The term ‘modern Welfare State’ comes from the Beveridge report of The words represent that Government provides a minimum level of taxed welfare support for citizens in need. Beveridge and his five giants showed a greater need for an active role by Government in the welfare of its citizens through better housing, education, benefits for the unemployed and an accessible National Health Service It is said that in a welfare state, “the individual has only to get himself born the state will do the rest. The welfare state places equal emphasis on individual and society. The best example of a welfare state is Great Britain. There are some general objections negative as well as Estimated Reading Time: 7 mins · the role of the welfare state The perception of welfare state requires the government to promote and protect the social well-being of citizens and their economic situation. This is guided by the doctrine of public responsibility, capital sharing, and equal opportunity. The general term covers a wide variety of social and economic organization
Welfare State Essay | Cram
The welfare state was an essentially European invention that spread and developed in the states of western Europe and some of their New World offshoots. in which organized power is deliberately used. in an effort to modify the play of market forces in at least three directions—first, welfare state essay, by guaranteeing individuals and families a minimum income. are offered the best standards available in relation to a certain agreed range of social services.
Industrialization, the rise of capitalism, urbanization, and population growth had under mined the traditional forms of welfare provision offered by family networks, feudal ties, guilds, municipalities, and churches, welfare state essay, creating a new class of disenfranchised poor. At the same time, the formation of nation-states, secularization of governance, welfare state essay, and spread of mass democracy was creating an institutional framework for political articulation of social needs, and the gains in productivity resulting from industrialization provided the resources to meet them.
This transformation was occurring in similar fashion throughout western Europe and parts of the New World, but the political responses to it, and the moral incentives for providing welfare and coping with what came to be known as die soziale Frage the social questionvaried widely. There was remarkable diversity in the national trajectories of welfare state building and resultant social policy constellations. In the authoritarian European monarchies that pioneered social security legislation in the s, social programs were imposed from the top down, while in the democracies of Switzerland and the New World, they emerged from the bottom up.
Policy goals, types of institutions and financing mechanisms, program types and administration, the blends of public and private provision, and the use of cash transfers, social services, and regulatory policies all differ dramatically between nations.
When the first welfare states emerged in the nineteenth century, many social scientists, most notably the German economist Adolph Wagner inconsidered the phenomenon to be the direct fallout of industrialization and its accordant social and economic changes. Infor example, military expenditures in the industrialized countries comprised an average of 25 percent of total public expenditure, whereas social expenditures were only 4 percent.
But by the beginning of the twenty-first century these warfare versus welfare spending priorities had been turned upside down. Among the countries of the welfare state essay world in the yearthe average spent on the military had shrunk to 4 percent, whereas that spent on social programs had increased to 40 percent of total public expenditure.
According to such theories, welfare state expansion should have been a steady process that followed similar trajectories in all industrialized countries. In fact, however, expansion occurred in a sporadic manner, with spurts of growth and stagnation, while national welfare states came in a plethora of different sizes and shapes.
Infor example, U. public expenditure was only Modern theories of the welfare state account for these temporal and national idiosyncrasies by focusing on political determinants such as the partisan complexion of government, political institutions, and international influences.
However, as historian Peter Baldwin has noted, no single configuration of socioeconomic variables or group of actors can fully explain the development of the welfare state. With the establishment of the International Labour Organization ILO inthe first efforts to internationalize some aspects of social policy went into effect.
The collapse of welfare state essay central powers monarchies in World War I — and the subsequent democratization of Europe meant that huge new segments of society had a voice in government.
Unions and parties representing laborers gained access to the corridors of power, and parties based on Christian social doctrines rose to the fore.
In most countries, the Great Depression — put an end to this first phase of welfare state expansion, but in the United States and Scandinavia it actually provided an impetus to development.
World War II — and the subsequent drive to establish an internationally sanctioned world order to ensure peace and security had a major impact on welfare state development. European welfare welfare state essay experienced their second massive growth spurt during the so-called trentes glorieuses, from to The ruling paradigm during this period was that increased economic integration and trade among European nations would forestall future conflicts, but European integration was a gradual process, and this second wave of welfare state expansion, welfare state essay, which was episodic, took place in economies that were still relatively closed.
Companies could not relocate beyond national borders to avoid taxation, nor was it easy for workers to migrate abroad in search of better wages. Solidarity was a welfare state essay component of such economies, and governments of all partisan complexions took advantage of the opportunity to impose redistribution. The war had paved the way for public support of the Keynesian economic model, welfare state essay, which had been developed during the depression.
With whole societies in need of rebuilding, it was easy to justify high taxes and public expenditures if they promoted welfare state essay employment and cared for the disabled and destitute, welfare state essay. The idea that capitalist economies required government intrusion in economic and social affairs to manage demand and stabilize business cycles was widely accepted.
Exceptionally high rates of postwar economic growth and a relatively even balance of power between labor unions and business interests tended to mitigate conflict over the distribution of wealth. Existing social programs were extended to welfare state essay new groups of beneficiaries, such as peasants or the self-employed, entirely new social welfare schemes were adopted, and there was a general increase in social benefits throughout the developed world.
Even as nations became wealthier and welfare states expanded, the national differences in social expenditure levels and institutional patterns persisted and new ones developed. In the early s, welfare capitalism began to falter and the golden age came to an end. The international political economy had undergone a fundamental transformation, beginning in the early s with the collapse of the Bretton Woods financial system and the economic slowdown that the oilprice welfare state essay had triggered.
The welfare state came under fire from all directions. Criticism came from across the political spectrum, but the biggest challenge came from proponents of neoliberalism and a new, morally engaged conservatism.
They viewed high cash transfer rates as a distortion of the labor market that discouraged business investment and inhibited economic growth. As neoliberal parties gained and wielded power in the s, deregulation, the internationalization of capital markets, and escalating trade liberalization became the nor m.
The s were characterized by the emergence of a truly global economy that included the Single European Market and European Monetary Union, welfare state essay.
In Europe the deepening of integration imposed constraints on fiscal and monetary policy that precluded Keynesian macroeconomic programs at the national level.
It also meant that national welfare states lost a degree of sovereignty and became embedded in an emerging multilevel social policy regime. More generally, economic globalization created more competition between nation-states for footloose capital and investments, welfare state essay, which depended in part on low labor costs and intensified pressures on national social standards.
Enhanced exit options for capital made taxation and redistribution more difficult to implement and created an asymmetric balance of power between labor organizations and business interests. Table 1: The Three Worlds Of Welfare state essay Capitalism According To Gøsta Esping-Andersen.
In addition to the external welfare state essay posed by the emergence of the global economy, mature welfare states also have been confronted by a number of internal domestic challenges that are related to societal modernization and the transition from industrial to postindustrial economies.
Service sector productivity is generally lower than industrial sector productivity. This means that the service sector generates lower rates of economic growth and smaller wage increases, both of which have negative feedback effects on public revenues.
Private service sector jobs also tend to be less well-compensated than industrial jobs. Gains in employment in the private service sector can only be achieved by generating higher inequality, unless the public sector exercises a compensatory function.
Competing in the global economy requires a flexible labor force that can be upsized, downsized, and transformed by retraining or replacements as demand changes and competitive advantages shift away from established industries. This need, as well as greater labor market participation by women, has led to the proliferation of part-time, temporary, and fixed-term jobs. The welfare state was not designed to accommodate these alternative forms of labor, welfare state essay, which can be expected, in the long run, to produce large numbers of elderly poor.
The increase in the number of women in the labor market also has decreased the capacity of families to provide welfare, as women who stayed at home were traditionally responsible for the care of children, elders, and the infirm. An increase in the numbers of single-parent households has had similar effects, welfare state essay.
At the same time, the erosion of traditional family forms and changes in male and female contributions have generated new social risks and needs, welfare state essay, placing new demands on social care.
Single parents and families with many children, for example, now comprise a significant percentage of the poor. The two other potential challenges to national welfare states are demographic. Life expectancies have increased dramatically over the past decades, while fertility rates have declined.
The result is an aging population and increased demand for the most expensive welfare state programs—pensions, health, welfare state essay, and long-term care—that will require greater expenditures in the future. Scholars such as Alberto Alesina and Edward L, welfare state essay. Glaeser also expect the increasing ethnic heterogeneity in European societies to pose problems for social-democratic and conservative welfare states.
They maintain that these welfare states are based on a set of common values and political community, welfare state essay, and that increasing ethnic welfare state essay will undermine this solidarity and make legitimation of redistribution welfare state essay to achieve, pushing continental Europe toward American-style liberal social policy. Many scholars, however, disagree with this assessment.
National welfare state regimes have exhibited varying degrees of vulnerability and resistance to the problems and challenges that have plagued them since the s, welfare state essay, and they have followed quite different pathways to accommodate them. Nevertheless, there have been common trends in welfare state restructuring that stretch across the different types of regimes. None of the established national welfare states were completely dismantled—popular support of the welfare state made it impossible to achieve legitimation for such measures—but retrenchment was common, with widespread reductions in benefits.
Ironically, benefit cutbacks were outpaced by increasing expenditures due to rising unemployment, aging populations, and the emergence of new social risks, welfare state essay.
In almost all Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development OECD nations sincepublic welfare state essay private social expenditures have increased.
But while public social spending levels in the different types of welfare state regimes have converged over time, levels of private social expenditure have not.
Furthermore, reductions in benefits have been asymmetrical, among programs within regimes, as well as among regimes, and in some areas benefits were increased or expanded. Since the mids, for example, most Western welfare states have attempted to increase employment rates and recognize the role of the family in welfare provision. There has been a general expansion of family policy, with a focus on paid parental leave programs, more welfare state essay services for children, and the use of cash transfers and tax breaks for families with children.
With respect to old age pensions, welfare state essay, there welfare state essay been a general shift toward welfare state essay pension schemes. As attempts were made to decrease state liability for supporting aging populations, the reliance on private pension schemes increased.
Most health reforms focused on cost containment. Labor market policies generally shifted away from passive support toward active and activation policies aimed at integrating the unemployed into the labor market, and at generally reducing welfare dependency. Worker training programs, wage subsidies, and job placement services for the unemployed have been greatly expanded. Typical coercive components of these policies include cutbacks in cash benefits, welfare state essay, stricter conditions for benefit eligibility, welfare state essay, shorter benefit duration for the able-bodied unemployed, and weaker employment protection and working time regulations.
These common trends in welfare welfare state essay restructuring have led to some blurring of regime types, but the demarcation lines with respect to modes of financing, personal coverage, and benefit generosity persist much as they had during the postwar golden age. If we take into account the various private forms of provision and the impact of different tax systems, we see that major divides between contemporary welfare state regimes persist, determined not by their net amount of social spending, but rather, by differences in structure and institutional make-up.
International comparisons of income distribution, poverty, and inequality welfare state essay this readily apparent, welfare state essay. While the distribution of market incomes has developed almost in parallel across OECD countries, the OECD showed for the early s that inequality in disposable welfare state essay was reduced by 40 percent in Sweden and only 5 welfare state essay in Korea—these were the two extremes.
The impact of the particular mix of public and private benefit provision, welfare state essay, for example, is readily apparent in a cross-national comparison.
Poverty and inequality are significantly lower in Nordic and Bismarckian welfare states, where public provision is dominant, than in most liberal welfare states, where markets play a greater role. This example Welfare State Essay is published for educational and informational purposes only. If you need a custom essay or research paper on welfare state essay topic please use our writing services.
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The term ‘modern Welfare State’ comes from the Beveridge report of The words represent that Government provides a minimum level of taxed welfare support for citizens in need. Beveridge and his five giants showed a greater need for an active role by Government in the welfare of its citizens through better housing, education, benefits for the unemployed and an accessible National Health Service THE WELFARE STATE: The role and significance of the Beveridge Report in establishing the Welfare State in Britain. The purpose of this essay is to look at the long history of the Welfare State in Britain and the evolving social, economic and political changes in society today, as well as the birth of the Welfare State after the Second World War which was the turning point (watershed) in British History Thus this essay argues that under the welfare state, every class could enjoy benefits to some extent so everyone was the winner. This did promote a more egalitarian society. The NHS was initiated by the Labour government after WWII, promising people that they ‘may get the best that modern science can offer’ including hospitals, doctors, and nurses [27]
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