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A social welfare model is a system of social welfare provision and its accompanying value system. It usually involves social policies that affect the welfare of a country's citizens within the framework of a market or mixed economy.
Taxation is concerned with how the state taxes the people, whether by a flat tax, regressive tax or a progressive tax system. The most common guiding rule of taxation is to levy taxes by the ability to pay.
Social insurance is concerned with how the state implements benefits for the unemployed, pensions, maternity and paternity leave and disabilities.
Services such as health care can be almost entirely state funded, private insurance-based, or somewhere in-between. For example, the United Kingdom has an almost entirely publicly funded health service, the National Health Service (NHS), and Canada offers public health care offered at a provincial level. Conversely, in the United States, individuals have to rely on health insurance policies in the event of hospitalization, and a minimal amount of state support for the poorer people exists. Another element can be public transport, as some countries have nationalized rapid transit systems, while others have privatized them (in the UK for example, public transport has been privatised in Great Britain but not in Northern Ireland).
Economies with a more laissez-faire approach to employment will do nothing to provide job security. Other countries will rely on some degree of regulation to protect workers from arbitrary firings. A high degree of regulation such as expensive severance fees is often cited reason for making employers reluctant to hire and causing unemployment.
Used by the UK, Ireland, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the South Asian countries the British model tends to have a welfare state of roughly average size, relative to high-income OECD countries, but less comprehensive than those in Scandinavia and much of continental Europe. They have somewhat more poverty and higher inequality. Despite having a smaller welfare state than most Western European countries, the UK, Ireland and Canada do provide, among other things, universal single payer health care, redistribute income and guarantee an income at subsistence level. [1]
Used by Austria, France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg, the Continental model has strict rules on job protection and a large amount of regulation in industry. However, the labour market has proven to be inflexible and slow to react to globalization. Generous insurance-based unemployment benefits and a well funded welfare state are used to reduce poverty and provide high quality health care. This model can generally be seen as middle ground between the British and Nordic models.
Used by Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal, the Mediterranean model is similar to the Continental model, but focuses welfare on generous state-pensions. The labour market is inflexible with the same job protectionism as in the Continental model, but is not good at reducing poverty within the lower end of society.[ citation needed ]
The Nordic Model, mainly refers to Nordic countries Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Finland but some include the Netherlands, [2] also called 'Nordic corporatist' model because of strong influence of the corporatist elements such as labor unions and employers' organizations, advocates a highly developed and government-funded welfare state which provides generous unemployment benefits among other resources for the general public. Labor markets are kept mobile with easy firing and hiring, and government taking care of those laid off with unemployment benefits and retraining. The equality of the Nordic model is achieved through progressive taxation. As a result of the policy, Sweden, Denmark and Norway have the lowest income disparities in the world. Nordic countries have been enjoying high economic and productivity growth, but most remarkably they consistently conquer top spots in world happiness surveys. [3] [4]
The welfare systems within the Nordic Model also emerge as highly-rated in many standard international comparisons of welfare or well-being (e.g. World Economic Forum 2020). [5] However, as a limited critique, some Nordic-based welfare and gender researchers have argued that such assessments, based on conventional welfare/well-being criteria, may to some extent over-privilege the Nordic countries in terms of, for instance, gender and racial equality. For example, they suggest that if one takes a broader perspective on well-being incorporating issues associated with bodily integrity or bodily citizenship (Pringle 2011), [6] then some major forms of men’s domination and/or white privilege can be seen to still stubbornly persist in the Nordic countries, e.g. business, violence to women, sexual violence to children, the military, academia and religion (Hearn and Pringle 2006; Hearn et al. 2018; Pringle 2016) [7] [8] [9]
Before the Great Depression, the United States adhered to a social model that could be summarized by the term "rugged individualism": the understanding that because most people are capable of taking care of themselves, each person should be left to succeed or fail on their own, only fettered by the bounds of the law, and the government should be limited to protection of civil liberties. The United States had very little in the way of a social safety net for its citizens, with most people depending on their families and private social organizations if they were unable to provide for themselves; this partially explains the enduring greater emphasis on family and religion in American society and politics today than in other comparably developed countries in Western Europe.
As a result of increased modernization in the late 19th century, this view changed in the emergence of the Progressive Movement, which held that the government can and should have a greater role in regulating the economy, so as to promote a better life for all of its citizens. The biggest change came with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal, during which time the American government intervened extensively in the economy, guided often by Keynesian economics. New programs included relief for the poor, unemployed, and those who cannot work due to youth, old age, or disability.
However, since the Great Depression, the United States has not followed other developed democracies in the establishment of a more comprehensive model for assuring its citizens' well being. One possible explanation for this is that the U.S was not affected in the same way by World War II as Europe was: while Europeans relied on strong centralized governments to help rebuild their economies after two world wars, the United States was enjoying a period of unprecedented economic growth due to its being one of the few industrialized countries on the planet whose productive capacity had not been destroyed by enemy nations. But now, with the rise of industrial and geo-political competition in Europe and Asia, growing income inequality, high energy prices, and mounting public debt, there is renewed debate over the role of government in modern society.
For more comprehensive information, see Social programs in the United States
The economy of Norway is a highly developed mixed economy with state-ownership in strategic areas. Although sensitive to global business cycles, the economy of Norway has shown robust growth since the start of the industrial era. The country has a very high standard of living compared with other European countries, and a strongly integrated welfare system. Norway's modern manufacturing and welfare system rely on a financial reserve produced by exploitation of natural resources, particularly North Sea oil.
The welfare state of the United Kingdom began to evolve in the 1900s and early 1910s, and comprises expenditures by the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland intended to improve health, education, employment and social security. The British system has been classified as a liberal welfare state system.
A welfare state is a form of government in which the state protects and promotes the economic and social well-being of its citizens, based upon the principles of equal opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth, and public responsibility for citizens unable to avail themselves of the minimal provisions for a good life.
Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifically to social insurance programs which provide support only to those who have previously contributed, as opposed to social assistance programs which provide support on the basis of need alone. The International Labour Organization defines social security as covering support for those in old age, support for the maintenance of children, medical treatment, parental and sick leave, unemployment and disability benefits, and support for sufferers of occupational injury.
Unemployment benefits, also called unemployment insurance, unemployment payment, unemployment compensation, or simply unemployment, are payments made by authorized bodies to unemployed people. In the United States, benefits are funded by a compulsory governmental insurance system, not taxes on individual citizens. Depending on the jurisdiction and the status of the person, those sums may be small, covering only basic needs, or may compensate the lost time proportionally to the previous earned salary.
Economic interventionism, sometimes also called state interventionism, is an economic policy position favouring government intervention in the market process with the intention of correcting market failures and promoting the general welfare of the people. An economic intervention is an action taken by a government or international institution in a market economy in an effort to impact the economy beyond the basic regulation of fraud, enforcement of contracts, and provision of public goods and services. Economic intervention can be aimed at a variety of political or economic objectives, such as promoting economic growth, increasing employment, raising wages, raising or reducing prices, promoting income equality, managing the money supply and interest rates, increasing profits, or addressing market failures.
Universal health care is a health care system in which all residents of a particular country or region are assured access to health care. It is generally organized around providing either all residents or only those who cannot afford on their own, with either health services or the means to acquire them, with the end goal of improving health outcomes.
Social insurance is a form of social welfare that provides insurance against economic risks. The insurance may be provided publicly or through the subsidizing of private insurance. In contrast to other forms of social assistance, individuals' claims are partly dependent on their contributions, which can be considered insurance premiums to create a common fund out of which the individuals are then paid benefits in the future.
Economic progressivism or fiscalprogressivism is a political and economic philosophy incorporating the socioeconomic principles of social democrats and political progressives. These views are often rooted in the concept of social justice and have the goal of improving the human condition through government regulation, social protections and the maintenance of public goods. It is not to be confused with the more general idea of progress in relation to economic growth.
Social welfare, assistance for the ill or otherwise disabled and the old, has long been provided in Japan by both the government and private companies. Beginning in the 1920s, the Japanese government enacted a series of welfare programs, based mainly on European models, to provide medical care and financial support. During the post-war period, a comprehensive system of social security was gradually established.
Men's studies is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to topics concerning men, masculinity, gender, culture, politics and sexuality. It academically examines what it means to be a man in contemporary society.
The Italian welfare state is based partly upon the corporatist-conservative model and partly upon the universal welfare model.
The Nordic model comprises the economic and social policies as well as typical cultural practices common in the Nordic countries. This includes a comprehensive welfare state and multi-level collective bargaining based on the economic foundations of social corporatism, and a commitment to private ownership within a market-based mixed economy—with Norway being a partial exception due to a large number of state-owned enterprises and state ownership in publicly listed firms.
The European social model is a concept that emerged in the discussion of economic globalization and typically contrasts the degree of employment regulation and social protection in European countries to conditions in the United States. It is commonly cited in policy debates in the European Union, including by representatives of both labour unions and employers, to connote broadly "the conviction that economic progress and social progress are inseparable" and that "[c]ompetitiveness and solidarity have both been taken into account in building a successful Europe for the future".
Welfare in France includes all systems whose purpose is to protect people against the financial consequences of social risks.
The United States spends approximately $2.3 trillion on federal and state social programs include cash assistance, health insurance, food assistance, housing subsidies, energy and utilities subsidies, and education and childcare assistance. Similar benefits are sometimes provided by the private sector either through policy mandates or on a voluntary basis. Employer-sponsored health insurance is an example of this.
Redistribution of income and wealth is the transfer of income and wealth from some individuals to others through a social mechanism such as taxation, welfare, public services, land reform, monetary policies, confiscation, divorce or tort law. The term typically refers to redistribution on an economy-wide basis rather than between selected individuals.
Social security or welfare in Finland is very comprehensive compared to what almost all other countries provide. In the late 1980s, Finland had one of the world's most advanced welfare systems, which guaranteed decent living conditions to all Finns. Created almost entirely during the first three decades after World War II, the social security system was an outgrowth of the traditional Nordic belief that the state is not inherently hostile to the well-being of its citizens and can intervene benevolently on their behalf. According to some social historians, the basis of this belief was a relatively benign history that had allowed the gradual emergence of a free and independent peasantry in the Nordic countries and had curtailed the dominance of the nobility and the subsequent formation of a powerful right wing. Finland's history was harsher than the histories of the other Nordic countries but didn't prevent the country from following their path of social development.
Gender and Welfare State Regimes is an organizing concept that focuses a country's traditional social welfare policies in terms of how it influences employment and general social structure. Gender in terms of the welfare state regime varies based on how a nation perceives and acts on the value of gender. Within gender and welfare state regimes there are three central perspectives. The first perspective is the liberal welfare state, which is utilized in the United Kingdom and Ireland. This regime believes in minimal government intervention and promotes privatization of the economy in order to create equality. The second perspective is the conservative welfare state that is utilized in Germany, France, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Italy. This regime revolves around traditional family values and believes the economy should be structured around status differentiating programs that are earnings related. The third perspective is the Social Democratic welfare state that is utilized in the Scandinavian countries. This regime is characterized by universalism and believes in full employment, income protection and a strongly interventionist state.
Poverty in Norway had been declining from World War II until the Global Financial Crisis. It is now increasing slowly, and is significantly higher among immigrants from the Middle East and Africa. Before an analysis of poverty can be undertaken, the definition of poverty must first be established, because it is a subjective term. The measurement of poverty in Norway deviates from the measurement used by the OECD. Norway traditionally has been a global model and leader in maintaining low levels on poverty and providing a basic standard of living for even its poorest citizens. Norway combines a free market economy with the welfare model to ensure both high levels of income and wealth creation and equal distribution of this wealth. It has achieved unprecedented levels of economic development, equality and prosperity.
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