Welfare regimes in an age of austerity

Journal title SOCIOLOGIA E POLITICHE SOCIALI
Author/s Wil Arts
Publishing Year 2013 Issue 2013/1
Language Italian Pages 15 P. 9-23 File size 200 KB
DOI 10.3280/SP2013-001002
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Today the welfare state faces new and apparently even more severe challenges than in earlier decades: the challenge of the globalization of national economies across the world which leads to increased competition across countries; the deepest and longest global economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s; the socio-economic transformation from an industrial society into a service and information society; the labour market transformations, especially with regard to increased female participation and the deregulation and flexibilisation of employment contracts; a demographic transition is taking place consisting of declining fertility rates and increasing life expectation; migration from developing countries and the growths of ethnic heterogeneity in the latter world. Those new emergencies, raise the question of whether the welfare state will go through still further regress in the coming years combined with a persisting resilience of its institutions and, if so, end up in a "bronze" age, or whether these developments will sooner conjure up a new opportunity to reconfigure and legitimise social policy.

Keywords: Welfare Regimes, Globalization, Path Dependency, Convergence- Divergence; Post-modern Welfare States

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Wil Arts, Welfare regimes in an age of austerity in "SOCIOLOGIA E POLITICHE SOCIALI" 1/2013, pp 9-23, DOI: 10.3280/SP2013-001002