The Politics of the ‘New’ Welfare States

Home ownership under changing labour and housing market conditions: tenure preferences and outcomes among freelancers and flex workers

“…However, a majority of CMEs have responded by reducing the strictness of EPL for temporary contracts. The contemporary literature indicates that this variation runs along lines of workers' skill-levels (see Bonoli and Natali, 2011;Gebel & Giesecke, 2011). Highly skilled workers often have permanent contracts because they are indispensable and also require significant (training) investment by their employers, while less-skilled workers are more easily replaced at less cost.…”

Early Childhood Education and Care in England under Austerity: Continuity or Change in Political Ideas, Policy Goals, Availability, Affordability and Quality in a Childcare Market?

“…European comparativists had predicted that the rise in social expenditure on childcare and other forms of 'social investment' (Hemerijck, 2013;Bonoli and Natali, 2012) would falter and most likely decrease in face of determination to pursue austerity policies (Schäfer and Streeck, 2013). However, the picture in respect of work/family policies more generally has been mixed (Gregory et al, early childhood provision in england under austerity 333 2013).…”

Futures of European welfare models and policies: seeking actual research questions, and new problem-solving arsenal for European welfare states

“…First, Western European welfare models have been significantly transformed in the last decade, with the ability to respond to changes in the environment [30][31][32]. These national responses have been studied both within individual countries and comparatively [33][34][35][36][37], although usually within the frame of methodological nationalism.…”

“…The challenge to transform the expenditure paradigm to that of innovation and investment was illuminated in a recent wave of literature offering new concepts such as the 'new welfare state' [55,56], the social investment state [57] and the active welfare state [58,59]. The concept of the social investment state gained greater political prominence after the EU Commission adopted the Social Investment Package (SIP) in 2013, calling on member states to prioritise social investment and to modernise their welfare states.…”

“…Although some studies already exist that include innovation as an explanatory factor of welfare state change [76][77][78] and focus explicitly on the future [79-81], these have significant shortcomings. First, they tend to be pessimistic about the welfare state's future and overlook any capacity for sustainability and innovation.…”