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.     

Lone Parents in Northern Ireland: The Effectiveness of Work Incentives

In recent years social policy in relation to lone parents has placed heavy emphasis on increasing the participation of this group in the labour market. If anything, the newly elected Labour government appears to be more committed to this objective than its predecessor. This paper details some of the findings from a focus-groups exercise with lone mothers in Belfast conducted in 1995. The data underline the limitations of many aspects of the measures taken to encourage lone parents to work and raise questions about the appropriateness of current policy.     

Labour parties,ideas transfer and ideological positioning: Australia and Britain compared

ABSTRACT

As part of this special issue examining policy transfer between the Labour parties in Australia and Britain, this paper seeks to explore the relationship between the two on ideological positioning. In the 1990s there was substantial ideas transfer from the Australian Hawke–Keating government to Blair ‘New Labour’ in Britain, as both parties made a lunge towards the economic centre. This paper analyses how the inheritors of that shift, the Rudd/Gillard government in Australia and the Miliband and Corbyn leaderships in Britain, are seeking to define the role and purpose of Labour parties in its wake. It examines the extent to which they are learning and borrowing from one another, and finds that a combination of divergent economic and political contexts have led to strikingly limited contemporary policy transfer.     

Towards "the Field of Corrections": Modernizing the Probation Service in the Late 1990s

The Probation Service in England and Wales has been caught up in the New Labour government's broader programme of "modernization". In a document more radical than anything produced under the previous Conservative government, New Labour has proposed that the Service be brought under centralized control, that its name be changed to reflect its new primary purpose of public protection, and that it be brought into closer structural alignment with the Prison Service. This paper discerns in the case made for centralization and the need for closer ties with prisons an authoritarian impulse which is deeply at odds with the Service's own local traditions, and questions whether the undoubtedly necessary process of modernization must take the form being proposed by the government.     

From New Labour to Rudd/Gillard – transferring social policy

ABSTRACT

From 2007 to 2010, there were national Labour governments in Britain and Australia, the longest and only third time this had occurred since the second World War. The period of New Labour was closing in the UK, and in Australia the Rudd government came to power after 11 years in opposition, directly influenced by the, at times, trailblazing UK Labour government. In the domain of social policy, New Labour was a source of policy inspiration and transfer. Specifically, the Rudd/Gillard governments borrowed heavily its ‘social exclusion’ agenda, and also the use of ‘compacts’ with the third sector. This article examines the policy diffusion and transfer between the UK and Australia, and in doing so offers critical insights into the policy transfer literature. The article examines the reasons for the Australian Labor Party's adoption of these policies, and links this to wider dilemmas and identity crisis that are afflicting centre-left governments across the globe.     

Differences and similarities in monetary benefits for informal care in old and new EU member states

This article presents an overview of the monetary benefits available in the context of long‐term care provided by family or other informal carers in 11 old and 10 new EU member states. All but one country in our sample offer at least some monetary benefits that can be used to help finance informal care. Old EU member states tend to direct benefits to individuals in need of care, whereas new EU member states place more emphasis on benefits for carers. Among new EU member states, monetary benefits are less often means‐tested and tend to be lower compared with benefits in old EU member states. Because social policies in many countries increasingly rely on monetary benefits rather than on benefits in kind and because the share of informal care in the overall provision of elderly care will scarcely decline, monetary benefit incentives for labour market participation need to be carefully monitored.     

GAUGING NEW ZEALAND'S SUCCESS AT POVERTY REDUCTION IN THE NEW MILLENIUM

This paper presents the results of the New Zealand Poverty Measurement Project's analysis of the effects of the 1990s social reforms in New Zealand on the incidence and severity of poverty, and assesses the impact of five social and economic policies introduced by the Labour‐led coalition governments since 1999: New Zealand superannuation, income‐related rents on state houses, active labour market policies for an employment‐rich economy, the Primary Health Care Strategy and the planned income support policy to reduce child poverty. Superannuation is assessed as both adequate and sustainable, rents for state houses are found to be affordable, and GDP growth and employment have increased incrementally as unemployment and benefit numbers have decreased. The Primary Health Care Strategy is an innovative initiative that will increase affordable access to general practitioners, but it and the proposed child assistance initiatives are too new to be adequately assessed. Of the challenges that remain, policy priorities should centre on housing alternatives, including home ownership for low‐income households not in state houses; income support for poor households, particularly those with children; and multi‐sector development of education and training aimed at lifting economic and social capacity.     

The "Employment-first" Welfare State: Lessons from the New Deal for Young People

New Labour is constructing an “employment‐first” welfare state. It plans through Jobcentre Plus to transform the passive culture of the benefit system by creating more explicit links between individual behaviour and engagement with labour market programmes. The New Deal for Young People (NDYP) has been at the forefront of these changes. This paper reports on the findings from four case studies that explored how the NDYP has changed young people's experience of the welfare state. It establishes that NDYP offers a mixture of employment assistance and “pressure” and has made progress in developing front‐line services and helping young long‐term unemployed people into work. NDYP does not, however, work for all. In areas of high unemployment and for some disadvantaged groups intermediate labour markets could enhance the New Deal and make real the offer of “employment opportunities for all”.     

Extension of social insurance coverage to informal economy workers in China: An administrative and institutional perspective

This article reviews administrative issues in the context of decentralized social protection in China. In particular, what are the main obstacles to expanding social insurance coverage for workers in the informal economy? Over the last two decades, China has achieved remarkable progress toward universal social protection when this target was set as a national policy priority. However, the social insurance enrolment of informal economy workers still lags significantly behind. This article reviews the application of the International Labour Organization’s definition of informality in the Chinese context and overviews existing pension and health insurances in China. This article discusses the impact of China’s inter‐governmental fiscal relations and decentralized social protection in the multilevel government system. The article highlights that under a system of decentralized managed social insurance many informal economy workers choose to opt out of the system because of low benefits and high compliance costs. This result in deficits in social insurance coverage amongst informal economy workers.     

Do labour market policies reduce the informal economy more effectively than enforcement and deterrence?

In 2006, Turkish policymakers introduced new measures to reduce informality and encourage formality, in which the primary means of combatting informality were stricter enforcement of existing labor market laws and deterrence through fines, without any appropriate adjustments in formal labour costs. In this paper we show that even without any change in enforcement and deterrence, in an economy growing with capital accumulation like in Turkey, informality gradually and naturally declines. Furthermore, we propose alternative labour market policy changes like reductions in minimum wage and payroll taxes to reduce informal employment share, and assess the relative effectiveness of these policy changes.     

Future of Care Services in Ireland: Old Answers to New Challenges?

Until recently, the small proportion of older people in the Irish population and low labour-market participation rates among women provided the underpinnings of the informal care model in Ireland. However, changes in family structures, women's labour market participation and population ageing are making this model less sustainable. A detailed analysis of policy changes and initiatives in the area of care provision shows that while the challenges facing the system are new, most of the solutions provided continue to rely on the model of home-based care.     

建立中国市场经济模式的理论思考

通过对市场经济模式的成因分析,文章提出任何一个国家必须根据本国特定的可能性空间来选择市场经济模式的观点。由此提出中国建立社会主义市场经济,在模式选择上的对策建议一是中国市场经济必须具备的体制特征,包括主体结构特征、制度结构特征、组织结构特征、政府职能特征和所有制结构特征。二是社会主义市场经济模式应具有的特点,包括市场在资源配置中起基础性作用;形成全国统一的、健全的、开放的市场体系;在所有制结构和产品分配上体现社会主义特征;政府在市场经济中扮演重要角色。     

Third Way Social Governance: Where is the State?

The ‘Third Way’ politics of Blair's New Labour government of the United Kingdom has popularised a number of policy reforms centred on a supposedly new discourse of ‘devolution’, ‘inclusion’, ‘partnerships’ and ‘community’. These notions reflect a re‐emergence of the ideas and values of civil society, participation and localism. Key drivers of this discourse are: new conceptions of citizenship; a retreat from the social state to a politics of community; and a questioning of both ‘big‐state’ interventionist and competitive market approaches to public policy. These trends have resonance in the Australian context. The welfare reform agenda of the Australian Commonwealth government together with community building and engagement initiatives of State governments have been sites for these policy directions. Much of the debate surrounding these policies excludes or minimises the fundamental role of an active state by focusing on an uncritical conception of community. Drawing on the notion of network governance, an alternative framework for re‐conceptualising state‐community relations and delivering improved community outcomes is posited. The paper concludes by suggesting possible social governance methodologies for actioning this framework.     

New Labour, Work and the Family

New Labour has put support for the family at the core of its notion of the “strong community”. Across a range of policy areas the Labour government can be seen to be developing a direct and explicit family policy. But what kind of community is the government trying to shape by these policies? On the one hand, Labour appears to support the family as the basis of a more moral, dutiful and cohesive community. On the other hand, the government has given weight to policies that support social inclusion in the community through paid work. This paper examines whether there is a tension in Labour’s social policies between its emphasis on the importance of stable family life and the primacy given to paid work. Are critics like Ruth Levitas right when they argue that the government’s emphasis on paid work devalues, and is unsupportive of, unpaid work, especially caring for children and other family members? Alternatively, can this combination of communitarianisms—community as “stable family” and community as “paid work”—be seen to be marking out some “third way” on the family? We shall show that different aspects of the government’s family policies reflect different perspectives and policy agendas within New Labour and third‐way thinking more broadly. And while recognizing the tensions between work and the family, we shall suggest that they are often overstated and fail to give sufficient weight to the complementary aspects of Labour’s welfare reforms.     

Who are the lucky ones? Heterogeneity in active labour market policy outcomes

Nordlund M. Who are the lucky ones? Heterogeneity in active labour market policy outcomes Int J Soc Welfare 2011: 20: 144–155 © 2010 The Author(s), International Journal of Social Welfare © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and International Journal of Social Welfare. This study focuses on how the effects from investments in Active Labour Market Policy programmes (ALMPs) may be differently distributed due to the age and educational level of participants. Outcomes were measured as the chance of labour market inclusion, labour market stability and post‐unemployment incomes. This longitudinal study captures long‐term effects among 50,000 Swedes who entered unemployment in 1993. While the youngest gained most from ALMP‐training, the oldest were best helped by ALMP‐ employment in reducing the risk of labour market exit. The lowest educated gained much from ALMP participation, although the effects were weaker than expected: those with a higher education gained more in terms of labour market stability from ALMP‐training compared with the less educated persons. This result was interpreted in terms of a springboard effect, meaning that ALMP‐training pushes higher educated people into further education in the regular educational arena.     

Decentralization & Local Government

Criticism of the achievements of the Welfare State have led to more emphasis on the role of local government in providing new styles of welfare services. This has presented a challenge to Labour party authorities in Britain and can be seen as an aspect of conflict with Conservative party central government. The article analyses the effect of placing more emphasis on local service delivery to which much publicity has been given. Voluntary agencies have also been given an increased role, for a variety of motives. This raises questions about local democracy, answerability, and user-control, which go beyond mere party polemics and involves fresh discussion of the future role of local government.     

Gender issues in social security policy of developing countries: Lessons from the Kerala experience

This paper is based on the premise that labour market conditions are critical in shaping access to social security benefits. Women's entitlement to long-term social security is in many respects different from that of men on account of the assumptions which pervade the system about gender roles, labour market conditions, and outcomes. The Indian state of Kerala has made great strides in formulating various schemes for workers in the informal sector, but gender concerns in social security are in want of attention in the light of demographic pressures, fiscal constraints and changes in the global economy.     

The disembedded digital economy: Social protection for new economy employment in China

This research focuses upon employment in the new economy, exploring labour protection and social protection in the digital age in China. Through an empirical survey conducted in three Chinese cities, social insurance and the labour rights of employees in the digital economic sector, such as gig employment, e-commerce, and various other forms of online employment, have been examined in-depth. This study reveals new regulatory loopholes in the digital labour market, which have substantially eroded the basis of social policy arrangements in China, “softening” participation in social insurance branches and compliance with labour regulations remarkably. Drawing upon the theoretical concepts of Polanyi on embeddedness and disembeddedness, we argue that the digital employment sector in China has been increasingly disembedded from social institutions and social control. The new configuration in the digital field of social policy requires novel conceptual models and institutional settings to cope with increasing social risks in virtual spaces.     

Labour Force Participation,Social Inclusion and the Fair Work Act: Current and Carbon‐Constrained Contexts

The notion that employment is a precondition for personal wellbeing and social inclusion is almost sacrosanct in Australian culture. Yet, the working and living conditions of Australia's low paid workers tells a different story. While labour market participation is a cornerstone of the Federal Government's Social Inclusion Agenda, it is recognized that low pay and poor job quality often derail this key objective. Indeed, the difficulty of ‘making work pay’ at the bottom end of the labour market is a social inclusion challenge that has yet to receive the policy or public attention that it warrants. This article considers what the Fair Work Act means for the social inclusion of disadvantaged workers, in the context of wider‐ranging strategies to address low pay. It concludes with some considerations of the challenges that a carbon‐constrained economy is likely to present for labour force participation as a remedy for social exclusion.     

Combining Work and Care: Carers' Decision-making in the Context of Competing Policy Pressures

Issues related to paid work and care are of global importance, reflecting the twin pressures of population ageing and efforts to increase labour market participation. Informal carers of sick, disabled or older people can experience tensions between policies aimed at support for care and support for employment. This article discusses a study of carers’ decision‐making around work and care, drawing on evidence from interviews with 80 working‐age carers in England. Carers are not homogeneous; their circumstances and needs differ reflecting age, gender, ethnicity, labour market participation, and the condition and/or needs of the person they support. This diversity is illustrated by contrasting rural and urban carers’ decisions and experiences about work and care. Key factors that impact on carers’ decisions are: current and anticipated financial need; the constraints arising from receipt of carers’ and other means‐tested income maintenance benefits; personal identity; job opportunities and scope for flexibility; social services provision; carers’ own health. Distance, travel times and transport are unique additional challenges for rural carers who (wish to) work. These difficulties are further intensified when they intersect with other factors such as the Carer's Allowance, the local labour market and social services provision. The findings are evaluated in terms of the adequacy of current government policy measures.