Date: 2023
Type: Article
Social investment as a conceptual framework for analysing well-being returns and reforms in 21st century welfare states
Socio-economic review, 2023, Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 479-500
HEMERIJCK, Anton, RONCHI, Stefano, PLAVGO, Ilze, Social investment as a conceptual framework for analysing well-being returns and reforms in 21st century welfare states, Socio-economic review, 2023, Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 479-500
- https://hdl.handle.net/1814/75124
Retrieved from Cadmus, EUI Research Repository
Welfare provision is often conceived through the lens of decommodification and analysed in (re)distributive terms. This article argues that a distributive approach does not sufficiently capture the complexity of 21st century welfare state dynamics. It proposes re-conceptualizing provision as a mix of three policy functions: raising and maintaining human capital stock; easing the flow of gendered life-course and labour-market transitions; guaranteeing social safety-net buffers. This analytical perspective allows theorizing life-course multiplier effects and policy (non-)complementarities, both at the level of individual objective and subjective well-being and in terms of aggregate employment, poverty and fiscal sustainability. This perspective also enables us to extend the temporal horizon of welfare politics beyond short-term electoral logics for explaining welfare reform. The article underscores how methodological pluralism remains key for understanding contemporary welfare states, and for grasping welfare outcomes and institutional change in a research endeavour that involves both generalization and contextualization.
Cadmus permanent link: https://hdl.handle.net/1814/75124
Full-text via DOI: 10.1093/ser/mwac035
ISSN: 1475-1461; 1475-147X
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Sponsorship and Funder information:
This work has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 882276).
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