European Welfare State Models: Converging Trends

Kosonen, Pekka

doi:10.1080/15579336.1995.11770104

Cited by 21 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…In open societies, urbanisation and the forms of urban life are expected to develop similarly in different countries (Hawley, 1950). Some empirical studies show that institutional convergence has indeed occurred: for example, in EU social welfare polices (Greve, 1994, Kosonen, 1995 and, at least in the earlier post-war period, social security, education and unemployment (Williamson and Fleming, 1996).…”

Section: Socio-economic Convergencementioning

confidence: 99%

Populations of the industrial world — a convergent demographic community?

Coleman

2002

International Journal of Population Geography

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Europe's populations have emerged from a long period of demographic transition. The old demographic anciens regimes no longer exist. The end-point of demographic transition is often assumed to be convergence to a new stable post-transitional regime. Convergence in demographic characteristics among all European countries might be expected to follow their acquisition of common economic and social structures. Remaining differences would then merely re¯ect different positions on the same trajectory to a common statistical destination. However, socio-economic convergence remains incomplete and cannot be assumed to bring uniform demographic responses in its wake. This paper measures demographic convergence in industrial societies to see if they are acquiring a common pattern. Despite some clear upper limits to demographic variables, for example fertility, in proportional terms international demographic variation remains high and is declining only slowly, if at all. Either the expectation of convergence is wrong, or we are looking for it too soon.

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Section: Socio-economic Convergencementioning

confidence: 99%

Populations of the industrial world — a convergent demographic community?

Coleman

2002

International Journal of Population Geography

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“…Some accuse the EU of expanding inequalities by contracting the welfare state (Boje et al 1999), while others predict that inequality will grow with future integration (Kosonen 1995). Still others view the EU as a way for member states to resist 1 Both of these arguments imply that the precise pattern of change in income inequality should be one of "polarization" (Morris, Bernhardt and Handcock 1994).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Many political scientists and EU scholars have speculated on the implications of European integration for national income inequality. Most argue that European integration should exacerbate income gaps in EU countries (Boje, van Steenbergen and Walby 1999;Kosonen 1995), while others suggest that European integration may actually insulate EU countries against the polarizing effects of globalization (Moses 1995). Although sociologists of stratification -especially American sociologists -have not yet devoted sustained empirical attention to European integration (Therborn 1999), sociological approaches to income inequality readily extend to regional integration, and these approaches suggest that regional integration should affect income inequality.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

European Integration and Income Inequality

2006

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EUROPEAN INTEGRATION AND INCOME INEQUALITYABSTRACT Globalization has attained a prominent place on the sociological agenda, and stratification scholars have implicated globalization in the increased income inequality observed in many advanced capitalist countries. But sociologists have given much less attention to a different but increasingly prevalent form of internationalization: regional integration.Regional integration, or the construction of international economy and polity within negotiated regions, should matter for income inequality. Regional economic integration should raise income inequality, as workers are exposed to international competition and labor unions are weakened. Regional political integration should also raise income inequality, but through a different mechanism: where the regional polity advances market-oriented policies, political integration should drive welfare state retrenchment as states adopt liberal policies in a context of fiscal austerity. Evidence from random-effects and fixed-effects models of national income inequality in Western Europe supports these arguments. The significant effects of regional integration on income inequality are net of several controls, including two established measures of globalization, suggesting that a sociology of regional integration adds to our understanding of rising income inequality in Western Europe.

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“…However, different from globalization at large, European economic integration is also promoted actively through a process of political integration, the second reason why Europeanization could be related to increasing inequality. Many scholars have pointed out that the European integration process is biased in favor of economic interests and neglects the social policy dimension (Kosonen, 1995;Martin, 2004;Martin and Ross, 2004b;Pollack, 2005;Scharpf, 1996Scharpf, , 1999Scharpf, , 2002. Building on this literature, we propose two causal mechanisms (institutional membership and compliance with EU law) that might link political integration with higher levels of inequality.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

European integration and the political economy of inequality

Busemeyer

Tober

2015

European Union Politics

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This study examines the role of European integration as a potential source of income inequality in countries of the European Union. We distinguish between both economic and political integration and identify theoretical mechanisms that link the two to rising levels of inequality. The empirical analysis draws on time-series-cross-section data covering 14 European Union member states for the time period 1999-2010. In particular, we make use of a newly available dataset that measures individual degrees of integration across different dimensions. Our main finding is a positive association between political integration and inequality on the one hand as well as a nonassociation between economic integration and inequality on the other hand. This suggests that the recent trend toward inequality at the European Union national level is at least partly related to deepening political integration at the supranational level.

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European Welfare State Models: Converging Trends

Cited by 21 publications

References 10 publications

Populations of the industrial world — a convergent demographic community?

Populations of the industrial world — a convergent demographic community?

European Integration and Income Inequality

European integration and the political economy of inequality

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