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Gone with the Crisis? Welfare State Change in Europe Before and Since the 2008 Crisis

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Abstract

The economic crisis has undoubtedly impacted welfare states through the austerity policies prioritised to purportedly lead economies back to a growth path. In this paper, we assess the effects of the crisis in those welfare states, focusing on income benefits and analysing cases of welfare state change before the crisis via gross replacement rates available through the OECD tax/benefits database. We begin with a literature review on impacts of the crisis on welfare states, then focus on our hypothesis that retrenchment trends were already in motion before the crisis. From our point of view, this is relevant to understanding the evolution of welfare states since 2001, particularly those effects attributable to the crisis (versus those that are not); this may also be of help in the prediction of future trends.

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Fig. 1

Source Own elaboration. (Colour figure online)

Fig. 2

Note *means unemployed. Source Own elaboration with data from the OECD.Stat

Fig. 3

Note *means unemployed. Source Own elaboration with data from the OECD.Stat

Fig. 4

Note *means unemployed. Source Own elaboration with data from the OECD.Stat

Fig. 5

Note *means unemployed. Source Own elaboration with data from the OECD.Stat

Fig. 6

Note *means unemployed. Source Own elaboration with data from the OECD.Stat

Fig. 7

Note *means unemployed. Source Own elaboration with data from the OECD.Stat

Fig. 8

Note *means unemployed. Source Own elaboration with data from the OECD.Stat

Fig. 9

Note All cases are for unemployed. Source Own elaboration with data from the OECD.Stat

Fig. 10

Note All cases are for unemployed. Source Own elaboration with data from the OECD.Stat

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Notes

  1. See also Shahidi (2015) for a good summary (focused on the labour market) of the purported causes of such changes according to each approach.

  2. See OECD (n.d.-e) for the methodological details of the models used; see all available information at: http://www.oecd.org/social/benefits-and-wages.htm (last accessed on 17/05/2018).

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Acknowledgements

A previous version was presented at the at the 11th Pan-European Conference on International Relations, held in Barcelona in September 2017, and at the Political Economy of Globalization Research Group Seminar at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid in January 2019. We would like to thank the attendees of our panel at those events for their remarks, as well as Julio Abad and Jon Las Heras for their useful input. Additionally the comments made by four reviewers have been very helpful in improving the manuscript. The usual disclaimer applies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Economía y Estadística, Universidad de León, Campus de Vegazana s/n. 24071, León, Spain

    Luis Buendía

  2. Departamento de Economía Aplicada, Estructura e Historia, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Pedro José Gómez Serrano

  3. Departamento de Estructura Económica y Economía del Desarrollo, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Ricardo Molero-Simarro

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  1. Luis Buendía
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Correspondence to Luis Buendía.

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Appendix

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See Fig. 11.

Fig. 11
figure 11

Source Own elaboration with data from OECD.Stat

Average wage, 2002–2015. Index numbers (2002 = 100)

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Buendía, L., Gómez Serrano, P.J. & Molero-Simarro, R. Gone with the Crisis? Welfare State Change in Europe Before and Since the 2008 Crisis. Soc Indic Res 150, 243–264 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-020-02286-y

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