Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-sxzjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-15T15:46:00.664Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A rising workfare state? Unemployment benefit conditionality in 21 OECD countries, 1980–2012

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2020

Carlo Michael Knotz Open the ORCID record for Carlo Michael Knotz [Opens in a new window]
Carlo Michael Knotz*
Affiliation:
Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences, University of Bremen & Jacobs University Bremen, Bremen, Germany
*
CONTACTCarlo Michael Knotz cknotz@bigsss.uni-bremen.de Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences, University of Bremen & Jacobs University Bremen, Unicom 1, Haus 9, Mary-Somerville-Straße 9, DE-28359, Bremen, Germany.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Over the last decades, governments in the advanced democracies have put greater pressure on the unemployed to seek and accept employment. This development has been pointed out in much prior research, yet relatively little is known about the exact changes that have been introduced. This paper fills this gap. It draws on a novel time-series cross-section dataset on the strictness of unemployment benefit conditions and sanctions in 21 democracies between 1980 and 2012, and shows in which aspects these rules have become stricter – and in which not. The paper confirms that there has been a general trend toward tighter conditions and sanctions, but adds some important qualifications: Many rules and provisions have also been adapted in response to the emergence of new social risks and there is also a noticeable trend toward more clearly defined and precise rules. Based on these findings, new causal hypotheses are suggested.

Keywords

Unemployment benefitsconditionalityactivationworkfarenew social riskscomparative analysis
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , June 2018 , pp. 91 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allard, G. (2005). Measuring the changing generosity of unemployment benefits: Beyond existing indicators. IE Working Paper, EC8-108-I.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barbier, J.-C., & Ludwig-Mayerhofer, W. (2004). Introduction: The many worlds of activation. European Societies, 6(4), 423–436.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonoli, G. (2005). The politics of the new social policies: Providing coverage against new social risks in mature welfare states. Policy and Politics, 33(3), 431–449.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonoli, G. (2010). The political economy of active labor-market policy. Politics and Society, 38(4), 435–457.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonoli, G. (2013). The origins of active social policy: Labour market and childcare policies in a comparative perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bruttel, O., & Sol, E. (2006). Work first as a European model? Evidence from Germany and the Netherlands. Policy and Politics, 34(1), 69–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clasen, J., & Clegg, D. (2007). Levels and levers of conditionality: Measuring change within welfare states. In Clasen, J. & Siegel, N. A. (Eds.), Investigating welfare state change: The ‘Dependent Variable Problem’ in comparative analysis (pp. 166–197). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clasen, J., & Clegg, D. (Eds.). (2011). Regulating the risk of unemployment: National adaptations to post-industrial labour markets in Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clegg, D. (2007). Continental drift: On unemployment policy change in Bismarckian welfare states. Social Policy and Administration, 41(6), 597–617.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ebbinghaus, B., & Eichhorst, W. (2007). Distribution of responsibility for social security and labour market policy. Country Report: Germany, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies Working Papers (Vol. 07/52). Amsterdam: Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS), University of Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Eichhorst, W., Kaufmann, O., & Konle-Seidl, R. (Eds.). (2008). Bringing the jobless into work? Experiences with activation schemes in Europe and the US. Heidelberg: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Estévez-Abe, M., Iversen, T., & Soskice, D. (2001). Social protection and the formation of skills: A reinterpretation of the welfare state. In Hall, P. A. & Soskice, D. (Eds.), Varieties of capitalism: The institutional foundations of comparative advantage (pp. 145–83). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Goos, M., Manning, A., & Salomons, A. (2014). Explaining job polarization: Routine-biased technological change and offshoring. American Economic Review, 104(8), 2509–2526.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grubb, D. (2000). Eligibility criteria for unemployment benefits. OECD Economic Studies, 31(II), 147–184.Google Scholar
Hasselpflug, S. (2005). Availability criteria in 25 countries. Ministry of Finance Denmark Working Paper, 12/2005.Google Scholar
Häusermann, S. (2010). The politics of welfare state reform in continental Europe: Modernization in hard times. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Häusermann, S. (2012). The politics of old and new social policies. In Bonoli, G. & Natali, D. (Eds.), The politics of the new welfare state (pp. 111–132). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Häusermann, S., & Palier, B. (2008). The politics of employment-friendly welfare reforms in post-industrial economies. Socio-Economic Review, 6(3), 559–586.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iversen, T., & Cusack, T. R. (2000). The causes of welfare state expansion: Deindustrialization or globalization? World Politics, 52(3), 313–349.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jaggers, K., & Gurr, T. R. (1995). Tracking democracy's third wave with the Polity III data. Journal of Peace Research, 32(4), 469–482.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jahn, D. (2006). Globalization as ‘Galton's Problem’: The missing link in the analysis of diffusion patterns in welfare state development. International Organization, 60(2), 401–431.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jessop, B. (1993). Towards a Schumpeterian workfare state? Preliminary remarks on post-fordist political economy. Studies in Political Economy, 40, 7–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jessop, B. (1999). The changing governance of welfare: Recent trends in its primary functions, scale, and modes of coordination. Social Policy and Administration, 33(4), 348–359.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, D. (1992). The establishment of work-welfare programs in the United States and Britain: Politics, ideas, and Institutions. In Steinmo, S., Thelen, K., & Longstreth, F. (Eds.), Structuring politics. Historical institutionalism in comparative analysis (pp. 217–50). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Knotz, C., & Lindvall, J. (2015). Coalitions and compensation: The case of unemployment benefit duration. Comparative Political Studies, 48(5), 586–615.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knotz, C., & Nelson, M. (2015). The comparative unemployment benefit conditions and sanctions dataset (Vol. 03/2015). Lund: Department of Political Science, Lund University.Google Scholar
Kvist, J. (1998). Complexities in assessing unemployment benefits and policies. International Social Security Review, 51(4), 33–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Langenbucher, K. (2015). How demanding are eligibility criteria for unemployment benefits, quantitative indicators for OECD and EU countries. OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers, 166.Google Scholar
Lindvall, J. (2017). Reform capacity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ministry of Finance Denmark (1998). Availability Criteria in selected OECD countries. Ministry of Finance Denmark Working Paper, 06/1998.Google Scholar
OECD (2007). Employment outlook. Paris: OECD.Google Scholar
Oesch, D., & Bauman, I. (2015). Smooth transition or permanent exit? Evidence on job prospects of displaced industrial workers. Socio-Economic Review, 13(1), 101–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peck, J. (2002). Political economies of scale: Fast policy, interscalar relations, and neoliberal workfare. Economic Geography, 78(3), 331–360.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peck, J. (2003). The rise of the workfare state. Kurswechsel, 3, 75–87.Google Scholar
Peck, J. (2011). Geographies of policy: From transfer-diffusion to mobility-mutation. Progress in Human Geography, 35(6), 773–797.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peck, J., & Theodore, N. (2000). Commentary. ‘Work first’: Workfare and the regulation of contigent labour markets. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 24(1), 119–138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peck, J., & Theodore, N. (2010). Recombinant workfare, across the Americas: Transnationalizing “fast” social policy. Geoforum, 41(2), 195–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pierson, P. (2001). Coping with permanent austerity. Welfare state restructuring in affluent democracies. In Pierson, P. (Ed.), The new politics of the welfare state (pp. 410–456). Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schram, S. F., Soss, J., Fording, R. C., & Houser, L. (2009). Deciding to discipline: Race, choice, and punishment at the frontlines of welfare reform. American Sociological Review, 74(3), 398–422.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sell, S. (1998). Entwicklung und Reform des Arbeitsförderungsgesetzes als Anpassung des Sozialrechts an flexible Erwerbsformen? Zur Zumutbarkeit von Arbeit und Eigenverantwortung von Arbeitnehmern. Mitteilungen aus der Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung, 31(3), 532–49.Google Scholar
Venn, D. (2009). Legislation, collective bargaining and enforcement: Updating the OECD employment protection indicators. OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers, 89.Google Scholar
Venn, D. (2012). Eligibility criteria for unemployment benefits: Quantitative indicators for OECD and EU countries. OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers, 131.Google Scholar
Vis, B. (2007). States of welfare or states of workfare? Welfare state restructuring in 16 capitalist democracies, 1985–2002. Policy and Politics, 35(1), 105–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weishaupt, J. T. (2011). From the manpower revolution to the activation paradigm: Explaining institutional continuity and change in an integrating Europe. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Knotz supplementary material

Knotz supplementary material

Download Knotz supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 54.3 KB