Welfare State at Risk

The role of welfare states in the European Union is under threat mainly by an ageing society, the harder global economic competition and the economic crisis, which is met by neoliberal strategies. The following introduction provides an overview of the main functions of the welfare state: fighting inequality and social exclusion, guaranteeing social peace, and contributing to economic development. Furthermore, we like to show, that these traditional functions of the welfare state are currently discussed by alternating new concepts aiming at the well-being of the people and the quality of life. In addition, the introduction gives an overview on the different chapters of the book and their specific topics.

More and more it is accepted that economic growth measured as GDP will not automatically lead to greater satisfaction in people’s lives. Even the Human Development Report which provides a comparative view of life expectancy, schooling and income in different countries, is not comprehensive enough to describe welfare, well-being and quality of life. To design better strategies for fighting social exclusion and dissatisfaction among people we need better empirical data on objective structures and development as well as on their subjective perceptions. However, the broad concepts of welfare, well-being and quality of life do not enjoy common acceptance within the academic community. Nevertheless, there is progress concerning more appropriate measures for receiving enough information for the public and the politicians to improve the overall situation concerning the quality of life.

The EU amended social policy tasks in its treaties very late following complaints of citizens that the EU only is responding to capital demands. In addition, facing its ageing society and because of the enlargement with 10 new member states among which are very poor ones, the EU changed its course incorporating social cohesion and fighting poverty and unemployment as new goals. Yet being confronted with a harder global competition the political class in Europe cut social expenditures, deregulated the protection of labour, and reduced the tax load on profits and higher incomes to be an attractive location for the volatile capital. Nevertheless, the results remained poor. Instead of stabilizing economic growth these measures impoverished the states and contributed to a widening gap between rich and poor. Thus, there is a contradiction: on the one side the EU goals are addressed to fight poverty and unemployment but on the other side the political class favoured austerity policies which increased inequality and did not give space to act in the tradition of welfare states.

Social peace and productivity are dependent to some extent on decent work including among others access to the labour market, fair pay and secure working conditions. States should therefore stop deregulation of the labour market and guarantee minimal wages on which workers, employees and their families could live on. In addition, fighting discrimination of women and better support for children with problems at school, too, is aside its social goal supportive to gain more qualified workforce, necessary facing the ageing society in Europe. Of course, the most challenging development is the high unemployment, mainly in the peripheries of the EU. Therefore, social policy meets at the same time economic goals. Yet they need adequate financing which is endangered by austerity policies. Yet savings by cuts in welfare expenditures will be out-weighted by the negative impacts of wasting talents, of less number of qualified workforces and the economic effects of minor satisfaction in a not well-functioning welfare state.

Widening social disparities represent a fundamental danger to the viability of civilized societies. They are corrosive of social solidarity and economically dysfunctional. Combatting such disparities should be a primary function of modern democratic states. The task is multi-faceted, however, and not simply confined to the optimal use of state transfers to increase the household income of the poorest sections of society. This chapter focuses, in particular, on the need to reverse the widening of market income disparities typical of the neoliberal era, as well as the priority of guaranteeing sufficient tax revenues for states to eradicate the evils of poverty and social deprivation. This would require an end to tax competition between European and other states, the elimination of tax and regulatory arbitrage by transnational corporations and the restoration of viable systems of progressive income tax in all European countries.

In my article I discuss the changing nature of social inequality in the Nordic countries. All Nordic societies are richer than ever. However the distribution of wealth is becoming more and more uneven. In spite of a lot of talk and many policy programmes against poverty, poverty seems to increase. Everywhere in Europe the inheritance of inequalities is increasing too. In the following I shall argue that there are several economic, political and social processes that cause these changes. Neo-liberal economic policy has meant that market-based activities and market competition are replacing public services in many countries. The position of vulnerable social groups is at stake. Social polarization is shaping the continent. In European societies there are parallel processes of a growing middle class and growing social exclusion.

Social inequalities and poverty rates of families in Europe differ substantially among the member states. There are known risk factors for poverty, characterizing all states and all groups, such as unemployment or low educational achievements. It is evident that families are at risk of poverty to different degrees and for different reasons in the member states of the EU. This contribution argues that these differences are to a substantial degree attributable to the national differences in the social policies addressing families. These policies are by themselves a result of the different welfare state models, but in particular of the models of families and family life characterizing the welfare states. As these are deeply entrenched in ideology and tradition, they also influence policies, which offer different chances for families to avoid poverty. The empirical data indicate that policies recognizing a more modern model of families and family life in which both sexes are regularly doing paid work in the labour market, are better and more efficient at avoiding poverty of families and children. States such as the Scandinavian ones – by providing the infrastructure for public childcare – enable mothers and women to participate in the labour market, which is a strong factor in combating poverty. Other countries of the continental-conservative welfare state type are still following the male breadwinner model in which women are seen as staying at home and doing household work. Despite spending large proportions of GDP for social transfers, they are less able to avoid family poverty.

The article tracks the existing body of research on transition into adulthood as a life stage key for attaining socio-economic position. It begins with a brief introduction into theoretical foundations of life course approach with the focus on the concept of institutionalized life course and the debate on deconstruction of normal biography. The core part of the text is divided into three subchapters focused on different aspects of intersection of life course and inequality. Firstly, so far the analyses of patterns of transitions into adulthood across Europe have been focusing mostly on various mechanisms of social reproduction, mainly within disadvantaged segments of the social structure, whereas transitions leading to changes still remain understudied. Secondly, the comparative studies on life course policies seem to confirm that the construction of patterns of transition into adulthood through public policies reflects principles behind country-specific social policy regimes, even if observable trends towards welfare state retrenchment fuelled by neoliberal rhetoric could be seen as crucial for reinforcing existing inequalities among young adults across Europe. The summary indicates gaps in knowledge about the intersection of life course, inequality and public policy which deserve a deeper empirical insight.

The chapter focuses on the sphere of educational system and one of its main problems – early school leaving. This phenomenon is analysed here in the broader context of educational inequalities and is perceived as an outcome of many particular disparities, such as segregation practices, holding migrant background or low socio-economic status. Latest European Union actions aimed at reducing the level of early school leaving are presented and the data on present numbers concerning this phenomenon are analysed in the following chapter as well.

This chapter investigates whether adolescents coming from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds lag behind their more socio-economically advantaged peers with respect to physical and skills access to computers and the Internet. The chapter’s empirical basis is that of information on ICTs possession and skills collected in the framework of the 2009 wave of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) of 15 year-olds for 28 European Union Member States and countries in one way or another associated with the EU. Logistic multilevel regression and linear multilevel regression are used as the methods of analysis. The results of the analysis reported in this chapter allow concluding that while in the case of skills access the potential sources of social exclusion and marginalization – defined here following the EU’s official policy documents dealing with the problem of digital inclusion – have substantively small negative effects on the respondent’s score on the index of digital skills, as far as physical access is concerned, the very same potential sources of social exclusion and marginalization still substantively determine the respondent’s odds of having the Internet access at home.

This chapter considers the question of possible ways of impacting the level of social inequalities through the shape of the legal system. The main focus is on the mechanism of generating social divisions through the criminal justice system and criminal law. Tools such as racial and ethnic biases of the prison system, populist punitiveness and social panopticism are discussed. The chapter is concluded by discussing the empirical insight in the European differentiation of the models of criminal justice systems.

‘Soft’ instruments of combating social inequality are becoming more and more important in post-industrial societies. Access to culture begins to be treated in the same way just as for many years access to education. The review of the EU strategic documents shows a strong tendency to combine culture instrumentally with creativity and innovation, which in turn are essential for European economic growth in competitiveness. The main thesis of this chapter is an assumption that concepts of creativity and creative industries (taken mainly from R. Florida works and so readily applied to European cultural polices) may be the sources of new barriers rather than new opportunities. Creativity – especially understood in economic terms – can create a new field of inequalities and social divisions – rather than chances for social cohesion.

The first part of the chapter reports how culture is perceived in relation to social structure. The second part is based on the analysis of assumptions which are theoretical background for different forms of state support in the cultural field. There is a strong belief that this sector will somehow pay the society back (for ex-ample in the accumulation of other forms of capital). In this approach culture is treated as an instrument of social inclusion and counteracting social inequalities that can be located in welfare policy field.

The chapter’s third part concentrates on the tendency which seems to block the emergence of the idea of cultural diversity and broad cultural participation. This is connected with the concept of creativity and creative industries (CI). It is significant that attention of policymakers has recently shifted from the expensive concept of “culture for all” to the potentially profitable thesis of the “common and innate creativity”.

In the last empirical part of the chapter the analysis of chosen aspects of the European Union (EU) cultural policy is conducted. It constitutes the background to show the situation of the Members States (especially Poland) when two tendencies – cultural participation and neoliberal creativity – surprisingly meet in global guidelines and local cultural policies.

The main aim of this chapter is to critically appraise the existing body of research into inequalities, as perceived by the general public as well as by political elites. The chapter starts with a brief introduction into social inequality as one of the main philosophical, ideological and political themes debated throughout history. Two main subchapters discuss contemporary research into general public opinions of inequality, and the scarce research into perceptions of inequality held by political elites. The criticism is concerned in the first place with some existing studies which do not attempt to draw any general conclusions or studies which using the very same datasets point to contradictory findings. Also discussed is the issue of research into attitudes towards inequality which pays no attention to subjects’ actual knowledge about the issue. Examples are given of studies which attempt to overcome this weakness. Research into the perception of inequality held by political elites is scarce. The most intriguing recent examples are presented, and emphasis is placed on the need for further study into this area, not only via secondary analysis of existing data (political discourse analysis), but also by producing new data through fieldwork undertaken among policy makers. The chapter concludes with a list of problem questions which could drive further research into certain fields.