Demographic Change & Welfare State Flashcards
RC / MI view on welfare state:
The Welfare state (institutions) constitutes a context (opportunities & constraints) for individual (demographic) behaviors ↔ and is itself shaped by the (aggregate, demographic) outcomes of individual actions: fertility/family, mortality, migration
Characteristics of (contemporary) welfare state systems? (4)
- are shaped by the interplay of state, market, and family
- have long-standing socio-cultural roots with considerable variation between countries & even within particular ‘regime’ types
- result from historical transformations of the state’s activities & responsibilities: from poor relief (“marginal” model) to no fixed boundaries for public welfare commitments (“institutional” model example: Skandinavian model - very high institutional model, almost no private sector more (health care, education, etc.)
- De-commodification: “degree to which individuals, or families, can uphold a socially acceptable standard of living independently of market participation” exit from the labor market with little or no loss of income (i.e. sick leave)
-> appears as the central characteristic of the welfare state, and efforts to de-commodify labor are posited to be the main goal of social democracy
What is the difference between marginal and institutional welfare?
Marginal welfare: market is main mechanism for delivering welfare to citizens, state only steps in when the normal channels of distribution fail, benefits are targeted towards a minority of citizens, and they may suffer stigmatisation. The redistributive goal is not a strong objective in the marginal model.
Institutional welfare state has a firm commitment to welfare for all citizens and it does not recognise any fixed boundaries for public welfare provision. It also has a strong redistributive goal and tends to use universal programmes, to which all citizens are equally entitled.
Policies connected with welfare state?
Relation of welfare state and family policies:
Welfare state institutions are manifested in family policies and family laws embedded in more general configurations of policies, ideologies, and institutions (family regimes)
Differentiation of family policies vs family laws
Family policies: shaped by social norms and expectations (e.g. regarding gender roles), but usually not directly regulating family life. They support specific types of families or partnerships, whilst placing others at a disadvantage (e.g. marriage vs. unmarried cohabitation), setting incentives for certain behaviors, but not actually prescribing them.
Family law: a more direct expression of norms, consisting of enforceable rules defining socially-sanctioned obligations & legitimate expectations of household members and kin.
How do family policies look in in high-fertility contexts?
Very high fertility tends to challenge economic development support of family planning policies, aiming to reduce fertility in LDCs though provision of modern contraceptives, educational programs, etc.
Family policy as population policy: China’s coercive one-child policy, launched in 1979, aimed (and failed) to hold the country’s population by 1.2 billion in 2000 through a system of rewards and punishment now replaced by ‘three-child policy’ (“China will support couples that wish to have a third child.”)
Problem with family policies?
1) direct effect
How do family policies look in in low-fertility contexts?
Three main types of (pronatalist) policy instruments // “core family policy package”:
1) Financial transfers (cash benefits; family allowances), aiming to reduce the costs of fertility, have been shown to have at most minor positive effects on fertility in OECD (rather on timing than on quantum). Size of effect may vary by gender, education, and income
2) Paid parental leave, aiming to enhance compatibility of childrearing and female employment, also affects timing of births. Introduction of ‘daddy months’ (gender equality!) appears to bear a positive association with continued childbearing (in Norway; Sweden) …
3) Inconclusive evidence regarding pronatalist effects of public childcare provision, but more recent studies indeed suggest a quantum effect of increased childcare coverage on fertility (in Norway; Germany)
Also: evidence that active labor market policies and employment protection laws affected OECD fertility levels (in the 1990s; Rovny 2011)!
More input (public spending per child) = More ouput (higher fertility) ?
“Increased expenditure on family policy programs aimed at empowering women through opportunities to combine family and employment – thereby reducing the opportunity costs of children – generate positive fertility responses.” (Kalwij 2010: 517)
- More input isn’t necessarily paralleled by more output: impact of specific measures varies across family regimes
- -> Rather than specific policies, combinations of policy instruments supporting gender equality appear as most effective to raise fertility
Impact of (low) fertility on welfare state policies?
- “Family dynamics are driven by changing institutional opportunities and constraints, whereas welfare state institutions constantly need to adapt to the changing needs of ‘new’ family forms.” (Hank & Steinbach 2019: 389)
- The fact that family policy as (pronatalist) population policy is back (and high!) on OECD countries’ policy agenda is the result of … sustained below replacement fertility
- Low fertility affects all aspects of society – state, market, families. As a main driver of population aging, it is highly consequential for welfare state policies concerned with old age security …
How are health care expenditures & life expectancy related?
- Increase in life expectancy is a great success - not least attributable to welfare state interventions but health care expenditures are no panacea for life expectancy:
- Lack of universal access to health care and failure to prevent poor health despite very high expenditures in the United States!
- Social protection expenditures rather than medical spending contributes to life expectancy at birth (vd Heuvel & Olaroiu 2017)!
Age-specific consumption & its consequences
o Increases at older ages BUT is almost entirely due to an expansion of publicly funded social and health care!
o Consequence for welfare state: moderately increases expenditures on acute care and strongly increases expenditures on long-term care
Conflict in aging welfare states?
1) Gerontocracy:
There’s an ever growing number of older people, who are more likely to vote than younger people
Today, half the rich world’s voting population is over 55 years old – but half the world’s population is younger than 30 years old!
–> guided by age-based self interest (?):
Conflict in aging welfare states?
2) Public spending
Older people today receive more overall public transfers than in past decades and than children (with an increasing elderly/children public transfer ratio) -> pro-elderly bias?
But: welfare states with public transfers patterns oriented towards the older population are embedded in societies composed of strongly child-oriented families (and private transfers primarily directed towards the younger generation)
Example of immigration law (IRCA):
legalized 2.7 million unauthorized foreigners, 85 percent of whom were Mexicans
-> unintentionally encouraged more Mexicans to move illegally to the United States in anticipation of another amnesty
(How) does immigration affect welfare state spending?
Existing work divided:
1) Decline/Threat
- ‘Welfare magnet theory’ (Borjas 1999) suggest that migrants are more likely than native-born welfare recipients to engage in ‘welfare shopping’
- Decreasing support for redistributive programs: ‘welfare chauvinist’ attitudes might spill over to all social programs, regardless of how closely they are related to immigrants
2) Growth
- Welfare state expansion in order to insure citizens against risks brought about by increased (labor) migration – fears of job competition, job dislocation, economic insecurity (‘compensation hypothesis’; Fenwick 2019)
