Patricia Frericks

Toward a Neoliberal Europe? Pension Reforms and Transformed Citizenship

The authors argue that starting from a welfare state, based on specific assumptions regarding generations, gender, and labor markets, two extreme directions of possible development—toward privatization and toward solidarity—are currently being taken. European welfare reforms transfer many services, needs, and responsibilities to the market, examples of a neoliberal tendency. However, there is also a contrasting and striking development toward solidarity, based on extensive regulatory policies, examples of a neoetatistic tendency. Focusing on pension reforms, the authors analyze this twofold development which the authors observe in reform measures and discourses; it redefines social rights, and therefore transforms social identity and citizenship.

CAPITALIST WELFARE SOCIETIES' TRADE-OFF BETWEEN ECONOMIC EFFICIENCY AND SOCIAL SOLIDARITY

ABSTRACT Starting in the 1980s and 1990s, in various European welfare reforms, parts of the social insurance systems and the related resources were transferred to the financial market. In this sense, one can speak of privatisation and marketisation, both examples of a neo-liberal tendency. Now, after ‘the Fall of Finance Capitalism’, it is often stated that ‘the years of neoliberal triumph have come to an end’. This paper argues that there had already been a contrasting and powerful development previously, which might now be reinforced. This political and institutional development was moving towards extensive regulatory policies, in particular after the stock market crisis in 2001, and towards solidarity, two examples of a neo-etatistic tendency. I argue that the traditional exclusionary categorisation significantly underestimates the continuously changing mix. I will introduce a more complex approach which will be much more helpful to comprehend current developments in pension protection, and which might also be considered for providing an understanding of change in social protection schemes and welfare states in general. To my view, current changes in capitalist welfare societies are system-inherent substantiations of complexly intertwined dynamics, which can be comprehended by analysing changes in flows of resources and in the rights over these resources. These changes are manifest in what is termed social citizenship. Consequently, I will come to the conclusion that the observed changes promote new forms of social citizenship.

MALE NORMS AND FEMALE ADJUSTMENTS: THE INFLUENCE OF CARE CREDITS ON GENDER PENSION GAPS IN FRANCE AND GERMANY

ABSTRACT European pension systems are in the process of change. A general development is the retrenchment of public schemes. In combination with the aim of individualizing pension entitlements, it is crucial that the pension situation of women, and of mothers in particular, be improved. Some European countries attempt to reduce the gender pension gaps with child care credits. This paper takes a closer look at the French and German systems. Can adjustments to the pension norm, in terms of different allowances for child care as introduced in both countries, balance gender pension gaps? Following the logic of the individual factors, the duration of insurance and the level of paid contributions, the main factors are analysed to evaluate the efficiency of care credits. Within the complexity of pension-related factors, adjustments to the originally male pension norms have very ambiguous effects, and they are insufficient to de-gender pension gaps.

POLICY FOR THE ‘PEAK HOUR’ OF LIFE: LESSONS FROM THE NEW DUTCH LIFE COURSE SAVING SCHEME

ABSTRACT The Dutch government attempts to base its social policy on a life course perspective, and it promotes such a perspective in Europe. This has led to the introduction of a Life Course Saving Scheme (starting in 2006), which aims to enable good management of the ‘peak hour’ of life and to facilitate transitions between and combinations of the activities of working, caring and learning. This important and ambitious policy can be seen as a pioneering example for European countries, however, the present realisation is not sufficient according to research and problems to deal with. This article examines (1) whether the Dutch governments life course policy is based on a sound scientific basis and (2) whether the new Life Course Saving Scheme can realise the policy aims as formulated.

Marketising social protection in Europe: two distinct paths and their impact on social inequalities

Purpose – Currently, different experiments in (partially) outsourcing public social protection to the market are observed. This paper seeks to identify two very different paths to outsourcing social protection: fragmentation of social protection on the one hand (in personal savings accounts) and amalgamation of social protection on the other (in life‐course savings schemes).Design/methodology/approach – This study is theoretically based on the combination of three concepts which allow changes in social citizenship to be analyzed by means of social policy change and changes in resource flows. First, on the concept of life‐course regimes as put forward by Kohli; second, on the concept of social citizenship as proposed by Marshall; and third, on the concept of flows of resources related to these rights. The theoretical and methodological linkage of these concepts was first applied by Frericks.Findings – These very different concepts of outsourcing social protection have implications for social inequalities, ...

The 'paradox of the shrinking middle': The central dilemma of European social policy

Life-course studies show that life courses have changed in several systematic ways. Because people now spend more years in education, participation in the labour market tends to start later. More time is spent in lifelong learning in the middle phase, in addition to work and care activities. Following decades during which the effective retirement age declined, the effective retirement age has now increased slightly, and life expectancy continues to rise. These interlocking changes bring about the ‘paradox of the (proportionately) shrinking middle’. Social policy, with its objectives of social security, care, education and social cohesion, has been financed primarily through the wage, confined to the ‘shrinking middle’ phase of employment. Our thesis is that neither the established channels of resource flows nor the magnitude of resources are sufficiently well attuned to the challenges of existing life courses in present-day capitalist welfare states.

Pension norms and pension reforms in Europe – the effects on gender pension gaps

Pension levels in the EU15 are significantly gendered. Various reforms to pension systems explicitly aim at improving womens opportunities to build up pension entitlements. These reforms differ from country to country. We see so-called work–life balance policies to increase womens labour market participation by facilitating part-time employment in particular as well as pension entitlements for care periods outside the labour market. At the same time, however, other seemingly gender neutral reforms generally tend to have the opposite effect. These measures include changes in pension calculation norms and pension composition, increasing the importance of non-public pensions. Therefore, future female pensioners will not be significantly better off. However, for women to be better off is necessary in times of pension retrenchments and individualization. Based on recent life-course theories and studies, this article analyses the multiplicity of reasons for gender differentiated pension levels. It shows that the numerous direct and indirect pension determining factors related to life courses and welfare arrangements are interlinked on many fronts. Their cumulative effects finally result in (continued) significant gender gaps. It is argued that there are no quick fixes for reducing the gender gaps in pensions but that this will require attention to the degendering of labour market and the reformulation of life course norms.

Institutional Individualisation? The Family in European Social Security Institutions

Welfare institutions have long been set up in most European countries in ways oriented towards the family as the one basic principle. Reforms in recent times however have fundamentally changed the conception of the social citizen. Yet social rights are still mainly conceptualised in the literature in terms of employee rights, and family elements are often interpreted as a kind of vestige of the traditional welfare-state policies of industrial societies. In this paper we develop a formula for making the weight of the family in social security visible and comparing it through the evaluation of cross-country levels of institutional individualisation. We deliver original theoretical, conceptual and empirical insights into the welfare-institutional order with the aim of furthering the understanding of the current social constitution of European societies. The findings show that there is considerable variation in the degree to which welfare institutions treat the social citizen as an individual and that the results do not correspond to common welfare categorisations.

What about family in European old-age security systems? The complexity of institutional individualisation

ABSTRACT European welfare states used to be based on the principle of the family. Since the 1990s, however, ‘individual responsibility’ has been promoted, which fundamentally alters the traditional welfare-institutional framing of the family and the corresponding construction of the social citizen. One policy field that has been heavily influenced by this development is old-age security. The literature assumes a convergence towards institutional individualisation. We show this however to be incorrect. We empirically analyse and classify welfare-institutional change in old-age security with regard to individualisation. An innovative methodological approach for institutional analysis allows a nuanced identification of the welfare-institutional trends towards individualisation of the social citizen above pension age both within and between welfare states. We conclude that there has been no general and no partial convergence towards individualisation. Instead, on average, family elements in old-age security have either increased or persisted. Also, our analysis suggests that welfare-institutional change with regard to family is far from being a linear process and in part even displays contradictions.

Unifying self-responsibility and solidarity in social security institutions

ABSTRACT Welfare states and social security institutions are positioned at a nexus of the two principles self-responsibility and solidarity resulting in higher or lower social inequality. Despite historical and national particularities, it is possible to identify common tendencies in their relational developments in Europe. Here, four of them will be analysed. The analysis of these cross-national developments results in the observation that self-responsibility and solidarity are being redefined and have ultimately grown together into a strict circular logic of interdependency. This, however, assumes very different forms of self-responsibility and solidarity and thereby a different concept and nexus of both principles than was the case some 20 years ago. Dominant discourses based on dualistic concepts are much too limited to comprehend this complex nexus. Instead, the changed institutions of social security implement institutional norms that correspond to a broad concept of interdependency.