Beyond familialism: Recalibrating family, state and market in Southern Europe and East Asia

Abstract

This Special Issue takes on a new cross-regional comparison between Southern Europe and East Asia in an attempt to identify 'new politics' of welfare state adjustments. Departing from the previous literature that overemphasized regional peculiarities of East Asian and Southern European welfare states, our Special Issue highlights family resemblances-among Italy, Japan, Korea and Spain. We argue that these four welfare states-often labelled as 'familialist'-share key common characteristics, which in turn experienced very similar policy problems in recent years. Interestingly, despite their initial similarities, these four countries have been trying to cope with new policy problems in different ways. In this process, some are clearly becoming less familialist. The main aim of this introductory article is to demonstrate the theoretical advantages based on the new cross-regional comparison. This article proceeds in three steps. First, it establishes the usefulness of the concept of family resemblances in our cross-regional comparison. Second, it presents a brief historical account of recent policy differences across the four countries going beyond familialism and shows that the existing theories fail to account for the new divergences. Third, it provides the overview of the Special Issue by explaining the research puzzles each paper tackles. We argue that these four welfare states, which are moving beyond familialism to varying degrees, represent heuristically helpful cases to explore the effects of both domestic and international political factors.

Social policies and intergenerational support in Italy and South Korea

“…The similarities in welfare policies and labour market arrangements discussed in this section are such that Italy and Korea have been classified as belonging to the same 'family of nations', alongside Spain and Japan (Estevez-Abe et al, 2016). Within this grouping, Italy and Korea are characterised by stronger family norms shaping expectations of mutual support between parents and children.…”

“…The occupationally segmented nature of the Italian and Korean welfare states implies that formal sector workers receive the main share of social protection (Estevez-Abe, Yang, & Choi, 2016). Workers in low-paid, temporary and non-regular jobs, as well as the selfemployed, are less protected against unemployment and poverty, despite being disproportionately more exposed to both.…”

Long‐Term Care Insurance Adoption in East Asia: Politics, Ideas, and Institutions

“…In comparison to Japan, the South Korean policy design reflects a different mix of funding, operational, and administrative features. South Korea's LTCI policy covers every 65+ year old who suffers from LTC-related illnessesalthough disabilities are not covered (Duk 2012). Insurance premiums finance 60 percent, copayments 20 percent, and taxes 20 percent (Chon 2014).…”

“…In comparison to Japan, benefit levels are much less generous (Campbell, Ikegami, and Kwon 2009). Services are largely provided by the private sector (Duk 2012), which has created an oversupply of LTC services (Seok 2010). In contrast to Japan, local governments do not engage in LTC provision or financing.…”

Re-conceptualising the relationship between de-familialisation and familialisation and the implications for gender equality – the case of long-term care policies for older people

“…In the last decade, analysis of reforms in welfare state LTC policies for older people has become an engaging branch of international comparative social research. Its main focus is on tendencies towards the relocation of this care out of the private household sphere, where it was traditionally mostly carried out by women on an informal and unpaid basis, and its transformation into formal, paid and professionally performed gainful employment (Anttonen and Sipilä, 2005; Bettio et al ., 2006; Knijn and Verhagen, 2007; Lyon and Glucksmann, 2008; Bettio and Verashchagina, 2012; Theobald, 2012; Ranci and Pavolini, 2013; Estevez-Abe et al ., 2016).…”