is required to negotiate a compromise which emphasizes shared and balanced roles and responsibilities, and a well‐conceived combination of risk prevention, mitigation and coping strategies.     

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.     

Revisiting the welfare state system in the Republic of Korea

Abstract   The Republic of Korea's welfare system has undergone radical institutional expansion since the 1990s, largely as a consequence of the financial crisis of 1997. In spite of these changes, public social expenditure remains extremely low — particularly with regard to all other OECD countries — with the result that the overall social insurance system and social welfare service sector remain underdeveloped. Thus, the current welfare system can best be characterized as a residual model, in that state intervention as a provider of welfare remains highly limited and the family and the private market economy play the central roles in offering a social safety net. This situation is largely the legacy of the so-called 'growth-first' ideology, which has remained the dominant approach favoured by the majority of the country's political and economic decision-makers since the period of authoritarian rule (1961-1993). The adoption of Western European-style neo-liberal restructuring, implemented following the 1997 financial crisis, has also played a role.     

Welfare reform and future challenges in the Republic of Korea: Beyond the developmental welfare state?

Since the economic crisis of 1997–98, the Republic of Korea has carried out vigorous social policy initiatives including the reform of the National Pension Programme and National Health Insurance. This paper seeks to answer whether the country's welfare state has moved beyond welfare developmentalism, by examining the cases of those two programmes. By the reform, the coverage of the National Pension Programme was extended to the whole population; and its financial sustainability and accountability were enhanced. Regarding National Health Insurance, efficiency reform was carried out on the management structure, while reform regarding financing was put on hold. These reforms were in clear contrast to the welfare developmentalism that used to place overwhelming emphasis on economic considerations. Despite these reforms, however, the Republic of Korea's welfare state faces the issues of ineffectual implementation and lack of financial sustainability of social policy. The National Pension Programme has failed to cover the majority of irregular workers, whose numbers are on the increase, and National Health Insurance needs to find a way to meet increasing health expenditure.     

The welfare state in liquidation?

This paper is about the most recent reforms of cash benefit systems and the sociopolitical debate in eight European countries. The welfare state and the social security system rank high on the political agenda. After many years of economic crisis, with increasingly widespread unemployment and changed family patterns, the welfare system that developed in most western European countries since the end of the Second World War is the focus of attention. In a world of increasing international trade, with competition from countries — in eastern Europe and Asia as well as the United States — which have not developed such comprehensive systems of social security, one of the main issues in the debate is whether western Europe can afford to maintain welfare at the existing level, or whether it is necessary to make fundamental changes. But the discussion also centres on what can be called the welfare state's own internal problems.     

Bringing Indonesia into the global welfare regime debate: A literature review and future research agenda

Studies on welfare state regimes have been dominated by consideration of rich OECD/European and increasingly East Asian countries/territories, leaving South Asian cases such as Indonesia underexplored. The few existing studies that have explicitly tried to conceptualize the Indonesian welfare regime have resulted in little consensus. To address the resulting lack of clarity, this article reviews scholarly articles relevant to bringing Indonesia into the global welfare regime debate, specifically encapsulating how the country has been classified compared with its East Asia counterparts. Accordingly, we find that existing studies have mainly concentrated on the Indonesian health care and social protection expansion, which has led authors to conclude that this evolution demonstrates Indonesia's transition away from welfare productivism. By contrast, we argue that Indonesia's productivist characteristics have largely prevailed while informal networks, clientelism, strong families, and the limited effectiveness of the civil society movement created a specific social politics in Indonesia. We thus conclude that the causal mechanisms typically attributed to welfare development in more developed welfare geographies, including East Asia, cannot fully explain the evident institutional formation in the Indonesian case. The future research agenda for studying the welfare regimes in Indonesia and other Southeast Asian countries is discussed.