Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T11:20:40.741Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The post-crisis European social model: developing or dismantling social investments?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2020

Jon Kvist
Jon Kvist*
Affiliation:
Centre for Welfare State Research, Department of Political Science, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark
*
*Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper offers a theoretical and empirical contribution to our understanding of the changing European social models in wake of the economic crisis and the promotion of social investments by the European Commission. Theoretically, the article provides a conceptual framework for comparative macro-analysis of social investments that takes into account how social investment policies and returns vary over the life-course and are interdependent. Empirically, the article uses this conceptual framework to examine whether EU policy strategies and national welfare reforms follow a social investment approach. Analysing developments of social investment strategies and policies in three life-stages, the article finds that many EU strategies embody elements of a social investment strategy whereas the impact of the crisis on the national level differs across countries, life-stages, and policies. In most countries, the overall policy impact of the crisis seems to be small on childcare coverage, large on youth polarization, and to increase retirement ages. The crisis will be felt in years to come with reduced life-income for younger cohorts, lower fertility laying the ground for intergenerational conflicts, and migration of skilled youth implying returns of social investments made in southern parts of Europe benefitting northern parts. That said, the overall evidence points towards social investments taking a larger role in Europe after the crisis. However, the result is unlikely to become a uniform European social investment model as the countries most in need of social investments are also the countries least likely to develop high-quality social investments.

Keywords

social investmentsEuropeanizationEuropean integrationcrisiswelfare state reformssocial policyskill formation and usage
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , February 2013 , pp. 91 - 107
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 Taylor & Francis

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barroso, J. M. 2012, September 12. President of the European Commission State of the Union 2012 Address Plenary session of the European Parliament, Strasbourg.Google Scholar
Callan, T., Leventi, C., Levy, H., Matsaganis, M., Paulus, A. and Sutherland, H. 2011. The distributional effects of austerity measures: A comparison of six EU countries (EUROMOD Working Paper No. EM6/11 Essex: University of Essex.Google Scholar
de la Porte, C. and Pochet, P. 2012. Why and how (still) study the Open Method of Co-ordination. Journal of European Social Policy, 22 (3): 336–349. doi: 10.1177/0958928711433629CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ebbinghaus, B. 2006. Reforming early retirement in Europe, Japan and the USA, Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Esping-Andersen, G. 2009. The incomplete revolution: Adapting to women's new roles, Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Esping-Andersen, G., with Gallie, D., Hemerijck, A. and Myles, J. 2002. Why we need a new welfare state, Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
European Commission. 2010, March 3. Europe 2020: A strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, (COM(2010) 2020).Google Scholar
European Commission. 2013a, February 20. Towards social investment for growth and cohesion, (Commission Communication COM(2013) 83 final). Brussels: Author.Google Scholar
European Commission. 2013b, February 20. Investing in children: breaking the cycle of disadvantage, (Commission recommendation C(2013) 778 final). Brussels: Author.Google Scholar
European Commisson. 2013c. Employment and social developments in Europe 2012, Brussels: European Commission. Brussels: Author.Google Scholar
European Commission. 2013d. “EU employment and social situation (Quarterly Review, with Special Supplement on Demographic Trends ”. Luxembourg: Publication Office of the European Union. doi: 10.2767/21393 & 10.2767/41278Google Scholar
European Commission, & Economic Policy Committee. 2012. The 2012 ageing report: Economic and budgetary projections for the EU27 Member States (2010–2060), European Economy, Brussels: European Commission.Google Scholar
European Council. 2001. Presidency Conclusions Stockholm European Council 23 and 24 March 2001. Stockholm: Author.Google Scholar
European Council. 2002. Presidency Conclusions Barcelona European Council 15 and 16 March 2002. Stockholm: Author.Google Scholar
Eurostat. 2012a. In 2009 a 6.5% rise in per capita social protection expenditure matched a 6.1% drop in EU-27 GDP. Statistics in Focus, 14: 1–8.Google Scholar
Eurostat. 2012b. Young people aged 18–24 not in employment and not in education by age and sex and NUTS. Retrieved December 15, 2012, from epp.eurostat.ec.europa.euGoogle Scholar
Eurostat. 2012c. Total fertility rate. Retrieved December 15, 2012, from epp.eurostat.ec.europa.euGoogle Scholar
Eurostat. 2012d. Average exit age from the labour force. Retrieved December 15, 2012, from epp.eurostat.ec.europa.euGoogle Scholar
Eurostat. 2013a. Formal child care by duration and age group. Retrieved May 5, 2012, from epp.eurostat.ec.europa.euGoogle Scholar
Eurostat. 2013b. Participation in early childhood education. Retrieved May 5, 2013, from epp.eurostat.ec.europa.euGoogle Scholar
Eurostat. 2013c. School drop-out rates. Retrieved May 5, 2013, from epp.eurostat.ec.europa.euGoogle Scholar
Eurostat. 2013d. Youth unemployment rates. Retrieved May 5, 2013, from epp.eurostat.ec.europa.euGoogle Scholar
Eurostat. 2013e. Tertiary educational attainment. Retrieved May 5, 2013, from epp.eurostat.ec.europa.euGoogle Scholar
Eurostat. 2013f. Lifelong learning. Retrieved May 5, 2013, from epp.eurostat.ec.europa.euGoogle Scholar
Fouarge, D. 2003. Costs of non-social policy: Towards an economic framework of quality social policies – and the costs of not having them. (Report for DG Employment and Social Affairs, Brussels: European Commission.Google Scholar
Gilbert, N. and Gilbert, B. 1989. The enabling state: Modern welfare capitalism in America, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Heckman, J. and Masterov, D. 2007. The productivity argument for investing in young children. Review of Agricultural Economics 29(3), 446–493. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9353.2007.00359.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hurley, J., Enrique, F.-M. and Storrie, D. 2013. Employment polarisation and job quality in the crisis: European Jobs Monitor 2013, Dublin: Eurofound.Google Scholar
Jenson, J. 2010. Diffusing ideas for after neoliberalism. The social investment perspective in Europe and Latin America. Global Social Policy, 10 (1): 59–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kröger, S. 2009. The Open Method of Coordination: Underconceptualisation, overdetermination, depolitization and beyond. European Integration Online Paper, 13 Retrieved from http://eiop.or.at/eiop/index.php/eiop/article/view/2009_005aGoogle Scholar
Kvist, J., Fritzell, J., Hvinden, B. and Kangas, O. 2012. Changing social equality: Nordic welfare states in the 21st century, Bristol: Policy Press.Google Scholar
Kvist, J. and Saari, J. 2007. The Europeanisation of social protection, Bristol: Policy Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leibfried, S. and Pierson, P. 1995. European social policy: Between fragmentation and integration, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Mahoney, J. and Thelen, K. 2009. Explaining institutional change, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martinsen, D. S. and Falkner, G. 2011. “Social policy: Problem-solving gaps, partial exits, and court-decision traps.”. In The EU's decision traps – Comparing policies, Edited by: Falkner, G.128–145. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morel, N., Palier, B. and Palme, J. 2012. Towards a social investment state? Ideas, policies and challenges, Bristol: Policy Press.Google Scholar
NOSOSKO. 2010. Social tryghed i de nordiske lande 2008/09, Copenhagen: Nordisk Socialstatistisk Komité.Google Scholar
NOSOSKO. 2012. Social tryghed i de nordiske lande 2010/11, Copenhagen: Nordisk Socialstatistisk Komité.Google Scholar
OECD. 2011. Doing better for families, OECD: Paris.Google Scholar
Stiglitz, J. 2012. The price of inequality: How today's divided society endangers our future, New York: W.W. Norton.Google Scholar
Stiglitz, J., Sen, A. and Fitoussi, J. P. 2010. Mismeasuring our lives. Why GDP doesn't add up, New York: The New Press.Google Scholar
Wall Street Journal. 2012, February 23. Q&A: ECB President Mario Draghi. Retrieved May 5, 203, from http://blogs.wsj.com/eurocrisis/2012/02/23/qa-ecb-president-mario-draghi/Google Scholar
Zeitlin, J. (2009). The Open Method of Coordination and National Social and Employment Policy Reforms: Influences, Mechanisms, Effects. In: Heidenreich, M. and Zeitlin, J. (Eds.), Changing European Employment and Welfare Regimes: The Influence of the Open Method of Coordination on National Reforms (pp. 214–245). London: Routledge.Google Scholar