POL S 354 Welfare States in Comparison

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POL S 354 Welfare States in Comparison

• Lecture 7
• Conservative welfare States Germany

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Lecture outline

• Introduction
• Recap conservative/corporatist welfare states
• The foundations of Germanys welfare state
• Race and gender in the corporatist model
• Crisis, challenge and change
• Summary

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1. Introduction

• Germany is usually considered to be an archetypal
  conservative welfare state
• German welfare has historically enjoyed
  considerable support and institutional stability
• Social policies of East and West Germany had
  divergent implications for gender
• Recent governments have responded to new problems
  such as long term unemployment and aging by
  implementing neo-liberal reforms to welfare

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2. Recap conservative/corporatist welfare states

• The state uses generous social insurance to
  preserve inequalities Bismarckian
• Limited redistribution
• Principle of subsidiarity
• Catholic Church, traditional family
• Germany, Austria, France, Italy
• Moderate de-commodification
• Moderate stratification

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3. The foundations of Germanys welfare state

• Bismarck defensive modernization (Zapf)
• 1880s occupationally segregated pension schemes
• Securing the support of civil servants
• Corporatist employers and unions negotiate
  sector-wide terms (Kitschelt and Streecht)
• Institutionalized class solidarity (Offe)
• Employment is full time and long term

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Subsidiarity

• Rather than provide services, the German state
  has tended to regulate non-government actors
  unions, employers, churches
• Church-based organizations have a significant
  role in service delivery
• Social assistance and services are the
  responsibility of the Lander (provincial)
  governments geographical variation
• Subsiding womens home-making insurance
  co-entitlements

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The post-war miracle in the FRG

• The Marshall Plan (1947)
• West Germanys Basic Law (1949)
• German social policy as a middle way between
  capitalism and socialism (Leibfried)
• Highest social spending in the West (in net
  terms)
• Success in the 1970s and 1980s while liberal
  welfare states floundered economically

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4. Race and gender in the German model(s)

• The German state has historically actively
  enforced a single male breadwinner model
• Bismarckian social insurance is
  employment-centered disadvantages those with
  limited connections to work
• Constitutional provisions discouraging working
  mothers
• Until 1977 women had to seek written permission
  from husbands to work

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• Limited public child care, especially below 3
  years and above schooling age
• Lack of a low wage service sector limits
  opportunities for unskilled women and the
  supply of child care
• Part time work discouraged by regulations
• Lone parents receive limited state support and
  have low employment rates child support plays
  major role

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Women and welfare in the German Democratic
Republic (East Germany)

• The above observations apply to social policy in
  the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany)
• Women in East Germany had very high employment
  participation rates
• The GDR provided extensive state-sponsored child
  care
• Women expected to undertake home making as well
  as work the double-shift

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Ethnicity, immigration and welfare

• German notions of nationality and citizenship
  based on blood rather than birth place
• Persons of German descent have enjoyed
  privileged immigration status and welfare rights
  (Kymlicka)
• Guest workers constitutional rights,
  exclusionary policy discourses and labor market
  discrimination (Joppke)

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5. Crisis, challenge and change

• 1980s Helmut Kohls CDU/CSU coalition
  consolidating the welfare state
• Cutting social spending
• Reunification 1990 triumph of capitalism
• Extension of the Western model into the East,
  retrenchment of GDRs extensive child care system

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• 1990s very high unemployment in the East -
  social spending at 55.5 of GDP
• Privileging immigrants of German descent from the
  former USSR until 1993
• Institutional stability now seen by some as a
  hindrance to making Germany more flexible
• The demographic crisis
• Concern about non wage labor costs

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• The rise of xenophobia and Neo-Nazism
• Major areas of retrenchment under Kohl asylum
  seekers and immigrants from former Eastern Bloc

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Schroders reforms

• The Hartz Commission (2002)
• Agenda 2010 reducing tax rates, encouraging
  female employment, making pensions sustainable
• The Riester Rente (2002) Germanys first private
  pension
• Increasing labor flexibility midi- and mini-jobs

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• Hartz IV merging unemployment and social welfare
  benefits, cutting rates and duration, requiring
  work
• Public opposition to reforms the new Monday
  Demonstrations
• The new politics of welfare spending determined
  by available funds, not need (Pierson, Leibfried)

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6. Summary

• Five historical pillars of German welfare
  employment, corporatism, subsidiarity,
  patriarchy, race (Poole)
• The East German model does not fit into the
  conservative regime type
• West Germanys middle way was once seen as the
  key to the post war miracle, but it is
  increasingly characterized as impeding necessary
  reforms in the context of globalization

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• German welfare is slowly shifting away from the
  conservative approach and towards a more
  individualized, liberal model of social protection

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Next weeks readings

• Cochrane et al (2001) Chapter 6
• OECD (2004)

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Questions for discussion

• How does the principle of subsidiarity operate in
  practice in Germany?
• What is the role of race and gender in German
  social policy?
• How would you characterize East German social
  policy in relation to Esping-Andersens approach?
• Are recent reforms moving Germany away from the
  conservative model, and if so, how?

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Agenda 2010

• Why, according to the Federal Government, must
  the German welfare state be reformed?
• What are the key policy instruments that are
  being used to restore Germanys economic
  performance?
• In what ways does the reform agenda preserve and
  undermine the conservative model?
• Evaluate the notion of sustainability as it is
  used throughout the report.