The Social Legitimacy of Targeted Welfare Attitudes towards welfare deservingness

Transcription

1 The Social Legitimacy of Targeted Welfare Attitudes towards welfare deservingness Wim van Oorschot Centre for Sociological Research University of Leuven Belgium ESPAnet-Israel Annual Conference 22 Februari 2018

2 CONTENTS A. The social legitimacy of welfare provision B. Deservingness theory and research C. Some highlights from the book

3 A. THE SOCIAL LEGITIMACY OF WELFARE PROVISION Comparative surveys usually find high popular support for European welfare states

4 A. THE SOCIAL LEGITIMACY OF WELFARE PROVISION Comparative surveys usually find high popular support for European welfare states BUT 1. Different dimensions: too rosy a picture? 2. Generic or particular: what about specific programs for specific target groups?

5 A.1 Too rosy a picture?

6 WELFARE MIX State Market Civil society Family WELFARE STATE GOALS Social security Social inclusion Equality Dimensions of the welfare state and related attitudes RANGE Benefits Services DEGREE Coverage Spending REDISTRIBUTION DESIGN Who pays?/who benefits? How much? On what conditions? IMPLEMENTATION Efficiency Effectiveness Roosma, Gelissen and van Oorschot (2012), 'The Multidimensionality of Welfare State Attitudes in: Social Indicators Research, vol. 113, nr. 1, pp OUTCOMES Intended Unintended

7 WELFARE MIX State Market Civil society Family WELFARE STATE GOALS Social security Social inclusion Equality RANGE Benefits Services DEGREE Coverage Spending Popular preferences for welfare state intervention usually show a rosy picture REDISTRIBUTION DESIGN Who pays?/who benefits? How much? On what conditions? IMPLEMENTATION Efficiency Effectiveness OUTCOMES Intended Unintended

8 preferences (data ESS 2008) The government should take measures to reduce % (fully) agree income differences 71 It should be government s responsibility to provide % an adequate standard of living for the elderly 92 health care for the sick 94 child care 82 paid care leave 82 an adequate standard of living for the unemployed 66 a job for everyone who wants one 64

9 preferences evaluations (data ESS 2008) The government should take measures to reduce % (fully)agree income differences 71 It should be government s responsibility to provide Positively perceived performance re.... % % an adequate standard of living for the elderly health care for the sick child care paid care leave 82 - an adequate standard of living for the unemployed a job for everyone who wants one 64 28

10 EU-wide (data ESS 2008) Positive PERCEIVED PERFORMANCE Negative Positive 41% 29% PREFERRED ROLE OF GOVERNMENT Negative 19% 11%

11 EU-regions (data ESS 2008) Positive PERCEIVED PERFORMANCE Negative Positive West 41% North 48% South 39% East 30% West 21% South 52% North 26% East 62% PREFERRED ROLE OF GOVERNMENT West 25% North 17% East 3% West 13% North 9% East 6% Negative South 4% South 6% Roosma and van Oorschot, W. (2017). The social legitimacy of welfare states in European regions and countries: balancing between popular preferences and evaluations In: Kennett, P. & Lendvai, N. (Eds.), Handbook of European Social Policy (pp ). Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.

12 So, general welfare state support is a matter of preferences and evaluations, which do not necessarily coincide Europeans very much like the idea of a welfare state, but for being loved it has to do a good job

13 A.2 What about support for specific programs for specific target groups?

14 A heuristic model for understanding the social legitimacy of differently targeted benefits and services

15 Institutional design of benefit X Opportunity structures and group interests: universal > selective programs Reciprocity logic: social insurances > social assistance Means-testing: (mis)trust in procedural justice, in claimants

16 Public image of target group A Lazy poor/unemployed Welfare queens Benefit scroungers/fraudsters Thiefs and vagabonds Drugs addicts and alcoholics Immigrant adventurers

17 Deservingness perceptions regarding target group A CARIN criteria Control Attitude Reciprocity Identity Need

18 Interrelations, but a pivotal role for deservingness judgments?

19 B. DESERVINGNES THEORY and RESEARCH Two early issues 1. Rankorder? Universal dimension of support? 2. Which criterion is most important?

20 Rankorder Hypothetical deservingness scores of different target groups Elderly Sick/disabled Unemployed Immigrants Need /- + Responsibility /- +/- Identity Attitude ++ +/- +/- +/- Reciprocity /- -

21 Rankorder Hypothetical deservingness scores of different target groups Elderly Sick/disabled Unemployed Immigrants Need /- + Responsibility /- +/- Identity Attitude ++ +/- +/- +/- Reciprocity /- -

22 Rankorder Hypothetical deservingness scores of different target groups Elderly Sick/disabled Unemployed Immigrants Need /- + Responsibility /- +/- Identity Attitude ++ +/- +/- +/- Reciprocity /- -

23 Rankorder Deservingness rank order by country (national averages: EVS data) 5 4 (data European Values Survey 1999) dk sw fi nl be fr ge au uk ie it sp pt gr po cz sk hu Elderly Sick/disabled Unemployed Immigrants

24 Rankorder Deservingnes rankorder by social categories 5 4 (data European Values Survey 1999) elderly unemployed sick/disabled immigrants

25 Rankorder Universal rankorder, other rankorder, no rankorder, by country (overall averages: 40%, 20%, 40%) (Chapter 2, Laenen and Meuleman) (data ISSP 4 waves pooled) 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% VE PH ZA ES UY KR CL CH HR JP FR TW PT DO SE DE FI SI IE PL IL LV CA NO DK NL US UK IT RU AU HU NZ CZ Universal rank order Divergent rank order Welfare egalitarianism

26 Criterion importance Which criterion is most important? - control (Appelbaum, 2001; Cook, 1979; van Oorschot, 2000; Will, 1993) - attitude (Laenen & Meuleman, 2017) - reciprocity (Mau, 2003; Petersen, 2012) - identity (Gilens, 1999; Reeskens & van der Meer, 2014) - need (Groskind, 1991, 1994)

27 Criterion importance Which criterion is most important? - control (Appelbaum, 2001; Cook, 1979; van Oorschot, 2000; Will, 1993) - attitude (Laenen & Meuleman, 2017) - reciprocity (Mau, 2003; Petersen, 2012) - identity (Gilens, 1999; Reeskens & van der Meer, 2014) - need (Groskind, 1991, 1994) Increasingly recognized that it matters: (a) who is being judged (b) who is judging (c) when and where judgments are being made

28 A heuristic model of the deservingness of a target group: the CARIN criteria

29 C. SOME HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE BOOK

30 The cognitive basis of deservingness judgments Chapter 4 (Ben Baumberg) Incorrect beliefs about benefits (over-estimation of number, spending, duration) are associated with lower deservingness > perceived deservingness would often be considerably greater if people held correct beliefs about the benefit system

31 Media frames of deservingness Chapter 7 (Dorota Lepianka) The media presentation of the deservingness of any specific subgroup of benefit claimant is not monolithic: each of the groups investigated is represented in the media in more than one possible scenario. For instance: the unemployed : the culture of poverty frame the back-to-work frame the resilience frame > From between-group deservingness to within-group deservingness

32 Deservingness attitudes of administrators and policy makers Chapter 11 (Helena Blomberg et al.) Social workers see social assistance claimants as more deserving then social security officials (Finland) (NL experience with professions shift in social assistance administration)

33 The national context of deservingness opinions Chapter 8 (Wilfred Uunk et al.) In economic bad times, popular deservingness of target groups is lower (NL)

34 Thanks for your attention