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PurposeThe family is one of the foundations of society; its significance for societal redistribution in modern societies, though, remains particularly unclear. A major reason for this is that theoretical approaches to societal redistribution have not adequately included family either in social philosophy or in welfare state theory. As a consequence, also empirical analyses of differences and developments in societal redistribution have not included family or only in as far as family is affected by other redistributive principles. This paper contributes to filling this theoretical gap.Design/methodology/approachThis paper theorises family as a redistributive principle. With reference to the major theoretical concepts of redistribution, it identifies the relevant dimensions of family in societal redistribution and develops a typology of its inclusion in societal redistribution.FindingsApproaches to redistribution are shaped by distinct concepts of equal or unequal exchange, the relevant actors they identify and by different understandings of the economy. These distinctions are central to understanding the position of family in societal redistribution. With reference to the major theoretical concepts of redistribution, this paper identifies the relevant dimensions of family in societal redistribution and develops a typology of its inclusion in societal redistribution. Further investigations might draw on this typology and detect the theoretical foundations of its conceptualisations and its similarities to and deviations from the developed types.Originality/valueThis paper provides a theoretical groundwork for theoretical and empirical investigations of societal redistribution and for better comprehending its international variation. It aims to initiate a fundamental rethinking of the usual understanding of societal redistribution that widely ignores family as a redistributive principle of its own.

Objective: In this contribution, the question is raised in how far family care work is covered in the social rights of European welfare states, focussing on pension entitlements for family-provided long-term care. Background: Old-age pensions are the major redistributive system of present-day societies. Central to current discourses on pensions and their reforms is the relevance of work as paid employment for building up pension rights. Family care work is largely disregarded, although established welfare states broadly cover also this work form in their pension systems. Method: By applying the SCQual method, this article systematically quantifies current pension entitlements for family-provided long-term care in ten European countries, and their change. It reflects on the results by means of testing assumptions drawn from the most relevant research strands in the field and contributes to contextualising cross-national variation and change. Results: The results show that pension entitlements for family-provided long-term care are found in most of our study countries, and that all the assumptions deduced from the literature, with regard to both cross-national variation and change in entitlements, are refuted by the empirical findings. Conclusion: This study contributes to both the conceptual challenges of comparative welfare state research in general, and the concrete analysis of social rights entitlements. These are based not only on paid employment, but in most European countries also on family care work, as has been shown here. The conceptual differences and changes are fruitfully addressed in this contribution.

PurposeMuch has been said about institutional change and the forms it can take, whether it is abrupt or incremental, path breaking or path dependent. This strand of research is highly relevant in times of welfare institutional reforms and changes. A puzzle, however, remains, and it concerns the empirical phenomena that there might be institutional inertia despite seeming change. One reason for this remaining puzzle is, as argued here, that the ongoing theoretical reflections have a certain blind spot: "institutional constellations" and their characteristics. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to analyse the "layering" of a welfare institution which results in an institutional constellation.Design/methodology/approachSuch newly established institutional constellations, though they look roughly similar and are formed of comparable ingredients, can differ profoundly between themselves. This could be due to the fact that the characteristics of institutions depend on the regulating principles (the "spirit") implemented in them. To validate this hypothesis, the author analyses in depth the institutional layering in two traditionally different social protection systems: the Dutch and the German pension systems.FindingsIn both cases, as the author shows, the traditional regulating principles are also implemented in the newly established institutional constellation, so that in the end pension systems do not change but differ as they did before.Originality/valueThe empirical phenomenon of institutional inertia despite seeming change has not yet been explicitly addressed. This is the case since the ongoing theoretical reflections have a certain blind spot: "institutional constellations" and their characteristics which are the focus of this paper.

Die Verfasserin legt eine Fallstudie zu den Niederlanden vor, die den Systemwechsel von gesetzlichen Alterssicherungssystemen zu öffentlich-privaten Mischsystemen dokumentiert. Vor dem Hintergrund des Vergleichs des deutschen und des niederländischen Alterssicherungssystems schätzt die Autorin die Folgen dieses Systemwechsels für das Risiko ab, in der Lebensphase Alter armutsgefährdet zu sein. Das deutsche System scheint tendenziell trotz der Umverteilungselemente - etwa in der Riester-Rente - mehr Hindernisse für ein ausreichendes Alterseinkommen bereitzuhalten als das niederländische, in dem insbesondere der zweiten Säule durch stark regulierte obligatorische Betriebsrenten eine größere Bedeutung für die Armutsvermeidung zukommt. (ICE2)

The restructuring of modern capitalist welfare states is characterised by the tendency to individualise social protection. This article develops a simple and conceptually sound typology to analyse and classify these reforms and measures with regard to their effects on women's financial well-being. It distinguishes between policy measures that aim to improve women's financial situations, policies that reduce women's benefits and 'gender neutral' policies. For distinguishing between policies that have a positive or negative effect on women's (own) financial situation, I introduce three sets of criteria. The direct elimination of negative discriminatory constraints can work out positively for women. On the other hand, if the conditions that originally motivated the establishment of positive discrimination remain, the elimination of earlier forms of (positive) discrimination can bring unexpected hardship. Therefore, their abolition is often is phased in over quite long periods of time. Other policies that offer new opportunities may benefit certain specific groups of women. However, for a majority of women, they entail a proportional reduction in their entitlements.

PurposeCurrently, 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/approachThis 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.FindingsThese very different concepts of outsourcing social protection have implications for social inequalities, new insecurities and foreseeable under‐insurance. This is because, on the one hand, social protection redesign changes the obligatory character of social insurance, and on the other, it changes the social construction of the "adequately" protected which may no longer correspond to the factual situation of various groups of citizens.Originality/valueThe outlines of upcoming gaps in social protection, however, cannot adequately be grasped by the differentiation between "insiders" and "outsiders" of welfare systems. Although these gaps are related to status, they are more the result of life‐course trajectories, life‐course timing and age, implying that both the two current policy paths change intra‐ as well as inter‐generational differences in social protection. The characteristics of the two policy concepts and their foreseeable implications for social inequalities are analysed.

This book offers an analysis of European capitalist welfare societies, centering on the questions of sustainability and the financing of social rights. Capitalism is defined as a multi-model economy, comprising of a market economy (including production, distribution and exchange), a state welfare economy (based on compulsory transfers, such as taxes and social contributions), a household economy and a voluntary economy. The resources for the welfare economy are produced by some activities of the life course, and used by other activities, once rights over these resources are acquired. Setting out a new conceptual framework that integrates an adapted version of the theory of instituted economic processes with the changing structuration of the life course in European countries, the book argues that European capitalist welfare societies are not sustainable in their present form and that the future financing of social rights is conditional on substantial transformations. The book also analyzes relevant data on the socio-economic positioning of women and migrants.

Redistribution is one of the main characteristics of the welfare state, and welfare state research has dealt intensely with various facets of it. The main focus in analysing redistribution is on the redistributive logics of welfare states in terms of work-related rights. Family as a major principle of welfare state redistribution, though, has hardly been included in these welfare state analyses. It has mainly been addressed by analysing outcome data or by analysing care as the most relevant characteristic of the family. We argue, though, that comparative welfare state analysis that addresses differences in welfare state intended redistribution needs to also include family as a redistributive principle to gain a more complete picture of societal redistribution. In this study, we are analysing the redistributive logics of welfare states in terms of family. We answer the question of how and in how far welfare states institutionalize family as a redistributive principle. We examine by means of the tax–benefit microsimulation model EUROMOD and its Hypothetical Household Tool (HHoT) welfare state regulations on family for three countries that are generally classed as different regime types. We differentiate between a great variety of family forms (referring to marital status, children and different forms of couples' income distribution) to adequately test our theoretical assumptions. The findings show that family is a major redistributive principle of the welfare states analysed here and applied in different redistributive logics to the various family forms. This, then, results in an increase in income for certain family forms and a decrease in income for other family forms. These differences are not the result of one coherent set of regulations, but of an interplay of in part contradictory regulations that reflect a great variety of family-related redistributive logics within the single countries. Thus our study provides new insights into the redistributive logics of welfare states, and may contribute to the analysis of welfare state complexity in terms of theory, methodology and empirics.

Countries around the world have undertaken pension reforms and introduced market-based schemes to replace parts of existing public schemes. Previous research has shown how these reforms are often driven by a commitment to individualisation, and accompanied by rhetoric that encourages 'self-responsibility'. To date, however, no research has examined the effects of this shift on family-related pension entitlements. In response, this article provides a critical analysis of whether family-related pension rights have, indeed, decreased in the course of marketisation. Through a systematic comparison of Austria and Germany, we show that this is not the case: family-related rights have been included in newly introduced market-based schemes; and pension reforms did not lead to individualisation in either existing public or market-based schemes. As a result, we argue that reform trajectories are path-dependent and contextual; and that future studies should focus on non-individual entitlements when assessing welfare marketisation in general and pension reforms in particular.

Self-responsibility is a prominent keyword in social policy and in welfare state reforms. The concept of self-responsibility, though, has never been clearly dissected for welfare state analysis. In particular, the debate on the turn toward self-responsibility in welfare states has not been adequately conceptualized, nor has the institutionalization of the family in welfare states been correspondingly analyzed, though all welfare states, to different degrees, apply family-related conditions to social rights. In other words, welfare states have treated individuals with family differently from individuals without family, and this has an impact on the interpretation of the turn toward self-responsibility. In this contribution, we systematically and comparatively analyze welfare state change in the family-related conditions applied to social rights, in order to identify shifts in financial responsibility for social rights from the public realm to either the individual or the family. We analyze changes occurring between 1993 and 2013 for two social security levels and two target groups in six European countries. Our findings show that trends toward reducing public financial responsibility, as in shifting financial responsibility for social security from the public realm back to citizens, have not prevailed. On the contrary, public financial responsibility for social rights has in part increased and in part been reshifted onto the family, so that self-responsibility is subsumed here under the concept of subsidiarity, and therewith refers to a nonindividualized "self". Citizens, in other words, are not increasingly conceived by welfare state regulations as isolated and self-reliant individuals, but as subjects embedded in both the public and family spheres.