Social Care Between Welfare and Work in a Comparative Perspective

Transcription

1 Social Care Between Welfare and Work in a Comparative Perspective Anneli Anttonen University of Tampere, Finland State of the Art Conference RECWOWE Warsaw, June, 2007, Poland

2 Integration of employment and welfare research is needed From narrow to broad definitions of labour market and welfare policies At the moment: two separte domains in academic research and in governmental policy One major aim of RECWOWE: the improving of our understanding of recent and current changes in the relations between two relatively separated domains, those of labour markets and employment on one hand, and welfare (policies) on the other hand Employment, welfare and care

3 Social care between work and welfare Social care is a growing concern in all welfare states Care as labour (paid/unpaid; formal/informal; public/private) Ethics of care: to which extent care is taken into account in politics and economy Public policy of social care: child care, care for older people and care for disabled (Daly & Lewis 2000; Knijn & Kremer 1997; Tronto 1993; Williams 2001)

4 Care between formal and informal economy Social care systems are being renegotiatied and reformed as governments seek new balances between social and economic goals Neither the family nor the market can provide all care services that are needed to meet increasing care needs Care is an activity that costs money Care produces well-being for individuals and the society at large New tensions and demands are emerging

5 A call for a work society for all All adult workers should do more paid work than earlier during their life-course A more effective educational system is searched for to start our work career earlier, and a life-long learning system to go on in paid work longer Older persons should stay in paid work more years than now by raising compulsory retrirement age We should be more effective in paid work To conclude: individual and collectivve investments in paid work and work career mean that there is less time for informal and unpaid work such (including care work, voluntary work and so on)

6 Other tensions and demands 1) A call for more flexibility on the labour market: tension between paid work and care 2) Women s increased labour market participation: reconciliation of work and care 3) More jobs, new jobs and the quality of jobs: the increase of service sector employment 4) New kind of social care markets is emerging: tension between consumer and client or user of services

7 Care deficit/care poverty (Kröger) Changes in the labour market (feminisation of labour market) Changes in demography (greying of societies; lower birth rates) Changes in family forms (smaller families) Changes in democracy (more women in politics) Changes in values and norms (defamilisation; individualisation) Who will be informal carers in the future? In which terms paid care will be done in the future?

8 How to study these tensions in the context of social care? There are different analytical levels to be studied: care work, ethic of care, care policies/care politics There is need for both national/local and comparative research? Care is a growing concern of all welfare states, however, there is lack of reliable data sets both at the national and international level

9 Four approaches to comparative analysis of care Variable-oriented macro-sociologial comparisons (harmonised data is needed) Case-oriented comparisons (time consuming) Regime theory and approach (large-scale comparisons) Cross-cultural and qualitative comparisons Whole welfare systems (case studies, regime theory) or more limited social policy areas such as pensions or social care (variable-oriented, cross-cultural comparisons) can be compared

10 Variable-oriented Macrosociological Comparisons Large-scale cross-national comparisons Long tradition, much research done Statistical techniques of manipulating data International statistics and data-sets (ILO, OECD, EU) Social rights approach (Korpi and others) Lack of harmonised data set in social care

11 Regime approach Anglo-Saxon welfare state (liberal) Continental welfare state (conservative) Nordic or Scandinavian welfare state (social democratic) Mediterranean welfare state Central or East European welfare state

12 European social care regimes Anttonen, Anneli & Sipilä, Jorma: European Social Care Services. Is it possible to identify models? Journal of European Social Policy 6:2(1996): Bettio, Francesca & Plantenga, Janneke: Comparing Care Regimes in Europe. Feminist Economics 10:1(2004),

13 Case-oriented studies: some examples Heclo, H. (1974) Modern social politics in Britain and Sweden. New Haven: Yale University Press. Baldwin, P. (1990) The Politics of Social Solidarity. Class Bases of the European Welfare State ( ). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Anttonen, A. & Baldock, J. & Sipilä, J. (2003) The Young, the Old and the State: Social Care Systems in Five Industrial Nations. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

14 Cross-cultural comparisons from 1990s onwards thick comparisons; two-society comparisons qualitative methods: interviews, documents, life histories, biographies grounded theory instead of causal complexities understanding instead of explaining culture matters triangulation

15 Cross-cultural comparisons: some examples SOSTRIS-project (Social strategies in risk society); Chamberlayne, P. & Rustin, M. and Wengraf, T. (eds) (2002) Biography and Social Exclusion in Europe. Bristol, The Policy Press. SOCCARE - New Kinds of Families, New Kinds of Social Care: Shaping Multi-dimensional European Policies for Formal and Informal Care ( ).

16 To conclude: There is a huge need for comparative research on social care Comparisons should be done in different analytical levels (labour, ethics, politics, economy) International data sets should be developed Here I can pay attention only to some very limited and general findings concerning social care policies

17 Local, country and regime variations There are huge local, national and regime variations in social care policies Often national legislation and regulation is missing: makes comparisions difficult Care of children and care of older persons might follow different routes of developmental paths There are countries investing more on children and countries investing more on older people s social care

18 National childcare policies are influenced by different motherhood, fatherhood and parenthood models are deeply embedded on cultural, religious and social norms are closely related to family and labour market policies; and welfare state models have great impact on fertility, women s labour market participation and gender equality situation country clusters, regimes, models can be identified

19 Child care policies in transition There is a shift in childcare policy thinking in Europe The relation between family responsibility and state responsibility is being renegotiated Increasing public responsibility and public investment on childcare Childcare is becoming a social right for parents: childcare guarantee Plantenga, Janneke & Remery, Chantal (2005) Reconciliation of work and private life: A comparative review of thirty European countries. Lister, Ruth et al. (2007) Gendering citizenship in Western Europe. The Policy Press.

20 Two ideal types: social service regime and family care regime (childcare) Care Regimes Social service regime Extensive public responsibility Service-oriented Universalism Family care regime Extensive family responsibility Cash-oriented Selectivism

21 Childcare regimes (Anttonen & Sointu 2006) Strong social service regime Denmark Sweden, Norway Finland (less) Moderate family care regime Hungary Italy, Spain Moderate social care regime France The NL and the UK Strong family care regime Poland

22 Elder care policy in transition There is a shift in elder care policy thinking in Europe Ageing at home (OECD) From institutional to home-based care Care benefits: hybrid forms of work and care are emerging (Ungerson 2004) Care services: new social care market is emerging

23 The new politics of the elder care In addition; the new politics of the welfare state is accompanied with the new politics of the elder care The old politics was founded on strong centralised institutions, universal treatment of clients or patients and professional needs-interpretation. In the new politics of the elder care the figure of client/patient has become replaced by the figure of consumer making free choices on the emerging social care market (Clarke 2006, 425; Kremer 2006). Since the early 1990s, the transition from the old to the new market-related politics of the welfare state has taken place in a number of countries.

24 The new politics of the elder care In social services market-related change has meant a new emphasis on consumer choice, social care market, commissioning, externalisation, commercialisation and contracting out of services. It also aims at to make the targeting of society s resources more effective as well as to better the control over public expenditure to improve effectiveness and efficiency (Knapp, Hardy and Forder 2001). The times of adopting features of the new politics varies across countries as well as the extensiveness of the realised reforms. In Europe, the UK was among the first countries to reform thoroughly its public service model (Clarke 2006). Since the early 1990s, a number of countries, including the Nordic welfare states, have followed the way UK has paved for. In Finland, the City of Tampere is the first municipality to adopt the new politics in such a wide scale. There is now the provider and the producer administration and respective boards taking care of all municipal tasks.

25 Thank you