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Reforms of the welfare state in Europe
Mémoire - Sciences politiques - 13 pages - Format Microsoft Word
Some have thought that globalization is to be considered as an important factor of crisis. However, as it has had a different impact depending on the type of welfare state and on the national economic specialization, it can not be taken for major responsible. Therefore, Paul Pierson believes that it is “all national”.
The causes of the crises are various. The exogenous causes can be due to the economic evolution in Europe, such as the mass industrial time or, more close to our times, the creation of a common market with the treaty of Rome in 1957. This has changed the production regime and the expectations from the worker and has created a movement in the logic of the producers, who tend to transport their mass industries to Eastern Europe. In terms of welfare, this has definitely had an impact on the worker’s insurance.
The endogenous causes of the crises of the welfare state can first be explained by the aging of the population. In fact, not only do people live longer (the life expectation in France was in 1985 of 65 years for women and 61 for men, in 2007, it is of 83 years for women and 77 for men), but because of the baby-boom, we are now facing the aging of a considerable number of people. This category of the population is now in its right to receive a pension. The declaim of births deepens the problem : half of the employments freed by the pensioners are not replaced, and therefore a dynamic is set, in which the situation gets worse with every generation. The transformation of the household structures also influences the crisis. The entering of women into the labour market has created new needs that not all welfare systems were ready to provide, such as day-care or retirement structures for the elderly.
The main questions we will broach are the following : how do the European welfare states face their crises ? Are they all confronted to the same issues and do they develop the same reforms or are these divided into three categories ?
Plan du document :
I) Pensions
a) The institutional differences in pension policies
b) The different reforms
II) Health Care
a) The different health care systems and their issues
b) The reform of the Bismarckian health insurance systems
III) Employment
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