Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.3935/rsp.v27i3.1563
Social Investment in an Age of Austerity: A Comparison of Family Policy Reforms in Four European Countries
Sonja Blum
orcid.org/0000-0001-7989-7217
; FernUniversität in Hagen, Hagen, Germany
Sónia Correia
; Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal
Mikael NygÅrd
; Faculty of Education and Welfare Studies, Åbo Akademi University, Vaasa, Finland
Tatjana Rakar
orcid.org/0000-0002-5357-8194
; Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Karin Wall
; Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal
Abstract
The focus of this article is on family policy reforms in four European countries – Austria, Finland, Portugal, and Slovenia – between 2008 and 2015.
These years were marked by the ‘Great Recession’, and by the rise of the social-investment perspective. Social investment is an umbrella concept, though, and it is also somewhat ambiguous. This article distinguishes between different social-investment variants, which emerge from a focus on its interaction with alternative social-policy perspectives, namely social protection and austerity. We identify different variants along the degree of social-investment: from comprehensive, over crowding out, towards lean forms. While the empirical analysis highlights variation, it also shows how there is a specific crisis context, which may lead to ‘crowding out’ of other policy approaches and ‘leaner’ forms of social investment. This has led to strong cutbacks in family cash benefits, while public childcare and parental leaves have proved more resilient in the investigated countries. Those findings are revelatory in the current Covid-19 pandemic, where countries are entering a next, possibly larger economic crisis.
Keywords
family policy; crisis; social investment; austerity; case studies
Hrčak ID:
248764
URI
Publication date:
21.12.2020.
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