European welfare systems should be more responsive to at-risk users, concludes project
Welfare systems in Europe have been under increasing strain in recent years, from pressures such as globalisation, ageing populations, rising costs and changes in family life. Existing research has already highlighted what reforms are needed to respond to these new social risks, but what is less clear is how they can be implemented within the various different national systems in Europe. To address this knowledge gap, the European Commission provided funding for a project entitled welfare reform and management of societal change (WRAMSOC) - an initiative under the 'Improving the socio-economic knowledge base' key action of the Fifth Framework Programme (FP5). The project aimed to carry out a detailed examination of the factors that influence welfare policy in various European countries in order to provide a new understanding of the reforms currently underway and identify methods for promoting reforms that will advance the European dimension in welfare systems. Its activities concluded recently with the publication of the final project report. Under the coordination of the University of Kent in the UK, the WRAMSOC partners carried out reviews of recent policy developments in seven countries - Finland, Sweden, France, Germany, Spain, the UK and Switzerland - as well as at EU level, through more than 250 interviews with policy makers and other actors. In the current post-industrial period, alongside the traditional social needs that the original welfare systems sought to address, such as retirement, unemployment, or disability, new social risks are emerging. These risks, the report argues, fall into three main categories: balancing work and family responsibilities such as childcare, lacking the necessary skills to gain an adequately paid and secure job, and losing access to satisfactory social provisions through welfare restructuring such as pension reforms. Despite the emergence of these new welfare needs, the WRAMSOC partners draw a distinction between the perceived costs of addressing them compared with more traditional risks. While the costs of original welfare systems were often perceived as a burden on the economy, the types of risk emerging now offer policy makers an opportunity to draw new population groups into paid employment, thereby enhancing competitiveness and creating what the report terms a 'virtuous circle'. As for the current reality in Europe, the project found that Nordic countries were the first to acknowledge these emerging social risks and develop policies to address them. 'In corporatist countries, which make up the majority of European welfare systems, new social risk responses indicate new directions in welfare, but reforms are currently incomplete so that the scale of change is uncertain,' states the report. In Mediterranean countries, meanwhile, the development of new social risk policies appears limited at present, but this is in part due to the continued existence of strong family systems to provide informal childcare and mitigate the effects of high youth unemployment. The partners found that whereas traditional social risks affect the interests of large sections of the population, newer risks often have an immediate impact on minority groups. Yet much of the new social risk policy making is carried out by 'modernising coalitions' of politicians and social partners, particularly employers groups. 'Since actors other than the immediate new risk bearers are heavily involved in reforms, outcomes tend to reflect the interests of such actors to a greater extent than is typically the case with old social risks,' concluded the partners. While political responsibility for welfare reform lies almost entirely with Member States, the report does identify possibilities for action at a European level. 'The EU has strong opportunities to involve itself in the new policies, particularly in relation to changes in labour markets and to women's access to and position in paid work, because activity at national level in these areas is less well developed, and national policy actors have not developed entrenched positions.' Such EU involvement in the reform process should be pursued through the Open Method of Coordination (OMC), according to the report. While the team found it difficult to assess the effectiveness and impact of the OMC in social policy, they concluded that it provides national policy makers with valuable resources and helps to push issues up the political agenda, and should therefore be pursued and expanded. However, they also recommend that the EU investigate why the OMC does not receive more attention from national policy makers. The other recommendations that emerge from the WRAMSOC final report relate directly to the conclusions of the project's policy reviews. Those at greatest risk from emerging welfare concerns should be involved more directly in the policy dialogue, it argues, so that their concerns are considered alongside those of employer, businesses and unions. Finally, and more specifically, the WRAMSOC partners urge the EU to consider giving full time workers who care for elderly relatives the same entitlements to paid leave as those available to parents.
Countries
Switzerland, Germany, Spain, Finland, France, Sweden, United Kingdom