Welfare and the Welfare State

Central Issues Now and in the Future

Bent Greve

• Verlag: Routledge
• Jahr: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000764659
• Auflage: 2
• Thema: Économie
• Thema: Politique économique

The welfare state is still very much central in people's everyday lives. The welfare state is at the same time contested and debated, and has often been argued to be in a crisis not only in the wake of the financial crisis. Welfare and welfare states used to be a national issue and prerogative. Today welfare and welfare states are influenced by national as well as regional and global decisions. However, nation states play a decisive role influenced by national preferences and ideas, and, in recent years, populism and welfare chauvinism.

This book provides an overview of the central concepts through the lenses of the state, market and civil society. It also provides the reader with knowledge on distribution in societies and how this interacts and influences different groups and their position in society. There are also chapters dealing specifically with central sectors in the welfare states such as health, long-term care and education. The book uses a comparative approach as this better enables one to understand one's own country's welfare, as well as helping to underline and see the linkages to the impact of global and regional issues on welfare states and their development. Finally, the book presents challenges and future perspectives for welfare states and their development.

The book's focus on core concepts and the variety of international welfare state regimes and mechanisms for delivering social policy provides a much-needed introduction to the rapidly changing concept of welfare for students on social policy, social studies, sociology and politics courses.

Part I

Central concepts

Chapter 1

Introduction

Contents

1.1 What are the central issues?

1.2 Overview of the book

References

1.1 What are the central issues?

The welfare state, in all developed societies at least, plays a key role in people’s everyday lives. At the same time, the welfare state is contested and there are constant discussions on how and to what degree the state should intervene, influence and have an impact on the development of society, including on the market and civil society. Many questions arise: should there be a stronger or a leaner welfare state, or a larger role for families, the voluntary sector or the market? Such issues have been discussed for many years, as have subjects concerning the welfare state in crisis. Different measures have been used, such as direct cut backs in the form of retrenchment/austerity, more marginal changes or just gradual changes. At the same time, for centuries the sovereign and the state have played a role and the boundaries between state, market and civil society have been analysed, debated and discussed from many and varied perspectives.

Recent years have seen an ongoing transformation of the welfare state in the light of the global financial crisis, demographic change, new technology and changes in the perception of the state’s role in relation to social welfare. The legitimacy and nature of the state’s role is constantly changing, not only in relation to its overall size and role, but also within certain areas of welfare policies. The impact of populism on welfare states’ development also questions what is legitimate and what is supported by voters. For instance, the type and level of support for individuals might differ depending on whether we look at social assistance or old age pensions (Svallfors, 2012). Support for old age pensions and services has been and still is higher than for those receiving social assistance. Thus, the old debate about the deserving poor and the undeserving is still very much alive. Recent years have also seen new risks emerging so that the “old” risks (Taylor-Gooby, 2004) of reaching the age of retirement, becoming ill or unemployed, or having a work injury, have been supplemented by new types of risk related to changes in the family and family formations, including the break up of families. New risks and new challenges for individuals in welfare states also mean that there might be a conflict between various kinds of needs in different sectors and parts of the economy, and also that these are changing over time. Thus the balance between the state, the market and civil society, and also within and between different aspects of the welfare state’s services and income transfers has been constantly reconstructed, including who has which responsibility and who is expected to finance and/or deliver different types of welfare transfers and services. The continuation and anticipation of more and better welfare services also implies a risk that voters’ expectations will not be fulfilled and thereby possibly reduce the legitimacy of the welfare state.

Over the last 30–40 years, we have seen a shift in the focus of the welfare state, from concentrating on income transfers to offering more services beyond health care, in which child care and care for the elderly have been the most prominent. The expansion of the welfare state in some countries, especially in the provision of services, raises new issues concerning the understanding and possible role of the welfare state, particularly during a period of increased financial pressures. Issues include the extent to which the welfare state should provide services to whom, of what quality and under what conditions, and, in contrast, what should be delivered by the market and civil society, and how to balance these.

The welfare state, in its different national varieties, plays a profound role in most people’s everyday lives. Thus, the welfare state influences society’s development, including the preconditions for helping to ensure social cohesion and the development of social capital. Furthermore, many welfare states have goals related to equality and employment.

This book will scrutinise the foundations of the welfare state and explain why we have a welfare state (Esping-Andersen, 2002). In addition it will examine why it is difficult to demarcate the roles of the state and the market with any precision, and why the welfare state’s boundaries in relation to civil society, including families, the third sector and voluntary work, are difficult to define and are constantly changing. Furthermore, it will examine how the interaction between state, market and civil society is important in order to understand the welfare state and how the welfare state differs between countries. The book provides an overview of the different interpretations and explanations of what a welfare state is and how it works. The approach chosen is interdisciplinary, and draws on sociology, political science, economics and social policy. The book does not have a specific focus on one country’s welfare system, but tries to balance between presenting principles in approach to welfare and examples from a variety of countries and systems, and thereby to cover different welfare systems. This also helps clarify variations in approaches to and understanding of the welfare state. Looking at how the welfare state is structured and changing in different countries can provide a mirror that helps to understand the welfare state of one’s own country, while at the same time making it possible to understand the varieties of approaches that can be and are used to achieve a high level of welfare. Core service areas principles, organisation and financing will also be touched upon.

In recent years, the focus on economic growth as a way of promoting welfare has been questioned and there has been a growing interest in well-being and the broader aspects of what constitutes a good society. Furthermore, approaches have changed from mainly focusing on the short term to a longer-term perspective including intergenerational aspects. This therefore raises the fundamental question: what is welfare? In order to understand the welfare state one needs to understand its central concepts, and especially the understanding of welfare, but also how different principles of delivery and financing in the state, the market and civil society influence people’s quality of life and level of welfare. The ability to finance the welfare state, to ensure qualified labour and to establish trust in societal development, are highly important issues for the development of welfare in many countries.

The book offers a further international perspective on how the welfare state might be influenced by the European Union, especially in the EU member states. It therefore also highlights how welfare and its historical development within nation states is now influenced by globalisation and European norms of welfare.

This book provides both insights and knowledge which will make it possible to analyse and interpret the ongoing societal changes in welfare states. Core concepts and arguments for and against the welfare state are presented so that the complexity of modern societies can be understood. The book should therefore be useful for all students of social policy, social care, sociology, welfare states, political science, and welfare economics and other subjects where there is a need to be familiar with core concepts and issues related to a central theme in modern societies: welfare and welfare states.

1.2 Overview of the book

The book is divided into five parts.

The first part presents the core concepts related to what welfare is and different ways to achieve goals in the welfare state, including central theoretical arguments for using the state, the market and civil society to deliver and/or finance welfare. This distinction of the three sectors as means to provide welfare, together with different welfare regimes, is the guiding principle in the book.

The second part of the book focuses on the core providers of welfare: the state, the market and civil society. It addresses how best to achieve an aim in the welfare state by using the state, the market or civil society or a combination of these, and in what welfare regimes these goals seem to be achieved best. The central goals of the welfare state included are elements such as inclusion (versus exclusion), equality (versus inequality) and a high level of employment.

The third part of the book analyses central aspects and topics in welfare states by showing how the principles and elements from the first two parts can be used when analysing the welfare state. This includes, for example, how different approaches to welfare influence equality, inclusion and the welfare of different groups based upon gender, age, race and disability. Therefore the third part presents how to understand what has been seen as essential to the development of welfare states; the degree of equality and inequality and the impact of the state and the market especially in different welfare regimes.

The fourth part focuses on three central welfare state sectors which are important in most countries. Health care, which is often universal, and long-term care are policy service fields where the demographic changes have increased pressure on the welfare state. Pensions are income transfers that are expected to increase and have already implied many reforms over the last 15–25 years. Principles presented in the first parts of the book are integrated in the presentation in these chapters.

The fifth part then takes a more international perspective, raising the issue of whether welfare state policies are still mainly a national prerogative or whether they are influenced by globalisation, and especially the impact of the EU and other international organisations on the options and possibilities of national combinations of the state, the market and civil society. It also presents trends in the development of the welfare state, including new ways of steering and organising the welfare state, in the light of ongoing transformations and challenges, and finally points towards the future of the welfare state.

The first part of the book presents the framework.

Chapter 2 asks us to step back and ask: What is welfare? Answering this question is essential if we are to understand the development of the welfare state, what it is and what it can be. An important issue here concerns the need to know why it is so difficult theoretically to find the boundaries and limits between the state, the market and civil society in relation to welfare. The issues involved here are both empirical and normative, such as deciding the correct balance between individual freedom and societal intervention. The ability to prioritise between ends and means and between limited available resources is also becoming increasingly important.

An implication of this is that both objective quantitative indicators of well-being and subjective aspects of citizens’ understanding of the good society are important. Subjective well-being can thus be important in a modern welfare state. A happy nation might also be one that has a good welfare state. Quality of life indicators and ways of measuring the impacts and outcomes of welfare-state interventions in societal development might thereby be important. Institutions, structures and the way they influence equality and justice in modern societies are thus also important. This also includes conditionality with regard to access to benefits and services. The definition of a welfare state and its aims are addressed in the third chapter.

Con...