Retrenching or renovating the Australian welfare state: the paradox of the Howard government's neo-liberalism

Most conventional studies of the former Australian Liberal–National Coalition government refer to its neo-liberal ideological agenda: its concern to reduce government interference with free market outcomes by restricting access to social security payments. That analysis suggests a substantial retrenchment of the Australian welfare state based on redirecting responsibility for the disadvantaged from government to corporations, private individuals and families. Yet there is increasing evidence from reliable sources that the government has not reduced social expenditure, and that increasing resources have been directed, particularly via the family payments system, towards some disadvantaged groups such as low-income families and the aged. Utilising the theory of the US political scientist Paul Pierson, this article explores the joint paradox of Australian neo-liberalism: the punitive treatment of some disadvantaged groups such as the disabled and lone parents versus the generosity towards other groups and, more generally, the growth rather than decline in social expenditure. The author asks what this paradox tells us about the likely future of the welfare state in Australia and elsewhere.     

Should mothers work? Age and attitudes in Germany,Italy and Sweden

Welfare states are constructed around values and political and economic preferences, creating social relationships between the genders. As women increase their labour market participation, new patterns of conflict within families and around policies arise. In this article, attitudes towards family and gender relations among men and women in different age groups in Germany, Italy and Sweden are analysed. The findings show that national policies seem to influence the level of attitudes among men and women. Despite the differences between the countries, an overall pattern emerges in which both age and gender influence people's understanding of women's paid work within and between the three countries. Finally, some implications of changing attitudes on welfare state policies for gender equality are discussed.     

Importing Workfare: Policy Transfer of Social and Labour Market Policies from the USA to Britain under New Labour

Britain's New Labour government has put welfare reform at the top of its political agenda. It has followed a radical “workfare” agenda in relation to labour and social market policies and no longer aims to secure full employment mainly through direct job creation or Keynesian demand management. Instead, it promotes equal opportunity for all based on a contract between benefits claimants and the employment service. The New Deal is at the heart of British activation programmes for the unemployed. American policy paradigms have influenced the design of the New Deal. Policy transfer in activation policies from the USA to Britain is due to institutional similarities in British and American welfare states on the one hand, and to the comparable structure of their labour markets on the other hand. The influence of the European social model on British labour market policies thus remains limited.     

“The only equality is the pain”: An exploration of the Irish policy sphere's approach to “access” and “entitlement” in health care

This paper critically analyses how overarching policy goals and practices surrounding access and entitlement to health care (HC) have been dominated by a conflicting system of libertarian and equity-based principles. We examine how this mixed-motives system originated and the importance of policy legacies inherited from the Poor Laws era in shaping modern conceptions of access and entitlement to HC. We also considered how these determined the scope of state intervention in this policy domain. Drawing on empirical evidence and interviews with key stakeholders in Irish health policy, we explored the appetite to engage in meaningful HC reforms that address the growing gaps of inequity between higher and lower socio-economic groups in society. Rather than emulating European counterpartsapos; emphasis on universal coverage within an egalitarian paradigm, Irish policy actors have sought to instill a spirit of fairness in HC delivery. Under the guise of equality of opportunity and equity, the policy focus has centred on directing publicly funded HC towards lower-income groups and the most vulnerable in Irish society. However, we argue that the operation of the mixed-motives structure has also created conflict and policy ambiguity surrounding overarching goals which frame the governance and consumption of HC in Ireland. This is evidenced by the dysfunction and complexity of the two-tier system of public-versus-private access to HC services. Ultimately, we argue that the policy aspirations of equality that underpin the HC structures surrounding access and entitlement should be revisited to achieve greater health outcomes and create a more equal society.     

Decentralization of decision making: the case of payment policies for children's daycare

To bring about equality, the Nordic welfare states have provided a broad range of services with as homogenous eligibility criteria as possible. This homogeneity of social benefits has been obtained by centralized decision making and a high degree of statutory regulation. Recent trends in all welfare states veer towards greater local independence and decentralization. This article examines how the decentralization of decision making in Finland has affected the realization of basic welfare state principles. The specific aspect from which the topic is examined are user fee policies for children's daycare. The analysis gives a rather inconsistent picture of possible explanations for the differences between daycare payment policies. Municipal decision making is influenced by economic rather than political or structural factors. However, logical economic explanations are found only in large municipalities. This study highlights that decentralization of decision making has put families in very different economic positions in different municipalities - municipal traps are emerging. The relationship between welfare services and income redistribution has become ever more complicated as decision-making powers have been localized. A family may, for example, be paying the highest daycare fees but at the same time be entitled to social assistance.     

Democratic demand for a social Europe? Preferences of the European citizenry

Within the literature on European integration there is a widespread assumption that Europe is in need of intensified and more effective supranational social policy cooperation. However, on the political level it is doubtful whether such measures are welcomed by the national electorates. This article addresses this issue empirically by asking whether there is public demand for promoting greater European welfare policy cooperation and what are the determinants of such a demand. The data source used is the Eurobarometer survey 2000. A number of hypotheses dealing with socio-structural differences, the effects of welfare regime types, the subjective evaluation of the integration process and the role of identity will be scrutinised. Overall, the results indicate that at the attitudinal 'grass root' level there is no unequivocal support for a European welfare responsibility and that some fundamental cleavages are present. It is the regional and cultural aspects, especially, which turn out to be having an effect and to be influencing future political conflicts. A common European welfare arrangement, therefore, cannot be regarded as a solution to the problems the European Union is facing; rather it will raise new and severe problems of finding social and political support.     

Risk, Contingency and the Third Way: Evidence from the BHPS and Qualitative Studies

New Labour's "Third Way" in welfare derives its intellectual underpinning from "risk society" theory as developed in the UK by Anthony Giddens. The theory suggests that the crucial changes affecting citizens of modern societies are globalization, the post-traditional social order and social reflexivity. These changes lead people to question authority and to wish to take greater responsibility for meeting their needs. Applied to welfare, the analysis suggests a diminution in the role of government, greater proactivity by citizens and subsidiarity favouring community groups and also the private sector. It buttresses Third Way calls for "no rights without responsibility" and "equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome". This paper reports qualitative and quantitative research which indicates that the risks of modern social life are experienced differently by different social groups. Risk society theories assume value consensus. They understand social change to have a common impact across society, leading to a common response, and direct attention away from the particular needs and aspirations of more vulnerable groups. The risk society thesis is class ideology masquerading as social theory: it serves the interests of those already privileged in a more flexible society by obscuring the needs and aspirations of the more vulnerable, who already bear most of the burdens of social change.     

The State and its Welfare State: How do Welfare State Changes Affect the Make‐up of the Nation State?

With respect to changes in the welfare states of OECD countries, scholars most of the time are looking for common trends; that is, they look for similar movements in different states, such as welfare state retrenchment, recalibration, etc. As we show in this article, data on welfare state spending and financing do not, however, support such stark tendencies like retrenchment. We therefore suggest looking for corridor effects rather than level effects, i.e. analysing changes in the dispersion of welfare state regimes rather than shifts in the mean values. Our analysis suggests that convergence, i.e. decreasing diversity among states in spending, financing and regulation patterns, may have been the most important pattern of welfare state change in the last three decades – a pattern easily overlooked in past and current research. Convergence of welfare state regimes also affects our views on the modern nation state itself since the varieties of welfare capitalism in the twentieth century are themselves an expression of the sovereignty and autonomy of the nation state. If nation states are forced to surrender national particularities, to mellow their characteristic differences and to move incrementally towards a one‐size‐fits‐all common model via ‘shrinking corridors’, such a blurring of welfare regimes, such a beclouding of difference, should also be regarded as a significant change taking place in the centre of the Western nation state's make‐up.     

The Welfare State and the Life Course: Examining the Interrelationship between Welfare Arrangements and Inequality Dynamics

The transformation of welfare state arrangements in European countries during the last two decades can not only be described as realizing an activating welfare state, but also as centred on specific life course transitions which are considered as critical. A number of new welfare arrangements have been set up or older ones have been modified taking into account the critical phases of the life course. These new welfare arrangements attribute new rights over resources to well‐specified groups in terms of their life course events. The article first presents a selective overview of new welfare arrangements which are (in explicit or implicit ways) linked to specific phases and transitions of the life course in the different European countries; and, second, it analyzes the consequences of these new welfare arrangements on inequality. These arrangements establish (mostly implicitly) norms, which appear to define a role of an active, responsible and ‘able’ employee and citizen for everybody. However, the general starting positions of various groups of the population (such as women) and the existing welfare provisions constitute an obstacle to providing equal starting positions and an equal opportunity for pursuing one's life course according to the established norms. Therefore, the effects of these new welfare arrangements can have significant impacts on outcomes, and can therefore transform substantially the existing picture of inequalities.     

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.     

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.     

Gender,work, and childcare in Kazakhstan,Mongolia, and Russia

The current study seeks to understand the nature of gender relations within a post‐Soviet welfare model in Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and Russia. On the basis of the analysis of key labour market indicators, parental leave, and childcare policies, it finds that the welfare models in the three countries are hybrid, and neither authoritarianism in Kazakhstan and Russia nor democracy in Mongolia lead to substantive gender equality outcomes. Persistent gender inequality in these countries is underpinned by the neo‐liberal approach to welfare provision, conservative social norms, and limited agency of civil society to influence the policy agenda. Nonetheless, these states have distributed to the population with an emphasis on working mothers, and this policy choice has been driven by economic, demographic, and political considerations, which ultimately serve to support, rather than transform, the patriarchal power structure in these societies.     

Beyond Continuity? Understanding Change in the UK Welfare State since 2010

One approach to identifying policy change stresses policy instruments, settings and policy paradigms, while another also considers the process and culmination of various shifts and consequent outcomes. This article illustrates the debate through an examination of how far developments in social security policy between the 1997–2010 New Labour and 2010–15 Coalition Governments in the UK constituted real policy shifts. It shows that, despite continuities in instruments and approach, there have been substantial changes in the impact of welfare state policies related to short‐term benefits, employment and housing. The article identifies new policy directions leading to a different kind of welfare state, concerned less with living standards and equality and more with individual responsibility and paid work. It suggests that this has been achieved without the need for radical changes in instruments and their settings.     

Public health care in the balance: exploring popular support for health care systems in the European Union

Which factors explain intra‐ and inter‐country variations in levels of public support for national health care systems within the European Union, and why? We propose that public opinion towards public health care is dependent on (1) the type of welfare state regime to which the various European welfare states belong, (2) typical features of the national care system and (3) individual social and demographic characteristics, which are related to self‐interest or morality oriented motives. To assess the explanatory power of these factors, data from the Eurobarometer survey series are analysed. Support for public health care appears to be particularly positively related to social‐democratic attributes of welfare states, whereas support drops with increasing degrees of liberalism and conservatism. Further, support for public health care proves to be associated with wider coverage and public funding of national care services. We also find higher levels of support in countries with scarce social services for children and the elderly, and larger proportions of female (part‐time) employment. Lastly, with respect to individual characteristics, we find remarkably little evidence for self‐interest oriented motives affecting the preference for solidary health care arrangements.     

FROM ENTITLEMENT TO OBLIGATION IN THE AUSTRALIAN WELFARE STATE

This article examines recent debates relating to the provision of welfare in Australia. It starts with an assessment of the trend towards the acceptance of the philosophy of ‘mutual obligation’ by governments, commentators and lobby groups, traces the process of the movement of welfare from ‘entitlement’ to ‘obligation’ and argues that this is being used to justify a reworking of the relationship between citizen and state. The paper argues that a ‘genuine’ mutual obligation has always been part of the Australian welfare system and that, in contrast to the current rhetoric of individual responsibility, it should rather be seen as a community based obligation.     

Discerning self‐interested behaviour in attitudes towards welfare state responsibilities across Europe

Baslevent C, Kirmanoglu H. Discerning self‐interested behaviour in attitudes towards welfare state responsibilities across Europe Int J Soc Welfare 2011: 20: 344–352 © 2010 The Author(s), International Journal of Social Welfare © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. This article reports on an investigation into the influence of individual characteristics on attitudes to government responsibility for welfare‐related tasks using data from the European Social Survey. The main finding of this investigation was that socio‐demographic characteristics, basic personal values, a left–right ideological position and religious affiliation were all associated with attitudes towards welfare policies. An item‐by‐item examination of the six issues enquired about in the survey revealed that people tended to hold the government responsible for tasks that would benefit them more directly. Taken as a whole, the empirical findings were interpreted to mean that individuals' tastes for welfare state policies were driven, at least partially, by self‐interest, but it was also noted that further work was needed to disentangle the potential role of group loyalty effects.     

Welfare Mothers' Reflections on Personal Responsibility

This article discusses personal responsibility, fulfilling one's moral and social obligations as a purposeful and self-reliant agent, from the viewpoint of 20 White welfare mothers completing a community college program. In their stories, the participants revealed that they behaved in responsible ways under difficult conditions. Their accounts demonstrated that the most responsible decision for a single mother in many cases may be welfare, rather than a paying job and unstable employment. The women described a new type of personal responsibility in the context of community college: setting and working toward long-term goals rather than focusing purely on survival. Personal responsibility did not seem to reside in the individual, but was the result of the interaction between individual agency and context, an interpersonal responsibility.     

Who is supported? Social security for families with children between family law and social security regulations in Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom

Individual and collective welfare lies at the heart of deliberations about contemporary welfare states. It is not always recognized that social security provisions interact closely with systems for the support of families and for labour market participation. This paper focuses on the interaction of institutional arrangements providing social security for families with children. The analytic framework incorporates family and marital law and social security provisions. Three European welfare states, Belgium Germany and the United Kingdom — with divergent systems of family support — are compared in detail. Among the questions to be posed are: How do these societies organize their support and family-related activities? And what are the rights for individual women, men and children? Among the indicators to be considered are whether the basis for entitlement to social security is individualized or based on a collective unit such as the couple or the household; the extent to which access relates to marriage status or the legitimacy of the children; and the employment-related or universal nature of benefit. The different family models underlying institutions are analysed.     

On Inter‐ and Intra‐Individual Redistribution of the Welfare State*

Objective. The redistributive effect of the welfare state is traditionally measured by comparing the gross and net distribution of annual income among adults. This standard approach does not account for the fact that a large share of the taxes paid by adults are paid back to the very same individuals later in life. The objective of this article is to examine the factors that determine the difference between redistribution according to the standard approach and redistribution of lifetime incomes. I also discuss under what circumstances intra‐individual redistribution is beneficial for low‐income earners. Methods. A formal model of a simple welfare state in a society with low‐ and high‐income earners is used to describe inequality of gross and net income among adults and for complete lifetime incomes. The model is calibrated with data describing the Swedish welfare state. Results. Theoretically, the redistribution of lifetime income can be bigger or smaller than the redistribution indicated by the standard approach. Swedish data suggest that most welfare states are more redistributive when a lifetime perspective is used compared to the standard approach. Conclusions. Most of the redistribution carried out by modern welfare states is so‐called intra‐individual redistribution. Compared to the situation that would arise without the welfare state, intra‐individual redistribution is likely to be favorable for low‐income earners because it compensates for inequalities in the distribution of assets and access to capital markets.     

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.