Can ‘New Welfare’ Address Poverty through More and Better Jobs?

Abstract

New welfare has been prominent in recent European social policy debates. It involves mobilising more people into paid work, improving human capital and ensuring fairer access to opportunities. This programme is attractive to business (more workers, better human capital and reduced social conflict to enhance productivity and profitability) and to citizens (more widely accessible job-opportunities with better rewards): a relatively low-cost approach to the difficulties governments face in maintaining support and meeting social goals as inequalities widen.The general move towards 'new welfare' gathered momentum during the past two decades, given extra impetus by the 2007-9 recession and subsequent stagnation. While employment rates rose during the prosperous years before the crisis, there was no commensurate reduction in poverty. Over the same period the share of economic growth returned to labour fell, labour markets were increasingly de-regulated and inequality increased. This raises the question of whether new welfare's economic (higher employment, improved human capital) and social (better job quality and incomes) goals may come into conflict. This paper examines data for 17 European countries over the period 2001 to 2007. It shows that new welfare is much more successful at achieving higher employment than at reducing poverty, even during prosperity, and that the approach pays insufficient attention to structural factors, such as the falling wage share, and to institutional issues, such as labour market deregulation.

Asset-based Welfare and Social Investment: Competing, Compatible, or Complementary Social Policy Strategies for the New Welfare State?

“…Many prominent social policy scholars have subsumed these transformation processes under the label "Social Investment Strategy" (SIS) -where "new risk policies", "pre-distribution", "Third Way" or "active welfare" have been proposed as alternative terms (for an overview see Taylor-Gooby, Gumy, and Otto 2015). The foundation of this social policy paradigm is a life course perspective on social problems and risks, where the focus lies on the prevention of the materialization of old and new social risks rather than protecting citizens once an adverse social or economic event has occurred (Esping-Andersen 2002;Morel, Palier, and Palme 2012;Vandenbroucke and Vleminckx 2011).…”

Innovation and Social Investment Programs in Europe

“…Core to understanding the concept of Social Investment is its underlying assumption that post‐industrialization and the transition to a knowledge‐based economy have generated a new set of challenges for individuals and families (Taylor‐Gooby, ; Van Kersbergen & Hemerijck, ). These challenges necessitate a shift in focus of the welfare state—from a system that passively protects individuals and families during specific periods, to one in which an “active welfare state” focuses on “productive” social spending.…”

“…Cantillon (); Taylor‐Gooby et al. (); and Voorberg, Bekkers and Tummers () argue that while the effects of Social Investment policies are varied, they tend overall to be less pro‐poor than more traditional social policy. Indeed, the Social Investment agenda is criticized for making social policy “the ‘handmaiden’ of economic policy” (Dobrowolsky & Lister, ), and for being unable to discuss how policy should cope with vulnerable groups who are unable to enter employment (Cantillon & Van Lancker, ).…”

The impact of the direct payment of housing benefit: evidence from Great Britain

“…The approach, which has become increasingly prevalent over the last two decades and which was given momentum by the 2007-2009 financial crisis (Taylor-Gooby et al, 2015), emphasises the responsibility of citizens to prevent social risk (Peeters, 2013), while at the same time reasserting one of the key tenets of neoliberalism: state withdrawal. The model has taken different forms in different countries and Taylor-Gooby et al (2015) have devised a typology of approaches. In the UK, they argue, a 'liberal' approach has been employed, which is characterised by initiatives to make work pay and incentivise people into work, with UC being highlighted as one such initiative.…”