Suchergebnisse

Family policies have traditionally been weak in Southern Europe. In the last two decades, however, and following a 'catching up' course, Spain has created new family programmes and expanded existing ones. Meanwhile, the picture for Italy during the years preceding the crisis is more of a 'frozen landscape'. However, the diverging paths of the two countries in terms of policy reform in the years preceding the crisis do not place them in substantially different positions. The economic crisis and the austerity measures that followed have aggravated the weaknesses of family and care policies in both countries. Adapted from the source document.

Faced with the problems associated with an ageing society, many European countries have adopted innovative policies to achieve a better balance between the need to expand social care and the imperative to curb public spending. Although embedded within peculiar national traditions, these new policies share some characteristics: (a) a tendency to combine monetary transfers to families with the provision of in-kind services; (b) the establishment of a new social care market based on competition; (c) the empowerment of users through their increased purchasing power; and (d) the introduction of funding measures intended to foster care-giving through family networks. This article presents the most significant reforms recently introduced in six European countries (France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK) as regards long-term care. It analyses their impact at the macro- (institutional and quantitative), meso- (service delivery structures) and micro-level (families, caregivers and people in need). As a result the authors find a general trend towards convergence in social care among the countries, and the emergence of a new type of government regulation designed to restructure rather than to reduce welfare programmes.

This book analyses recent reform trends of European health care systems. Using eight European countries case studies it connects policy reforms with a healthcare quadrilemma, and compares how well these systems perform in terms of economic efficiency, medical achievements, social inequalities, and responsiveness to patients and workers

AbstractThe article provides an assessment to what extent reforms of occupational pensions (OP) have fostered a "risk shift" or increased social protection dualism across countries. The essay focuses on workers, whilst previous research primarily analyzed provision for current pensioners. The empirical analysis confirms that in countries such as the Netherlands and Sweden, increased private pension or (OP) provision does not necessarily lead towards social protection dualism and comprehensive risk shifts. Britain continues to be characterized by strong social protection dualism and entrenched social divides, creating "social policy enclaves". Divisions of welfare are also very likely to be a feature of the German pension system in the future. The latter two countries have witnessed clear risk shifts and processes of dualization. The pension systems in Austria, Italy, and Spain have not witnessed paradigmatic changes, and continue to be primarily based on public/statutory pension schemes. The idea that multi‐pillarization in itself fosters major risk shifts and dualization has to be reconsidered. Under specific conditions, encompassing OPs can be functionally equivalent to public pension schemes. However, countries relying on voluntarism with regard to OPs coverage tend to witness processes of dualization.