Testing the 'social dumping' hypothesis in Southern Europe: welfare policies in Greece and Spain during the last 20 years

Abstract

Recent research has shown that the traditional view of social welfare in Southern Europe as 'rudimentary' is a misreading of its distinct nature: welfare arrangements in the region do not 'lag behind' as a whole, rather they suffer from serious imbalances that cause inequities and inefficiencies. The article focuses on Greece and Spain, two countries that differ in terms of economic performance and size, but share a recent history of successful transition to democracy and common membership of the Southern European 'model' of welfare. The article shows that the welfare policies pursued in these two countries over the last 20 years were marked by strong expansionary trends that clearly outbalanced occasional cut-backs. This evidence lends no support to the 'social dumping' hypothesis. If anything, 'catching up with Europe' in terms of social as well as economic standards seems to have been elevated to something of a national ideal, shared by both government and opposition. As the expansionary thrust of 'welfare state building' is being exhausted, the biggest challenge facing Southern European welfare states is the construction of welfare institutions in tune with a changing society.

Gendering Spanish Democracy

“…Social services for the elderly, young people and children were also expanded, so that the whole population became entitled to such services (not just beneficiaries of social security as before), although income thresholds were set. However, levels of provision are low in comparative terms, as they increased from an extremely low level (Guillen and Matsaganis 2000). For example, only 3 per cent of people over 65 benefit from home-help services compared with almost 30 per cent in Scandinavian countries (ibid.).…”

“…There was a change of discourse in that there was a new stress on achieving social protection reform only through economic growth and an emphasis on individual responsibility and more resort to non-governmental provision, voluntary associations and the family (Guillén and Matsaganis 2000). However, according to these authors…”

“…There was to be no resumption of social pacts between the unions, employers and government for almost a decade. Following the strike and in a period of economic growth the government indexed pensions to inflation and promised to raise them further until the average contributory pension equalled the minimum wage (Guillen and Matsaganis 2000). As discussed later, non-contributory benefits and pensions were introduced in 1991.…”

“…There was a change of discourse in that there was a new stress on achieving social protection reform only through economic growth and an emphasis on individual responsibility and more resort to non-governmental provision, voluntary associations and the family (Guillen and Matsaganis 2000). However, according to these authors retrenchment of social welfare and extensive privatisation programmes have so far not occurred, demonstrating the effectiveness of the opposition (parties and trade unions) in denouncing moves for welfare state cuts and the perceived electoral unpopularity of such measures.…”

“…EspingAndersen's typology, however, was extended with the addition of a fourth group to include southern European countries (Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece) and characterised as 'Latin-Rim' or 'rudimentary' welfare states . This, in turn, was criticised by Guillén and Matsaganis (2000) who argued that to view southern European welfare states as 'rudimentary' and 'lagging behind' north European welfare states was a misreading of their distinctive nature. As several other writers have demonstrated, southern European welfare states are distinctive in that they have high peaks of generosity of social protection for those in the core sectors of the labour market but huge gaps in protection for those in irregular, unstable or informallabour markets (for example, .…”