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ABSTRACT
This article analyses narrative stories used by the Chinese government to connect the problem of population ageing to welfare reform. The findings derived from semi-structural interviews and key policy documents suggest the unfolding of the narrative stories of power and stories of rising and stories of decline. The narrative stories in the developmental Chinese welfare state are diverse and stem from different processes than those for the mature European welfare states. The Narrative stories also vary for different policy areas. For inequality and health-care policies, under the master narrative of story of power, state depicts 'stories of giving-to-give' to support expansion in the traditional 'old risk' type of policies to main population, including the elderly. For long-term care, the power narrative of 'giving-to-shape' legitimizes the expansionary reforms for a small group of deserving frail elderly. Behind this political framing of long-term care reform lies the story of decline that justifies the modest role of state provision in the organization of long-term care and leaves the responsibility for economic, social and spiritual wellbeing for the society itself. The story of decline in China also gravitates around sustainability of societies rather than around financial sustainability commonly underlining the political debate in the West.

It has been suggested that similar challenges in the socio-economic environments of European welfare states necessitate convergence of national social security benefit programmes. However, convergence remains an ambiguous matter in social policy research, both with regard to its conceptualisation and to its operationalisation. This article attempts to contribute to this debate by revisiting the concept of convergence and analysing empirically the welfare reforms in three European countries (the UK, the Netherlands, Finland) and two benefit programmes (unemployment and disability insurance benefit programmes) over a period of 26 years (1980–2006). Based on data relating to legal changes in benefit rights and conditions, it is argued that changes in European social security programme have, over time, moved the programmes towards common points. The reforms in the countries that are examined highlight four trends, namely increased work-relatedness in benefit rules, growing activation of benefit recipients, more stringent targeting of the programmes and reduced generosity of benefit entitlements. The data are also used to demonstrate the importance of an analytical approach as a general theoretical device: the article demonstrates how convergence occurred only at the level of broad policy goals, and not at the level of policy instruments.

AbstractThis article seeks to understand how, within the open method of coordination peer review process, the European Union (EU) together with member states envision the processes of European integration within the employment policy field. Our theoretical framework draws light on alternatives, nuances, and tendencies of discursive potential for transcending the neoliberal image at the core of the European Social Policy literature. A content analysis of employment guidelines (1998–2015) and best practices in the peer review programs for employment policies (1999–2015) shows how the EU seeks to find credible roles for itself in employment policy and how in this process different ideas and even more practices prevail. We find clues for transcending the neoliberal picture, visions of a different Europe that is more in accord with the European values of liberal Social Europe and cosmopolitan Social Europe than is generally proposed in this context.

This article investigates government‐level intentions on work/family reconciliation policies in Finland and the Netherlands. By analyzing the coalition programs between 1995 and 2016, it traces three dominant ideas of equal treatment, employment promotion, and social investment in the reconciliation policy discourses in these countries. The content analysis shows a general tendency toward labor promotion in both countries and weak steps toward social investment have been taken. The dominant ideas seem, however, reasonably stable over time.

The European Employment Strategy (EES) has opened up new dynamics of Europeanization in the area of social policy. This article proposes to pay more attention to national core executives and their strategic use of the EES when considering its impact. Through core executives, the EES may not only affect domestic policy agendas, but also decision-making on reform. A comparative case study of activating employment policy reforms in the Netherlands and Germany evaluates expectations about how these agents upload and download ideas to and from the EU level. The findings indicate that uploading is facilitated by holding the EU presidency and a good fit with EES prescriptions, while downloading does not seem to depend on prior uploading and degree of fit but on other domestic factors. True strategic use of the EES by core executives following a sequence of uploading and downloading appears to be contingent on several contextual factors.

This article analyzes rhetoric as a mean of ideology reproduction on the base of digital public rhetoric of Hamburg's government on smart city agenda. With the aim to grasp ideology behind the technological optimist rhetoric about smart city and research its effects and functions, an interpretative analysis of empty signifiers was conducted. Interpretations of Horkheimer and Adorno, 2izek and Lacan serve as background for the research, which are introduced to enrich an existing (mainly Foucauldian) set of smart city critique. Inspired by critical theory, this analysis shows that ideology is reproduced by culture industry and indicates tendencies to implement instrumental reason, to harmonize the existing social and economic contradictions and mainly reproduces economic interests. Since the researched rhetors are as politicians in power to materialize their ideological convictions, the mystification of technology plays a crucial role as disciplining and controlling measure, which aims to stabilize and justify status quo and maintain the existing inequalities. Derived rhetoric elements, which indicate categorization of citizenship and reductionism of environmental issues demonstrate the high societal relevance of the study and emphasize the urgent need for critique on progressing urban digitalization. ; Peer reviewed

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to show how the interplay between individual women's gender role attitudes, having young children at home, as well as the country-context characterized by gender egalitarianism and public childcare support, relates to women's working hours in 23 European countries.


Design/methodology/approach
– This study presents results of multilevel regression analyses of data from the European Social Survey (Round 2). These micro-level data on 23 European countries were combined with country-level measures on gender traditionalism and childcare expenditure.


Findings
– The authors found that the negative association between having young children at home and women's working hours is stronger for women with traditional gender role attitudes compared to women with egalitarian attitudes. The gap in working hours between women with and without young children at home was smaller in countries in which the population holds egalitarian gender role attitudes and in countries with extensive public childcare support. Furthermore, it was found that the gap in employment hours between mothers with traditional or egalitarian attitudes was largest in countries with limited public childcare support.


Social implications
– Policy makers should take note that women's employment decisions are not dependent on human capital and household-composition factors alone, but that gender role attitudes matter as well. The authors could not find evidence of the inequality in employment between women with different gender role attitudes being exacerbated in association with childcare support.


Originality/value
– The originality of this study lies in the combined (rather than separate) analysis of how countries' social policies (childcare services) and countries' attitudes (gender traditionalism) interact with individual gender role attitudes to shape cross-national variation in women's working hours.

AbstractThis article presents the results of a systematic literature review of research articles (N = 72) to study the governance logic of integrated activation policies and the problems relating to reintegrating welfare benefits with services. The inductive study of the problems indicated in the literature demonstrates both the vertical and horizontal aspects of the governance of integrated activation at the street level: challenges are tied to the top‐down activation policy; requirements and strategies of delivering benefits and services; collaboration and coordination in delivery chains; and risks and inequality that streel‐level bureaucrats are trying to deal with in their work. The results point primarily to flaws in the vertical governance of activation, such as frontline work problems and collaborative practices between different actors and agencies. Moreover, some problems relating to collaboration and coordination, pointed towards the challenges in horizontal governance of activation. The article, however, demonstrates how the governance of integrated activation requires a coupling of these different streams of governance and understanding governance as a complex network of interdependencies and causal connections between institutions, organisations, and co‐production with end users.

AbstractThis paper offers an empirical account of the engagement and success of nonprofits in contracting for elderly care in China and the Netherlands as two contrasting contexts. While contracting as an innovation demonstrates a state-centered approach in China, its Dutch counterpart has sought a balance between state and professional influences. The paper argues that public sector reforms, civil society development and social regulation support schemes contextualize the engagement and success of nonprofits in contracting for elderly care. Surveys among the managers of 176 elderly care organizations in Shanghai and 70 elderly care organizations in the Netherlands shows that the fundamental elements of nonprofit contracting in elderly care are strikingly similar between both contexts, although their manifestation is shaped by each specific institutional context.

AbstractNordic welfare states are known for their universalistic and all‐encompassing approach to welfare and having a long tradition for active labour market policy as tool in economic crises with adverse impact on employment. They have had a long tradition for strong egalitarian approaches and their residents are consistently among the happiest in the world. A key issue is whether a crisis like the COVID‐19 outbreak is changing the Nordic welfare states. This article focuses on providing a description of what instruments the Nordic countries have taken or expect to use as part of dealing with the welfare challenges resulting from rising unemployment and greater social and economic insecurity in the wake of the crisis. The tentative conclusion is that the crisis so far has strengthened key characteristics of the Nordic welfare states by the state taking on a strong central role not only for the functioning of the market but also continued in a path‐dependent way with universal and relatively generous benefits such as for those who become unemployed or have reduced income because of the crisis.

This article examines to what extent Dutch municipalities have adapted new local prostitution regulations to local needs and demands following decentralisation in 2000. We examined the extent to which a national template is locally adapted, and which factors inspired such adaptations. We found that many municipalities extensively copied the regulatory template developed by the Dutch Association of Municipalities. Our analyses show that – unexpectedly and contrary to popular arguments on the merits of decentralisation – local needs and demands played no major role in explaining local policy-adaptations. Political fragmentation and size-related municipal resources however do explain differences in local adaptations.