Manos Matsaganis

The welfare state and the crisis: the case of Greece

The paper examines the relationship between the severe economic crisis facing Greece and the country’s social protection system, arguing that this relationship is ambivalent. On one level, the welfare state itself has contributed in a far from trivial way to the fiscal crisis of the state, with its various failures including huge deficits in key programmes such as pensions and health. On a second level, the crisis and the measures to counter it deprive the welfare state of resources, while at the same time setting in motion sweeping changes. On a third level, social protection can help cope with the consequences of the crisis, but enhancing its capacity to do so will require considerable reconfiguration and proper funding of social safety nets. The paper concludes by discussing the prospects for a revival of welfare state building in Greece in the current harsh climate.

Mending Nets in the South: Anti-poverty Policies in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain

The marginal role of social assistance and the absence of minimum income programmes have long been thought to constitute defining characteristics of the southern European model of welfare. Nevertheless, over the 1990s significant innovations in this field have taken place. The paper aims to contribute to the analysis of recent developments by critically examining the experience of anti-poverty policies in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain. It is argued that the “patchiness” of safety nets in southern Europe is due to a unique set of constraints, the most relevant of which are the role of families and the “softness” of state institutions. A review of national profiles reveals that new policies introduced in all four countries mark progress towards redressing some of the historical imbalances of that welfare model. In particular, fully fledged minimum income schemes now operate in Portugal and in certain Spanish regions, while an experiment involving a number of Italian municipalities is still in progress. In spite of this, the paper concludes that social safety nets in southern Europe remain frail in terms of institutional design as well as political support and legitimacy.

Social policy in hard times: The case of Greece:

The current Greek crisis started off in 2009 as a fiscal crisis, soon turned into a sovereign debt crisis, then mutated into a full-blown recession, unprecedented in depth and duration. The article offers an early analysis of the impact of the crisis on the labour market and the distribution of incomes, showing that the need for social protection is now much greater than ever before. It then critically reviews social policy responses in a context of both cuts to social spending and reforms in social programmes, arguing that the Greek welfare state is poorly equipped to meet the challenge. The article concludes by discussing prospects for social policy in an era of permanent austerity.

The Distributional Impact of Austerity and the Recession in Southern Europe

Southern European welfare states are under stress. On the one hand, the recession has been causing unemployment to rise and incomes to fall. On the other hand, austerity has affected the capacity of welfare states to protect those affected. This paper assesses the distributional implications of the crisis in Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal from 2009 to 2013. Using a microsimulation model, we disentangle the first-order effects of tax–benefit policies from the broader effects of the crisis, and estimate how its burden has been shared across income groups. We conclude by discussing the methodological pitfalls and policy implications of our research.

Union Structures and Pension Outcomes in Greece

Even though Greek pensions are particularly unsustainable and inequitable, recent attempts at significant reform have ended in failure, mostly because of union opposition. The article draws on research into the competing role of narrow versus encompassing interests, in order to analyse union policy on pensions in the light of membership composition. It finds evidence of a severe bias of representation in terms of gender, age/cohort, ethnic origin and, in particular, social insurance affiliation and sector of the economy. It concludes that when legitimate interests are imperfectly represented, negotiated reform will tend to reproduce the inegalitarian tendencies latent in Bismarckian pension systems.

Poverty and Inequality during the Great Recession in Greece

The severe economic crisis that has been affecting Greece since 2009 is having an unprecedented impact in terms of job and income losses, and is widely perceived to have a comparably significant effect in terms of greater inequality and increased poverty. This article provides an early assessment of whether (and to what extent) the latter is the case. Specifically, it simulates the impact of the austerity (i.e. fiscal consolidation policies) and the recession (i.e. negative developments in the wider economy) on the distribution of incomes in 2009–12, and estimates how the burden of the Great Recession has been shared across income groups. The article concludes by discussing the policy implications of the authors’ research.

Yet Another Piece of Pension Reform in Greece

Abstract The recent pension legislation (Law 3029/2002) concluded an entire season, inaugurated six years earlier when a new ‘modernizing’ government took office with pension reform high on the agenda. The legislation, though successful in temporarily defusing the issue, can only be described as timid and ineffective if judged against the magnitude of the problem as originally diagnosed. In order to put this last episode in context, the article describes the background to pension reform and reviews key policy responses since the early 1990s. It concludes that pension reform is bound to return to the political agenda soon.

Pathways to a universal basic pension in Greece

Although basic pension had failed for years to catch the imagination of policy makers in Greece, the severe crisis raging since November 2009 has caused it to be quickly put on the agenda. In May 2010 the government committed to a harsh austerity programme, aimed at fiscal consolidation, in return for a rescue package easing the sovereign debt crisis. The July 2010 pension reform, a key provision of the austerity programme, provided for the introduction of a near-universal basic pension starting in 2015. This paper explains why, paradoxically, the crisis made a universal basic pension in Greece more realistic. We argue, first, that social insurance pensions may be ripe for path-breaking reform if heavily subsidised in a non-transparent way, and, second, that any progress towards basic income is likely to be gradual, uneven and specific to the national policy context.

The UK health reforms: The fundholding experiment

In April 1991 the UK embarked on the most radical reforms of its health care system in 50 years. Unusually it employed two quite distinct models of quasi market reform. One made District Health Authorities the purchasers of hospital and community health services. The other gave family doctors the money to buy these services on behalf of their patients. This latter model was the most radical part of the NHS reforms. This paper reports on a project that has monitored the family doctor fundholding scheme in detail.

The Limits of Selectivity as a Recipe for Welfare Reform: The Case of Greece

Selectivity emerged as the core of a new social policy paradigm in Greece when a new ‘modernising’ government took office in 1996. Though it was adopted energetically, its real impact eventually proved negligible, except for an initial flutter of activity. The article argues that its failure as a recipe for welfare reform was inevitable. The nature of social protection arrangements in Greece severely constrained the scope for selectivity, while the particular version pursued was poorly designed and badly administered. Moreover, the elevation of selectivity to the status of a ‘Big Idea’ was an indirect cause of serious lateral damage: while fruitlessly puzzling over the place of selectivity in the ‘new social policy’, the government was losing the crucial battle on the reform of an unviable and inequitable pension system. The article concludes that selectivity has little relevance to the priorities for reform in a welfare state still struggling to cope with its Bismarckian, south European contradictions.