Social exclusion and insecurity among older Europeans: the influence of welfare regimes

Abstract

This paper explores social exclusion among older Europeans from ten different countries with three types of welfare regime : Nordic, Mediterranean and postsocialist. Data from the first round of the new European Social Survey are used to explore indicators of social exclusion. A measure of social exclusion and insecurity is constructed from indicators of : the regularity of meeting with friends and relatives, taking part in social activities, self-rated physical health and mental health, self-rated income, and the quality of the local area. The results confirm the findings of previous research that show a link between developed welfare regimes and low rates of social exclusion in old age. At the same time, more developed welfare regimes appear to deal less well with the effects of separation and divorce. The Mediterranean welfare regimes show distinctive signs of stress, which suggests that the supplementation or replacement of weakened immediate and extended family ties has not taken place. In all countries, a higher level of education appears to play a crucial role in reducing the chances of being insecure or socially excluded in old age.

Suicide among older people in relation to their subjective and objective well-being in different European regions

“…In contrast, older people in Southern European countries reported a lower income level, relatively worse physical and mental health, and lower quality of life. These Southern European countries developed their own welfare state later than Northern Europe (Ferrera et al 2001), and state social protection offered low investment (Ogg 2005), but families and voluntary organizations had more important welfare functions (Kuhnle 2001). According to the classical view of Durkheim (1897Durkheim ( /1951 and some other authors (e.g., Yur'yev et al 2010), the traditional family life provides the best protection against self-destructive behavior.…”

“…After the Soviet Union collapsed, Central and Eastern Europe encountered difficulties in restructuring a welfare system under a completely different economic and political system; more and more people were hit by unemployment and poverty, the family pattern in force during communism had to be re-discussed, and protection during old age had to be renegotiated (Cerami 2010). On the other hand, these countries' welfare and social protection systems still maintain the legacy of centrally planned socialist systems (Ogg 2005). Older people in the rural areas of Hungary have particularly high poverty rates and former co-operative farm agricultural workers are now unemployed or retired on inadequate pensions (Szalai 1998;Ogg 2005).…”

“…In the present study, the selection of countries was predetermined by the availability of country data in the European Social Survey and presuming that classification of social protection systems within Europe is possible in spite of inter-country variation (Esping-Andersen 1990, 1999Ogg 2005). Formation of the country groups in the current analysis is based on the welfare regime typology introduced by Esping-Andersen (1990) and developed further by different authors (Ferrera 1996;Bonoli and Palier 2001;Kuhnle 2001).…”

“…The categorization has been criticized, but developed further and therefore could be applied as the analytical framework. For instance, Ogg (2005) summarized the European countries with three types of welfare regimes, namely, Nordic, Mediterranean, and post-socialist. According to his analyses, the Nordic model of social protection is characterized by a high level of public services (including pensions); a Mediterranean or Southern European welfare regime with ''traditional'' or ''familial'' models of social protection strongly adheres to the ideology that the family should be the main provider of care, with a correspondingly low investment in state social protection; and post-socialist countries of Eastern Europe show the transition from centrally planned socialist systems, implying that ''young'' older people are finishing their working life in more insecure economic circumstances than their predecessors.…”

“…These countries have recently engaged in reforms common to the ''transition countries'' that were previously under the influence of the Soviet Union. All European countries are now facing huge demographic imbalances with decreasing working age cohorts (Esping-Andersen 2002), i.e., the older population is growing, while the young and active population is shrinking (Ogg 2005), which pressingly demands the allocation of resources for the additional expenditure burdens of aging (Esping-Andersen 2002).…”