“A critical examination of Esping-Andersen’s model
of welfare regimes, referring to the German and the Swedish
systems.”
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this work is to present and critically examine
Gosta Esping-Andersen’s model of welfare regimes. It
will discuss the three basic welfare regime types of his theory
– the liberal, the corporatist and the social democrat
one, referring to the German and the Swedish welfare systems,
as the main patterns of the corporatist and the social democrat
type. Then it will refer to the impact of the European Union
in the evolution and development of the welfare systems of
the EU member-states, and finally it will analyse the main
critiques of Esping-Andersen’s welfare regimes model.
THE WELFARE-STATE REGIMES THEORY
Gosta Esping-Andersen argues that ‘to talk of a regime
is to denote the fact that in the relation between state and
economy a complex of legal and organisational features are
systematically interwoven’. He begins from an interest in states and markets and places
the notion of decommodification in the centre of his analysis.
He considers the extent to which people are permitted to make
their living standards independent of market forces as the
most exceptional criterion for social rights. Citizens’
status as commodities is in this way reduced by social rights.
Furthermore, he extends the argument that views welfare states
as responses to stratification in capitalist societies, arguing
that welfare states constitute stratification systems themselves,
since social rights give individuals access to resources.
Esping-Andersen points out three factors to be of great importance
in the understanding of the differences between welfare state
regimes: ‘the nature of class mobilization (especially
of the working class), class-political coalition structures
and the historical legacy of regime institutionalisation’
. Moreover, he
distinguishes three basic types of regimes in capitalist society:
the liberal, the corporatist, and the social democrat one.
In the liberal welfare state regime, provision is limited
to modest benefits for a clientele of low-income state dependants
- usually working-class. Social reform is restricted by adherence
to work-ethic norms and the regime minimises decommodification,
encouraging a strong market-oriented welfare system for middle
and upper-income groups. USA, Canada and Australia are the
archetypal examples of this model.
In the corporatist regime-type, social rights are granted
more broadly as the historical corporatist-statist legacy
was upgraded to be compatible with the new ‘post-industrial’
class structure. The liberal obsession with market efficiency
and commodification was never pre-eminent in the conservative
and ‘corporatist’ welfare states of this regime;
therefore the granting of social rights was easier. However,
the preservation of status differentials prevailed so that
rights were attached to class and status. Market welfare and
private insurance play a rather small role, but the emphasis
on upholding status differentials minimizes redistribution.
Many corporatist countries are typically shaped by the Church
and hence have an emphasis on a Christian
Democratic family ethic in social policy. Family
benefits encourage motherhood and social insurance typically
excludes non-working wives. Germany, Austria, France and Italy
are some examples of this ‘corporatist’ model.
The German welfare state is institutionally unequipped to
act as a compensatory operator of employment – in fact
it is strongly predisposed towards reducing labor supply.
As a welfare state built on the traditionalist conservative
and Catholic principle of subsidiarity, holds that women and
social services (except from health) belong to the family
sphere. Therefore it has been quite hesitant in providing
women with the services which will permit them to take employment.
It also is a welfare state dedicated to the maintenance of
income for those who have ‘earned’ it. The German
regime must keep its faith in the industrial economy’s
capacity of high productivity to finance a growing population
of pensioners and non-actives. ‘It is this impending
cost-crisis of this economic ‘surplus’ population
which constitutes the Achilles’ heel of the German trajectory’.
The third, and smallest, welfare regime is the most obviously
concerned with decommodification. Universalism, in social
democracies, is a basic principle guiding social reform, and
social rights were extended to middle-class groups with an
emphasis on egalitarianism. The social democrats pursued a
welfare state that would endorse equality of the highest standards
and not of minimal needs. Sweden is the pattern of this model.
Sweden is viewed as the archetypal example of socio-corporatism
and is known to have the most expansive (and expensive) welfare
state in the world.
If it had not been for the welfare state’s commitment
to three interconnected principles, Swedish de-industrialization
with its average rate of economic growth would have created
severe employment problems. The three united principles in
the welfare state model of social democracy are a) the improvement
and expansion of social, health, and educational services;
b) maximum employment-participation, especially for women;
and c) sustained full employment .The future of Swedish welfare state depends on middle-class
support, which entails improving and expanding the quality
and quantity of services. Maximizing the tax-base, would be
the solution to its financial groundwork, meaning that most
people must work and the least possible to depend on benefits.
Its weak point however lays to the fact that the government
must restraint the wages, as the cost-disease problem cannot
be avoided even if the state subsidizes service-employment
growth, will eventually be brought to a standstill by tax-ceilings.
The interaction between class politics and the development
of state institutions within the framework of general structural
factors is accountable for the different paths of welfare
state development. In liberal systems, the development of
universalist welfare was blocked by the interests of industrial
and agricultural employers and an unequal social structure
was promoted, were the forces supporting the development of
welfare were rather weak. Corporatist politics was concerned
to maintain status divisions in order to overshadow the development
of a universalist working-class socialist politics, encouraging
interests which preserved the divisions in welfare policy.
In social democratic regimes, an industrial working class
and peasantry coalition was pressing for universal provision,
where middle-class groups were incorporated by social democratic
government.
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