Food security in welfare capitalism: Comparing social entitlements to food in Australia and Norway

Abstract

The concept of food security is often anchored in popular understandings of the challenge to produce and supply enough food. However, decades of policies for intensive agriculture have not alleviated hunger and malnutrition, with an absence of food security featuring in both economically developing and developed nations. Despite perceptions that the economic growth in advanced, capitalist societies will ensure freedom from hunger, this is not universal across so-called 'wealthy nations'. To explore the dynamics of food security in economically developed countries, this paper considers institutional approaches to domestic food security primarily through responses to poverty and welfare entitlements, and, secondarily, through food relief. Through the lens of social entitlements to food and their formation under various expressions of welfare capitalism, we highlight how the specific institutional settings of two economically developed nations, Australia and Norway, respond to uncertain or insufficient access to food. Whilst Norway's political agenda on agricultural support, food pricing regulation and universal social security support offers a robust, although indirect, safety net in ensuring entitlements to food, Australia's neoliberal trajectory means that approaches to food security are ad hoc and rely on a combination of self-help, charitable and market responses.

The Prevalence and Risk of Food Insecurity in the Nordic Region: Preliminary Results

“…The idea that some people do not have enough food to eat is not in line with this model (Silvasti 2014). In effect, discussions about food insecurity are rarely put on the public agenda (Richards et al 2016). This study indicates that in the Nordic populations 27 to 37% were experiencing some degree of food insecurity in 2012.…”

“…Such observations underline that food insecurity cannot be understood independently from its specific social-political context. This, in turn, suggests that cross-country comparative studies might be valuable to the understanding of the dynamics of household food security (Richards et al 2016). …”

“…So far, research addressing food insecurity in the Western parts of the world have focussed mostly on countries such as the USA, Canada, Britain, France, and Australia (e.g., Bocquier et al 2015;Coleman-Jensen et al 2015;Kirkpartrickicl and Tarasuk 2008;Radimer and Radimer 2002;Richards et al 2016;Tarasuk et al 2012;Temple 2006). As little is known about food insecurity in the Nordic countries, this paper addresses the prevalence and risk groups of food insecurity in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland.…”

“…Studying prevalence and risk groups of food insecurity at national level is important to understand food insecurity as a social problem, how it relates to the social-political context, and the efficiency of alleviating measures. Knowledge about prevalence and risk groups is also important considering potential effects of ongoing changes taking place in labour markets and social security programmes today (Richards et al 2016). …”

8. Packed Lunch Poverty: Immigrant Families’ Struggles to Include Themselves in Norwegian Food Culture

“…Attention to the poor living conditions of migrants was growing and the universalistic welfare model in Norway, with its generous benefits and pensions, was perceived as countering integration of immigrants into the labour force (Brockmann and Hagelund, 2008). Meanwhile in the 1990s, liberal ideas that work is a route out of poverty and that work should pay gained political momentum (Hatland, 2009;Richards et al, 2016).…”