Enabling Social Policy

Maydell, Bernd von; Borchardt, Klaus-Dieter; Henke, Klaus-Dirk; Leitner, R.; Muffels, Ruud; Quante, Michael; Rauhala, Pirkko-Liisa; Verschraegen, Gert; Żukowski, M.; Wütscher, Friederike

doi:10.1007/3-540-29772-3

Cited by 23 publications

(7 citation statements)

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“…Moreover, demands have become more diverse due to individual life courses (e.g. Maydell et al., 2006). The studies seem to indicate that part of the reason for dissatisfaction lies in the structural problems of the service system.…”

Section: Conceptual Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of the use of the social welfare services or social security benefits on attitudes to social welfare policies

Muuri

2010

Int J Soc Welfare

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Muuri A. The impact of the use of the social welfare services or social security benefits on attitudes to social welfare policies Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 182–193 © 2009 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. This article investigates the attitudes of citizens and clients to social welfare services and social security benefits. The data come from a Finnish national survey conducted at the end of 2006. First, the article overviews the previous welfare‐state studies relating especially to the theoretical perspectives of self‐interest and legitimacy. The empirical analysis indicates (i) that a different operation of self‐interest can only weakly explain the differences in attitudes between services and benefits; (ii) that there is general support for Finnish social welfare services and social security benefits, which, however, is mixed with growing criticism among women and pensioners who are supposed to benefit most from the welfare policies; and (iii) that such determinants of attitude as gender, use and, to some extent, lifecycle have become as important as class‐related factors such as income and education.

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Section: Conceptual Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of the use of the social welfare services or social security benefits on attitudes to social welfare policies

Muuri

2010

Int J Soc Welfare

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“…Because national pension systems were highly differentiated and the competences in this field belonged to the member states, the implemented method had to leave the countries quite independent. The OMC seemed to be ideal for this purpose, as it is based on mutual learning and motivation while maintaining national competences (in line with the principle of subsidiarity) (Von Maydell, ). After the implementation of the OMC in the field of pensions, the European Commission () defined three main groups of common objectives which ought to be realized in the long run by pension systems.…”

Section: The Open Methods Of Coordination For Pension Systems: a Theormentioning

confidence: 99%

The similarity of European pension systems in terms of OMC objectives: A cross‐country study

Chybalski

Gumola

2018

Soc Policy Adm

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For several decades, pension systems across the world have been undergoing reforms. The main reasons for this are demographic changes and increasing life expectancy. To make these reforms more effective and ensure that they are based on the best benchmarks, the European Union (EU) has introduced the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) in the field of pensions. This study investigates whether European pension systems have become more similar and convergent in terms of the three main objectives of the OMC: adequacy, sustainability, and modernization of pensions. Our methodology is based on multivariate statistical analysis, and employs synthetic indicators as well as agglomerative hierarchical clustering. We analyze 27 countries in the years 2005, 2010, and 2015. The article contributes to the existing literature on pension reforms through investigation of the convergence of EU pension systems in terms of the three OMC objectives, in order to evaluate the effectiveness of this public policy concept. Our approach differs from that generally found in the literature, especially in terms of the methodology employed. The results support the view that the OMC is not an effective means of making European pension systems more convergent and better in terms of adequacy, efficiency, and modernization. Any improvement in OMC performance in the field of pensions, even if observed, is not as significant as expected.The Open Method of Coordination (OMC) is a method of soft governance based on voluntary cooperation between the member states of the European Union (EU) in different areas of socioeconomic policy. It was established as a response to the need for the creation of an additional method enabling greater European integration in fields where traditional community and intergovernmental methods did not deliver the expected results or were subject to legal constraints. It can be used in areas where, due to a lack of explicit competences at the EU level, it is difficult or even impossible to apply mandatory acts such as regulations or directives. The OMC seems to work better than some traditional methods for the achievement of European integration, in three types of cases. The first relates to situations where the subject matter is closely connected with national identity, history, or culture. The second concerns cases where the national arrangements are too varied. The last refers to situations where the member states are not prepared to embrace common legislation in certain areas and require extra time for preparation (European Commission Working Group 4a, 2001). With this in mind, the OMC was applied to pension systems, which form part of national, social policies. There were defined three main objectives which should be realized by pension systems in the long term and which can be used to evaluate their progress. These are: adequacy of pensions, financial sustainability, and modernization of pension systems. In our further considerations, we treat these objectives as three different dimensions of the OMC. However, adequacy ...

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“…Departing from this reasoning, we give an overview of the recent discourses on welfare state policies, culminating in the launching of local experiments having similarities with BI approaches to social policy. With a view to welfare state evolution it becomes apparent that since the mid 1990s attempts to replace workfare oriented policies by social investment and 'capacitating' policies are becoming more common, notably in the Scandinavian countries but also in the Netherlands (Maydell et al, 2006;Morel et al, 2012;Hemerijck, 2013Hemerijck, , 2017. Consequently, classical activation policies that are vested on 'making work pay' are increasingly replaced by policies that create participation and integration opportunities by pro-actively investing in people's capacities or 'capabilities' (Sen, 2004(Sen, , 2009.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Welfare States’ Social Investment Strategies and the Emergence of Dutch Experiments on a Minimum Income Guarantee

Groot¹,

Muffels²,

Verlaat³

2018

Social Policy and Society

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The focus in welfare state support in the Netherlands has been shifted from workfare and activation policies to social investment strategies. The discourse on basic income and the related municipal experiments highlights this shift. We address the inspiration found in basic income and behavioural economic and motivational psychological theoretical insights for the design of the experiments and for new avenues of minimum income protection and providing participation opportunities for the disadvantaged. The emerging new paradigm also implies a shift in the cultural values and principles on which welfare state policies are implicitly founded. This means that in these endeavours particular social values are put more upfront, such as personal autonomy (capacitating people by providing opportunities and therewith ‘free choice’) and trust (activating people by putting trust in their self-management capacities) which in day-to-day policy practice means more tailor-made, demand-oriented integrated mediation and coaching while rewarding people instead of penalising them.

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Enabling Social Policy

Cited by 23 publications

References 0 publications

The impact of the use of the social welfare services or social security benefits on attitudes to social welfare policies

The impact of the use of the social welfare services or social security benefits on attitudes to social welfare policies

The similarity of European pension systems in terms of OMC objectives: A cross‐country study

Welfare States’ Social Investment Strategies and the Emergence of Dutch Experiments on a Minimum Income Guarantee

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