BSc (Hon) Social Work Comparing Social Welfare Systems

1
BSc (Hon) Social WorkComparing Social Welfare
Systems

• Models of Welfare

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BSc (Hon) Social WorkComparing Social Welfare
Systems

• A system in which the government
• undertakes the chief responsibility for
• providing for the social and economic
• security of its population ,usually through
• unemployment insurance, old age pensions
• and other social-security measures a social
• system characterised by such policies.
• (Collins English Dictionary, 2000)

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BSc (Hon) Social WorkComparing Social Welfare
Systems

• Market State
• Civil Society
• Evers (1990)
• Abrahamson(1999)

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BSc (Hon) Social WorkComparing Social Welfare
Systems

• (Risk) Market (Opportunity) (Passivity) State
  (Security)
• North
• East West
• South
• (Fragmentation) Civil Society (Solidarity)

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BSc (Hon) Social WorkComparing Social Welfare
Systems

• When are typologies useful? (Cousins, 2005 108)
• a valid and reliable instrument for
  classifying welfare states (Art and Gelissen
  (2002 140 ,quoted in Cousins, 2005 108)
• a means to an end explanation and not an
  end in itself (Art and Gelissen (2002 140,
  quoted in Cousins, 2005 108)
• Welfare state theorising is still at an early
  stage.

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BSc (Hon) Social WorkComparing Social Welfare
Systems

• One of the first typologies Richard Titmuss
  (1974)
• the purpose of model-building is not to admire
  the architecture of the building, but to help us
  to see some order in all the disorder and
  confusion of facts, systems and choices
  concerning certain areas of our economic and
  social life (30)
• Residual Welfare Model
• Industrial Achievement Performance Model
• Institutional Re-distribution Model

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BSc (Hon) Social WorkComparing Social Welfare
Systems

• Esping-Andersen (1990)
• Distinguished the three regimes by the degree of
• decommodification and the kind of stratification
• they produce in society.
• Decommodification when a person can maintain
• a livelihood without reliance on the market
• Stratification the degree to which the welfare
• state differentiates between different groups

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BSc (Hon) Social WorkComparing Social Welfare
Systems

• Esping-Andersen (1990)
• Liberal Welfare state
• 2. Conservative Corporatist State
• 3. Social Democratic State

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BSc (Hon) Social WorkComparing Social Welfare
Systems

• Criticisms
• Allocation of particular countries to particular
  categories
• Lack of Southern European Countries
  sufficiently distinctive to have its own category
  (Ferrera, 1996)
• Built around the male breadwinner model

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BSc (Hon) Social WorkComparing Social Welfare
Systems
Welfare Regime Political Ideology Preferred Institution
Atlantic Liberal Market
Continental Conservative Voluntary Associations
Scandinavian Socialist/Social Democratic State
Southern Communitarian Family and Networks
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BSc (Hon) Social WorkComparing Social Welfare
Systems

• References
• Abrahamson, P. (1999) The Welfare Modelling
  Business. Social Policy and Administration Vol.
  33, No 4 394-415.
• Abrahamson, P., Boje, T.P. and Greve, B. (2005)
  Welfare and Families in Europe. Aldershot
  Ashgate.
• Arts, W.and Gelissen, J.(2002) Three Worlds of
  welfare capitalism or more? A state of the art
  report. Journal of European Social Policy, Vol.
  2, No 2 137- 58
• Cousins, M. (2005) European Welfare States.
  London Sage.
• Esping-Andersen, G. (1990) The Three Worlds of
  Welfare Capitalism. Cambridge Polity.
• Evers, A. (1990) Shifts in the welfare mix
  Introducing a new approach for the study of
  transformation in welfare and social policy. In
  A. Evers and H. Wintersberger, Shifts in the
  welfare mix. Frankfurt Campus Verlag.
• Ferrera, M. (1996) The southern model of
  welfare in social Europe. Journal of European
  Social Policy, Vol 6, No 1 17-37.
• Titmuss, R.M. (1974) Social Policy. London Allen
  and Unwin.