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Samenvatting Social Risks In Europe - all readings, 2022 ()
- Instelling
- Universiteit Utrecht (UU)
Summary of all the weekly readings for Social Risks in Europe, 2022
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Summary - Social Risks: a matter of social policy and public health – see the articles as argumentsReadings lecture 1:
Article 1: Bambra, C. (2007). Going beyond The three worlds of welfare capitalism: regime theory
and public health research. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 61(12), 1098–1102.
An overview of the welfare state regime literature
Welfare states are based upon three principles:
1. decommodification (the extent to which an individual’s welfare is reliant upon the market,
particularly in terms of pensions, unemployment benefit and sickness insurance),
decommodification, that is, ‘the degree to which individuals, or families, can uphold a
socially acceptable standard of living independently of market participation’.
2. social stratification (the role of welfare states in maintaining or breaking down social
stratification) and
3. the private–public mix (the relative roles of the state, the family, the voluntary sector and the
market in welfare provision).
These lead to the division of the welfare state in three ideal regime types: Liberal, Conservative and
Social Democratic (Esping Anderson, 1990)
However, there is criticism on these regimes and led to the development of alternative typologies. The
criticism was on 3 fronts: Theoretical, methodological and empirical.
Critiques; Theoretical led to
1. Alternative welfare state regimes:
- Southern welfare state – Latin Rim countries (Spain, Portugal, Greece) Rudimentary welfare
state. Diverse income maintenance schemes ranging from meagre to generous. A healthcare
system that provides only limited and partial coverage. High reliance on family and voluntary
sector.
- East Asian welfare states/The Confucian welfare state – low levels of government
intervention and investment in social welfare, underdeveloped public service provision and
fundamental importance of family and voluntary. Combination between liberal, conservative,
and southern welfare regimes
2. Critics on Esping Anderson’s welfare typology:
- Gender blind – unawareness of the role of women and the family in provision of welfare and
the lack of consideration given to gender as a form of social stratification.
3. Validity of the concept of regimes is questioned as it assumes the most of the key social
policy areas within a welfare regime reflect a similar approach to welfare provision. Also,
because each regime type reflects a ‘set of principles or values that establishes a coherence in
each country’s welfare package’ Leading to the development of alternative typologies
Critique: Methodological
The use of one standard deviation around the mean to classify the countries into regime – impacting
the particular classification of countries. Questioning the accuracy of the threefold typology and
identifying alternative welfare states.
Critique: empirical validity
Miscalculations of the mean and standard deviation in the original typology led to misclassification of
countries.
1
,Beyond the three welfare regimes there are alternative typologies – welfare provision varies
extensively between countries of the same regime types. Especially in terms of gender and health.
Article 2: Hemerijck, A., A. Bagadirov & P. Puertas Roig. (2022). The philosophy of social justice
and welfare provision: Towards capacitating solidarity. In Solidarity and Social Justice in
Contemporary Societies: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Understanding Social Inequalities.
Yerkes, M.A. & Bal, M. (Eds). London: Palgrave MacMillan. Chapter 5
Advanced welfare states in Europe and beyond have been able to eradicate old-age poverty, provide
universal access to health care and education and institutionalize social security in case of
unemployment and sickness. In normative terms, the modern welfare state is based on the image of a
social contract – a political agreement among citizens on the terms of social cooperation, rights, and
obligations, involving claims on equality, equity, inclusion and inter- and intragenerational solidarity.
This goes parallel with an incremental spread of social investment – tilts the welfare balance towards
social risk prevention, alongside compensation, in times of economic or personal hardship (in fluid
labor markets), human capital – may be wasted if jobseekers fail to successfully find employment.
This threatens the long-term financial sustainability of the welfare state, which rests on the number
and productivity of future employees and taxpayers.
The key objective of social investment is to break the intergenerational transmission of poverty
through targeted interventions that help capacitate individuals, families and societies to respond to the
changing nature of social risks. This goal is pursued by investigating human capabilities from early
childhood through the old age, while improving work-life balance provision for working families and
reducing household poverty through social protection.
1940s-1950s post war welfare states aiming to provide freedom from want through inclusive social
security. The public sector had a key role to play in ‘taming’ the capitalist economy. T.H. Marshall
described social citizenship rights as ‘the whole ranges from the right to a modicum of economic
welfare and security to the right to share to the fyll in the social heritage and to live the life of a
civilized being according to the standards prevailing in the society’ (Marshal, 1963). Marshall saw the
introduction of social rights as a final stage in a long evolutionary and mutually reinforcing process of
emancipatory democratization.
John Rawls (1971) expanded the post war welfare state. He attempted to advance principles of
distributive justice on which ordinary citizens could politically agree. He proposed the original
position – individuals are formally agree and equal to deliberate and make decisions behind a veil of
ignorance – that deprives them of all knowledge of their personal traits, abilities, and social
circumstances. According to Rawls, individuals would agree on two ordered principles:
1. The principle of equal basic liberties each person is to have an equal right to the most
extensive total system of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar system of liberty for
all. Thus, putting basic liberties beyond any kind of utilitarian calculations. protects civil
and political rights, delimiting a sphere of individual autonomy
2. Demand that social and economic inequalities must be (split in 2 sub principles)
a. Principle of fair equality of opportunities - Attached to the offices and positions open
to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity stipulates that all citizens
with the same talents and willingness to use them should have the same social and
economic opportunities
b. Difference principle – to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged allowing
unequal remunerations only insofar they benefit all citizens and particularly those
who are worse off.
2
,These principles are aimed at determining how social cooperation should be arranged along free and
equal citizens
Theory of justice – a vision of ‘good polity’, a fair system of cooperation between ree and equal
persons who despite affirming different conceptions of the good life are able to converge on an
overlapping consensus about the principles of justice – ‘rule of thumb’ conception for an advanced
democratic polity.
modern social security cannot be separated from the positive aspirations of ‘earning a living’, ‘raising
a family’, ‘learning a trade’, ‘caring for the sick and frail’ as core strivings for social respect.
Amartya Sen critiques Rawls theory, as it is too occupied with the distribution of resources. Rawls
overlooks the fact that people face different conversion factors (personal, socio-political and
environmental conditions determining the capacity of a person to transform resources into
functioning’s)
Functioning’s = various states of doings and beings that are valuable to people
The capability approach (Amartya Sen) provides an enriched answer to the questions of real equality
and opportunity by shifting the focus form resource constraints to capabilities
Capabilities = a person’s freedom to achieve certain functioning’s in light of the different personal
and environmental factors
Sen’s theory reflects both the flexibility and multi-purpose nature of the capability approach as well as
a worrisome lack of a systematic conception of justice as the one envisaged by Rawls.
‘Secure Functionings Approach’ tries to avoid some problems of operationalization and measurement
inherent to the concept of capability that makes it difficult for the purposes of public policy. Instead,
they propose to focus on ‘genuine opportunities’ for ‘secure functionings’, based on the following
reasoning: (1) when we think about capabilities, we usually do so in terms of the opportunities people
potentially have; (2) however, in doing so, we easily overlook that capabilities are not passive
entitlements, as they require agency to strive and actually transform capabilities into functionings; (3)
such choices involve obvious opportunity costs that, under conditions of vul-nerability, spill-over into
other valuable func-tionings; (4) therefore, the emphasis on genuine opportunity for ‘secure’
functionings serves to highlight that real opportunities are only present when the actions aimed to
achieve desired func-tioning do not require excessive costs or addi-tional risks that can put into
jeopardy other important functionings.
Nicholas Barr (2020) two principles of solidarity upholding the post-war welfare state:
1. Robin Hood solidarity: Poverty relief based on redistributing income and wealth from the rich
to the poor, so as to reduce social exclusion.
2. Piggy Bank solidarity: Alludes to social insurance over the life course, based on contributions
and earnings - status-preserving compulsory insurance
most EU social security systems operate on a combination between Piggy Bank solidarity and
Bismarckian insurance base and Beveridgean means tested and Robin-Hood redistribution.
Social investment = proposes to equip individuals, families and societies with the skills and resilience
needed to navigate rapid change and uncertainty. The aim of these policies is mainly to break up
patterns of self-reinforcing inequality and marginalization. While enhancing employment and
productivity in the knowledge economy, thereby putting the welfare state on more solid fiscal footing.
3
, Stepping-stone solidarity is aimed at bolstering people’s capabilities in transitional moments of life,
providing temporally- specific support structures to prevent cumulative disadvantage during life
course transitions –often associated with training, housing, childbearing, employment and health. In
contrast to the classic ‘Robin-Hood’ and ‘Piggy-bank’ solidarity, which share a family resemblance
with John Rawls’ focus on income security favouring the least advantaged; ‘Stepping-stone’ solidarity
is more multidimensional and contextualized. Thus, ‘Stepping-stone’ solidarity departs from
conventional poverty relief and social insurance not only in terms of its core objective, but also in
terms of its target population, provision logic, temporal horizon, and mode of governance.
Target population of Robin Hood and Piggy Bank working-age population
Stepping stone considers the whole life course
Glossary:
Capability: a person’s freedom or opportunity to achieve certain functioning’s, considering relevant
personal characteristics and external factors. The capability set of an individual refers to the options
available for her to choose.
Decommodification: the degree to which citizens can sustain an acceptable standard of living
independently of market participation.
Human capital: skills, education, capacity and attributes of labor that determine its productive
capacity.
Life course analysis: captures the temporal dynamic of welfare policy provision at the level of
individuals and households, by giving explicit attention to how welfare provision from early
childhood onwards affects material wellbeing (employment and income) and helps to mitigate (or
reinforce) social risks later in life, through cumulative (dis-)incentives for skills acquisition and easing
(or frustrating) gendered labor market transitions over the entire life course.
Original position: an imaginary situation whereas the parties must agree on basic principles of justice
given no one knows their personal circumstances.
Secure functioning’s: functioning’s that individuals have genuine opportunities to achieve, meaning
that (1) their probability of success is high if they strive to achieve them (2) and doing so does not
require them to sacrifice or put into jeopardy the achievement of other relevant functioning’s.
Social citizenship rights: basic access to social protection and provisions of education and primary
health care, made available to the population at large, as a universal right, on par with liberal and
democratic rights.
Social contract: a political agreement among citizens on the terms of social cooperation, rights and
obligations, involving claims on equality, equity, inclusion and inter- and intra- generational
solidarity.
Social investment: welfare provision with a focus on extant risk prevention and capacitation,
alongside expost income insurance and redistribution, to enhance people’s capabilities and
opportunities in post-industrial labor markets, with a view to ensuring high levels of employment and
inclusive social protection coverage.
Stepping-stone solidarity: a multidimensional and contextualized form of solidarity aimed at
bolstering people’s capabilities and providing for temporally specific support structures to prevent
cumulative disadvantage during life course transitions.
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