Sustainable welfare and sustainable growth towards a new social settlement in Germany and the UK

1
Sustainable welfare and sustainable growth
towards a new social settlement in Germany and
the UK?

• Programme director
• Jochen Clasen,
• University of Stirling
• (from January 2007 University of Edinburgh)

2
Context

• Two distinct worlds of welfare capitalism
• Similar and distinctive pressures on large
  welfare states
• Which new forms of social protection are
  emerging?
• Are they economically sustainable?
• Are they socially sustainable?

3
Three projects

• Sustainable growth, social inclusion and family
  policy innovative ways of coping with old and
  new challenges
• Mary Daly (Belfast), Sigrid Leitner (Göttingen),
  Martin Seeleib-Kaiser (Oxford)
• Combining social inclusion with financial
  sustainablility? The reconstruction of British
  and German pension regimes
• Paul Bridgen Traute Meyer (Southampton),
  Barbara Riedmüller (FU Berlin)
• Shifting paradigms of social justice
• Steffen Mau (Bremen), Peter Taylor-Gooby (Kent)

4
Steering Committee

• Jørgen Goul Andersen, Aalborg University, Denmark
• Maurizio Ferrera, University of Milan
• Jane Lewis, LSE
• Claus Offe, Hertie School of Governance, Berlin
• Kathleen Thelen, Northwestern University, Chicago

5
Guiding themes

• Changes in core welfare state programmes (welfare
  reform in family policy and pension policy)
• The role of non-statutory provision of social
  protection (firms in particular)
• Shifting attitudes towards public/private
  provision and traditional norms of social justice

6
Families Their capacity to provide child care,
reduce social and educational exclusion and
participate in paid work. What role can employers
play? Pensions The changing landscape of public
and private pensions. How can occupational and
private provision contribute to financial
sustainability and social inclusiveness of
pension regimes? Social justice (norms,
attitudes) Have traditional conceptions of social
justice embodied in the German and British
welfare states changed? How are current welfare
reforms (social investment state reciprocity
private welfare provision) perceived? Do we
witness new forms of social solidarity emerging?
7
Methods

• Secondary and documentary analysis, case
  studies, expert interviews, focus group
  interviews, mapping (e.g. occupational pensions),
  micro-simulations, survey data analysis