Welfare State Transformations

1
Welfare State Transformations

• Comparing Welfare States in Europe

2
Defining Welfare States

• Mishra (1990) argues that a commitment to full
  employment is a central component of mid
  twentieth-century welfare states.
• one of the most effective ways of reducing
  poverty is to ensure that access to paid
  employment is easily available.
• Focus on full employment has an inherent gender
  bias. Most definitions of full employment leave
  women in low-paid and part-time work based on the
  assumption that most of them will be married.

3
Defining Welfare States

• The focus on full employment leads to more
  general problems when we analyse welfare in
  different European countries.
• This is the issue of public and private domains.
• Social Care undertaken by people employed by the
  state within the public sphere is defined as
  being part of the activities of the welfare
  state.
• Social Care undertaken in the domestic sphere and
  only partially funded or not funded at all by the
  state is generally defined as being outside the
  welfare state.

4
Defining Welfare States

• Dominelli argues that we should employ a much
  broader definition of the welfare state and he
  argues that
• The welfare state comprises those public and
  domestic relationships which take as their
  primary objectives the well-being of people
  (1991, p.9)

5
Defining Welfare States

• If we use Dominellis broad interpretation any
  comparative analysis of European Welfare States
  would include almost every sphere of human
  activity.
• Alan Cochrane(1997) argues that this would be an
  unworkable definition and that we should focus on
  the term welfare state in terms of the
  involvement of the state in social security and
  social services.

6
Defining Welfare States

• In order to encompass Dominellis broad
  interpretation of welfare however Cochrane argues
  that it is important to focus particularly on the
  ways in which different welfare states have
  developed (implicit or explicit) family policies.
  
• This makes it easier to explore the complex
  relations between social policy and ordinary
  life, and acknowledges that States themselves
  help to define the domestic sphere

7
Globalisation and European Welfare States

• Mishra (1999)
• Globalization is a process through which
  national economies are becoming more open and
  more subject to supranational economic influences
  and less amenable to national control

8
Globalisation and European Welfare States

• Mishra goes on to argue that globalization is not
  simply about economics.
• He argues that it is the supra-national steering
  of economic and social policies of nations by
  influential inter-governmental organisations are
  central to the process of globalization. In this
  sense the globalisation is synonymous with
  neo-liberalism and is most closely reflected in
  the British and American Welfare Systems.

9
Globalisation and European Welfare States

• Mishra goes on to argue that globalisation has
  the following effects
• undermines the ability of national governments to
  pursue the objectives of full employment and
  economic growth through reflationary policies.
• Increases inequality in wages and working
  conditions through greater labour market
  flexibility.
• Decreases expenditure on social protection
  systems

10
Globalisation and European Welfare States

• Focuses on reducing general taxation in European
  countries
• Weakens the basis of social partnership and
  tri-partite relationships between employers, the
  state and citizens by shifting the balance of
  power away from citizens and the state toward
  capital
• Constrains policy options of nations and in some
  senses it may create the end of ideological
  debate leaving no or little room for socialist or
  social democratic models of welfare

11
Globalisation and European Welfare States

• The logic of globalisation with its focus on
  international capital and markets comes into
  conflict with the logic of the national community
  and democratic politics and social policy comes
  becomes the artbitar in the conflict between
  global capital and the democratic national state.

12
The Downsizing of the Social State

• Governments across Europe have sought to reduce
  borrowing by cutting back on spending on public
  welfare rather than by raising taxes
• Advanced welfare states such as Belgium, the
  Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark were developed on
  the basis that nation states had the freedom of
  governments to tax and spend according to the
  will and opinions of its people.
• Progressive taxation is basis of a social system.

13
Central Governments marginal personal taxation
rates OECD countries
14
The Downsizing of the Social State

• There has been sharp fall in rates of taxation in
  the UK and the US since the late 1970s. However
  in the UK indirect taxes have risen
• When comparing social expenditure in different
  European States it is important to consider what
  percentage of public expenditure is allocated to
  other areas such as defence spending.

15
The impact of Globalisation on Welfare States in
Europe

• Social Democratic States such as Sweden and
  Denmark have also responded to globalisation by
  some downscaling of public sector activities
  however Sweden still remains one of the most
  comprehensive and generous welfare states in the
  world.

16
The impact of Globalisation on Welfare States in
European countries

• . There have however been recent changes in
  Sweden such as the reduction in the level of
  benefits such as sickness, unemployment and
  parental leave from 90 per cent to 80 percent of
  income. Esping Andersen also argues that Sweden
  is moving towards a more social insurance model.

17
The context in the UK

• The number of children living in families wholly
  dependent on income support has trebled between
  1979 and 1999(Shelter, 1999)
• The existence of state benefits and other welfare
  provision has failed to protect many children and
  their parents from the worst effects of rapid
  economic and social changes.

18
Impact of Rapid Economic Changes on Children and
Families

• There has been a rapid growth in child poverty
• An increase in family homelessness and young
  people living on the streets. (Child Poverty
  Action Group 2005)
• Families with children have come to comprise a
  much greater proportion of the poor.
• Over 4.6 million children were in poverty in
  2004/5, three times the number 20years earlier

19
Children and Poverty in the UK

• Nearly a third of children now live in poverty
  (Shelter 2005) compared with just one in ten in
  1979.
• The effect of poverty and other forms of social
  deprivation on children has been a long-standing
  area of concern. Childhood is a particularly
  vulnerable period in the human life cycle and one
  in which people are likely to suffer most from
  poverty and its associated factors.

20
Globalization and Welfare Crises

• Many social, political and economic factors
  contribute to poverty. However evidence reveals
  that unregulated capital and trade flows
  contribute to rising inequality and mitigates
  against the use of social policy or welfare
  development as a way of mitigating poverty

21
The Globalisation of Social PolicyReducing the
role of the State in the USA, UK, France and
Germany

• Tax Cuts
• Regressive shifts in the tax load
• Reduced benefits for recipients of state Welfare
• Reduced eligibility for state transfers
• Reduction of Public in favour of private provision

• Residualization of Benefits and Services to the
  Poor.(not France)
• Reduced social services (UK only)
• Reduced coverage of occupational benefits (USA)

22
European Welfare State

• the use of regulatory policy increasingly allows
  the European Commission to take on the role of
  calling the tune without paying the piper in
  the field of social policy. .By making use of
  regulatory policies in the area of social policy,
  rather than those involving direct Community
  expenditure, EC social policy, in a number of
  specific areas, increasingly sets the standards
  to be adhered to in the member states while
  incurring minimum Community costs (Cram 1993)

23
The Politics of Equality

• Egalitarian Redistribution
• Trickle down redistribution
• Giddens the new politics - defines equality as
  inclusion and inequality as exclusion

• Equality is about the opportunity to get on and
  to have a voice in public space, and also to make
  this advantage available to others by fulfilling
  work obligations.

24
References

• Dominelli, L. (1991) Women across Continents
  feminist comparative social policy, Hemel
  Hempstead, Harvester Wheatsheaf.
• Esping Anderson (1990) the Three Worlds of
  Welfare Capitalism, Cambridge, Polity Press.
• Mishra (1999) Globalization and the Welfare
  State. Edward Elgar Publishing.
• OECD website http//www.oecd.org/home/
• Joseph Rowntree website http//www.jrf.org.uk/