Conflictive preferences towards social investments and transfers in mature welfare states: The cases of unemployment benefits and childcare provision

This article explores potential cleavages and conflicts between political support coalitions of social investment versus classical social transfer policies. To that extent, we analyse international survey data from the European Social Survey (ESS) for 21 European countries. Our central finding is th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of European social policy 2017-07, Vol.27 (3), p.229-246
Main Authors: Busemeyer, Marius R., Neimanns, Erik
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Beneficiaries
Benefits
Child care
Child care services
Coalitions
Investments
Parents & parenting
Polls & surveys
Public opinion
Public policy
Single parent family
Single parents
Social policy
Unemployed people
Unemployment
Unemployment benefits
Welfare policy
Welfare state
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Summary:This article explores potential cleavages and conflicts between political support coalitions of social investment versus classical social transfer policies. To that extent, we analyse international survey data from the European Social Survey (ESS) for 21 European countries. Our central finding is that different welfare state beneficiary groups perceive and react negatively to increased government involvement in policy fields from which they do not benefit themselves: single parents are more likely to oppose government support for the unemployed when long-term replacement rates in the unemployment benefit scheme are high. Vice versa, the unemployed are less likely to support the public provision of childcare services if the latter is already well-funded. This finding has implications for the study of welfare states in general because it implies that in mature welfare states, political conflicts may be less about the welfare state as such, but about the distribution of welfare state services and benefits between different groups of beneficiaries.
ISSN:0958-9287
1461-7269
DOI:10.1177/0958928716684302