Welfare State Realities in Macedonia: Trends and Perspectives

The paper discusses social policy legacies and provides information on current trends and perspectives regarding the most pressing demographic, economic and social challenges in Macedonia. The socialist legacies have largely been reformed since the 1990s, with the introduction of: the principles of conditionality, of individual responsibility, as well as of pluralisation. All these, accompanied by the particular ethnic composition of the country, continual low economic growth and the falling number of jobs in the country, add to the challenge of demystifying the particularities of the social welfare model and its viability in times of economic and demographic pressure. Also, the analysis indicates current risks faced by the social protection system, and suggests they may be overcome by strengthening some positive achievements, such as: targeting the accuracy of the social assistance benefits, a greater degree of welfare pluralism as well as greater use of EU pre-accession funds. Most importantly, a precondition of any improvement of the Macedonian welfare systems is to overcome the current political practice of reactionary tactics and manoeuvres and instead to incorporate strategic and evidence based approaches to develop a sustainable system of social policy.