scholarly journals The Welfare State and Risk Perceptions: The Novel Coronavirus Pandemic and Public Concern in 70 Countries

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nate Breznau
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Risk Perceptions ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Individual Risk ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Social Risks ◽  
Intervention Measures ◽  
Standard Deviation Range ◽  
Novel Coronavirus ◽  
The Welfare State

The novel coronavirus pandemic led individuals to experience heightened social risks, particularly financial and health related. The strength of a welfare state shapes individual risk perceptions under normal circumstances. My research question is whether it also shapes risk perceptions in abnormal disaster scenarios, for example amidst the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. I test this using the data from the global COVIDiSTRESS survey to compare 70 countries in April of 2020, a month where deaths resulting from Covid-19 affected three-quarters of the world’s societies. Controlling for local timing and severity of the pandemic, welfare state strength predicts lower risk perceptions. However, this it is not a universal effect as I expected. The welfare state impact depends on how quickly a government introduced strong ‘lock down’ measures. The longer it took a government to respond the more the welfare state reduces risk perceptions. Governments that took lock down measures in advance of the virus show no variation in risk perceptions, whereas governments that took 30 days to respond have up to a 1.5 standard deviation range of risk perceptions depending on the strength of the welfare state. I conclude that the welfare state matters very much when governments fail to take effective intervention measures in a global emergency.

scholarly journals Social partners and the welfare state: Recalibration, privatization or collectivization of social risks?

2011 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 349-364 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Johnston ◽  
Andreas Kornelakis ◽  
Costanza Rodriguez d’Acri
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Risks ◽  
Social Partners ◽  
The Welfare State

scholarly journals Social innovation as a policy response to restructure the welfare state

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 269-276
Author(s):  
Doğa Başar Sariipek ◽  
Gökçe Cerev ◽  
Bora Yenihan
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Social Innovation ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
The State ◽  
Welfare Provision ◽  
Civil Society Organisations ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
Social Risks ◽  
The Welfare State

The focus of this paper is the interaction between social innovation and restructuring welfare state. Modern welfare states have been reconfiguring their welfare mixes through social innovation. This includes a productive integration of formal and informal actors with support and leading role of the state. This collaboration becomes significantly important since it means the integration of not only the actors, but also their capabilities and resources in today’s world where new social risks and new social challenges have emerged and no actor can overcome these by its own. Therefore, social innovation is a useful tool in the new role sharing within the welfare mix in order to reach higher levels of satisfaction and success in welfare provision. The main point here is that this is not a zero-sum competition; gaining more power of the actors other than the state – the market, civil society organisations and the family – does not necessarily mean that the state lost its leading role and power. This is rather a new type of cooperation among actors and their capabilities as well as their resources in welfare provision. In this sense, social innovation may contribute well to the debates over the financial crisis of the welfare state since it may lead to the more wisely use of existing resources of welfare actors. Thanks to social innovative programs, not only the NGOs, but also market forces as well as citizens are more active to access welfare provisions and social protection in the broadest sense. Thus, social innovative strategies are definitely a solid step taken towards “enabling” or “active” welfare state.

scholarly journals The development of the Welfare State in Portugal: trends in social expenditure between 1938 and 2003

2010 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 469-501 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Fernando Carolo ◽  
José António Pereirinha
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Data Series ◽  
Social Risk ◽  
Social Expenditure ◽  
Social Risks ◽  
Institutional Structures ◽  
Risk Protection ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Welfare State

AbstractThis paper presents a data series on social expenditure in Portugal for the period 1938-2003. The series was built with the aim of identifying and characterizing the most significant phases in the process leading up to the current welfare state system in this country. The establishment of a social insurance (Previdência) in 1935 was one of the founding pillars of the Estado Novo (New State). Reforms to Social Welfare (Previdência Social) in 1962, while in the full throes of the New State, policy measures taken after the revolution of 1974 and a new orientation for social policy following the accession of Portugal to the European Economic Community (EEC) in the mid-1980s brought about significant transformations in the institutional organizational structure that provided welfare and conferred social rights in Portugal. To understand this process, knowledge is needed of the transformations to the institutional structures governing the organizations that provided welfare, welfare coverage in terms of the type of benefit and the population entitled to social risk protection, the magnitude of spending on benefits associated with these risks, as well as how benefits were allocated between the institutions. We built a data series for the period 1938-1980, which can then be matched to data already published in the OECD Social Expenditure Database from 1980 onwards. As a result, a consistent series for social expenditure from 1938 to 2003 was obtained. The methodology used to create the series enabled us to measure the impact of the variation in population coverage for social risks and the average generosity of benefits on the relative share of social expenditure in GDP. We present an interpretive reading for the full period, covering the New State and the Democracy from 1974, of the process of building the welfare state in Portugal.

A Cross-National Perspective on the American Welfare State

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Lynch
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
The United States ◽  
State Regulation ◽  
Eligibility Criterion ◽  
Social Risks ◽  
Social Goods ◽  
The U.S ◽  
The Welfare State

The welfare system in the United States is not simply “small,”“residualist,” or “laggard.” It is true that protection against standard social risks is generally less comprehensive and less generous in the United States than in other rich democracies, but there are other important differences as well: The U. S. welfare state is unusual in its extensive reliance on private markets to produce public social goods; its geographic variability; its insistence on deservingness as an eligibility criterion; and its orientation toward benefits for the elderly rather than children and working-age adults. Nevertheless, the U.S. welfare state is not sui generis. The actors involved in the construction of the U.S. welfare state, the institutions created in response to social problems, and the contemporary pressures confronting the welfare state all have parallels in other countries. The markets that provide so many social goods in the United States are the products of state action and state regulation, and hence should really be thought of as part of the welfare “state.” Even recent expansions to the welfare state in the United States have, with the partial exception of health-care reform, reinforced old patterns of elderly oriented spending and benefits for worthy (working) adults. In order for the U.S. welfare state to adjust successfully to ensure against new social risks, it must focus more on underdeveloped program areas like health care, child care, early childhood education, and vocational training.

scholarly journals The Swedish paradox explained? Investigating the role of economic inequality and risk perceptions in the Novel Coronavirus Pandemic

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nate Breznau ◽  
Lisa Heukamp ◽  
Hung Nguyen
Keyword(s):  
Risk Perceptions ◽  
Economic Inequality ◽  
Disease Spread ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Government Interventions ◽  
Country Level ◽  
Linear Association ◽  
Non Linear ◽  
Novel Coronavirus

Economic inequality is understood as a country-level risk factor that increases the spread of infectious diseases. The Novel Coronavirus presents somewhat contradictory evidence of this because the most equal countries in the world experienced deaths per capita as high as the most unequal. We label this the ‘Swedish paradox’. We theorize that inequality has a non-linear association with disease spread because of risk perceptions among the public. Risk perceptions that are extreme in either direction – toward nonchalance or outright panic – lead to behaviors that increase infection1. Highly equal countries like Sweden had very low risk perceptions at the beginning of the pandemic and this may have led to individual and public actions that increase infection risk. To test this, we modeled the role of economic inequality on infection through the mediating role of risk perceptions in April, in 74 countries. We measured the intensity of the outbreak and government interventions in March as key predictors of risk perceptions. This lets us identify ‘over’ or ‘under’ concern and whether these extremes in the distribution of risk perceptions predicts infection increase in May, measured as death rates with an 18-day lead. We find that inequality has a large linear association with risk perceptions in April (0.50 as a standardized [beta] coefficient). We find that risk perceptions in April have a moderate association with infection increase in May (0.24 beta) and these effects are non-linear. Societies below a disposable income inequality Gini of around 31 were prone to slightly more infection in May as a function of less inequality, whereas societies above 31 were prone to much more infection as a function of more inequality, all else equal. This offers some clarification of the Swedish paradox; however, the biggest effects of inequality on infection occur at the upper end of the distribution meaning inequality is only a small piece of this puzzle.

Wohlfahrtsstaat und Interessenorganisationen im Wandel

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Labour Unions ◽  
Interest Representation ◽  
Social Risks ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Welfare State

Interest groups within the context of changing welfare states have gained widespread attention within the social sciences. Welfare states and interest groups are being faced with new challenges (e.g. in the context of several changes, such as new social risks). Schwache Interessen (weak interests) (such as poorly qualified ones) are also gaining more attention. This book discusses several different fields of interest representation in the welfare state. It analyses in what way constellations of interest representation have changed in modified welfare state environments. Several different organisations are analysed, including labour unions, the employers’ association and political parties. Moreover, the book also takes umbrella organisations of municipalities, social courts and educational policymakers into account. Until now, they have gained little attention from scholars. With contributions by: Lena Brüsewitz, Imke Friedrich, Sascha Kristin Futh, Tanja Klenk, Ulrike A.C. Müller, Frank Nullmeier, Sabine Ruß-Sattar, Friedbert Rüb, Wolfgang Schroeder, Benedikt Schreiter, Michaela Schulze, Florian Steinmüller, Christoph Strünck, Felix Welti

scholarly journals Female spouses at the doors of fortress Europe

2014 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 245-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maybritt Jill Alpes
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Security Threats ◽  
Migrant Women ◽  
Care Needs ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Daily Work ◽  
Social Risks ◽  
Regulatory Dynamics ◽  
Fortress Europe ◽  
The Welfare State

Abstract This article will focus on marriage related forms of migration in Cameroon and will reconsider the gendered nature of fortress Europe by critically questioning how regulatory technologies at consulate offices grant or withhold access to Europe to both men and women. In their daily work, consulate officers construct some visa applicants and family members as deviant criminals, while others are framed as in need of protection and rescue. Wanting to go away from a statist driven security agenda on migration, I set out to do an ethnography of the regulatory framework of emigration within which people in Cameroon are obliged to try to achieve their ambitions of mobility ‐ amongst others to achieve ‘security’ for the future of their families. I will draw on observations of marriage visa interviews at the French consulate service in Yaoundé, Cameroon. Regulatory dynamics at the French consulate office are driven by fears and accusations that visa applicants might be committing fraud ‐ often with respect to the welfare state ‐ for their selfish personal purposes. I argue that aspiring migrant women are seen as security threats precisely because consulate officers and aspiring migrant women distribute care needs and social risks differently between state, family, and individual.

scholarly journals Estimation of the Transmission Risk of the 2019-nCoV and Its Implication for Public Health Interventions

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 462 ◽  
Author(s):  
Biao Tang ◽  
Xia Wang ◽  
Qian Li ◽  
Nicola Luigi Bragazzi ◽  
Sanyi Tang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Reproduction Number ◽  
Transmission Risk ◽  
Sensitivity Analyses ◽  
Contact Tracing ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Intervention Measures ◽  
Novel Coronavirus ◽  
Restrictive Measures ◽  
And Control ◽  
Travel Restriction

Since the emergence of the first cases in Wuhan, China, the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) infection has been quickly spreading out to other provinces and neighboring countries. Estimation of the basic reproduction number by means of mathematical modeling can be helpful for determining the potential and severity of an outbreak and providing critical information for identifying the type of disease interventions and intensity. A deterministic compartmental model was devised based on the clinical progression of the disease, epidemiological status of the individuals, and intervention measures. The estimations based on likelihood and model analysis show that the control reproduction number may be as high as 6.47 (95% CI 5.71–7.23). Sensitivity analyses show that interventions, such as intensive contact tracing followed by quarantine and isolation, can effectively reduce the control reproduction number and transmission risk, with the effect of travel restriction adopted by Wuhan on 2019-nCoV infection in Beijing being almost equivalent to increasing quarantine by a 100 thousand baseline value. It is essential to assess how the expensive, resource-intensive measures implemented by the Chinese authorities can contribute to the prevention and control of the 2019-nCoV infection, and how long they should be maintained. Under the most restrictive measures, the outbreak is expected to peak within two weeks (since 23 January 2020) with a significant low peak value. With travel restriction (no imported exposed individuals to Beijing), the number of infected individuals in seven days will decrease by 91.14% in Beijing, compared with the scenario of no travel restriction.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document