Un nuevo equilibrio de bienestar

From both a quantity and quality perspective, children occupy centre-stage in any welfare equilibrium. Very low fertility does not correspond to citizens’ desires and will, in the long haul, have dire societal consequences. Insufficient investment in the quality of our children will adversely affect their life chances as adults and will also harm our economic well-being. Children are a collective asset and the cost of having children is rising, in particular as women embrace the norm of life-long employment. The double challenge is to eliminate the constraints on having children in the first place, and to ensure that the children we have are ensured optimal opportunities. In the following I analyze the twin challenges of fertility and child development. I then examine which kind of policy mix will ensure both the socially desired level of fertility and investment in our children. The task is to identify a Paretian optimum that will ensure efficiency and social equity gains simultaneously

Decommodification and work absence in the welfare state

Digitised version produced by the EUI Library and made available online in 2020

The Role of Social Institutions in Inter-Generational Mobility

The primary goal of inter-generational mobility (IGM) research has always been to explain how and why social origins influence peoples’ life chances. This has naturally placed family attributes at centre stage. But the role of social institutions, most notably education systems, as a mediating factor has also been central to IGM theory. Indeed, generations of stratification research were premised on the core assumption that equalizing access to education would weaken the impact of social origins. In theory, policies, institutions, as well as macro-economic and historical context, have been identified as crucial in shaping patterns of social mobility (D’Addio, 2007). But apart from education, empirical research has contributed little concrete evidence on how this occurs.

Revitalizing the Japanese Economy by Socializing Risk

The almost continuous stagnation of the Japanese economy for the past two decades has had an adverse impact on Japanese households from at least three perspectives: A decline in the standard of living, an increase in risks and uncertainties relating to livelihood, employment, old age, etc., and an increase in income inequality. The majority of economists and policymakers focus their attention on the increase in income inequality. The research discussed here, however, focuses on the increase in risk and uncertainty among households and individuals. Based on this research, we propose a shift to a policy regime centering on the socialization of risk, which will make possible a transition from a society in which individuals bear excessive risks to one in which risk is shared equitably by society as a whole

Privatization and the postsocialist fertility decline

In this article, we analyze the privatization of companies as a potential but so far neglected factor behind the postsocialist fertility decline. We test this hypothesis using a novel database comprising information on the demographic and enterprise trajectories of 52 Hungarian towns between 1989-2006 and a cross-country dataset of 28 countries in Eastern Europe. We fit fixed and random-effects models adjusting for potential confounding factors and control for time-variant factors and common trends. We find that privatization is significantly associated with fertility decline, explaining approximately half of the overall fertility decline across the 52 towns and the 28 countries

Privatization and the Postsocialist Fertility Decline

In this article, we analyze the privatization of companies as a potential but so far neglected factor behind the postsocialist fertility decline. We test this hypothesis using a novel database comprising information on the demographic and enterprise trajectories of 52 Hungarian towns between 1989-2006 and a cross-country dataset of 28 countries in Eastern Europe. We fit fixed and random-effects models adjusting for potential confounding factors and control for time-variant factors and common trends. We find that privatization is significantly associated with fertility decline, explaining approximately half of the overall fertility decline across the 52 towns and the 28 countries

Exploring the ‘middle ground’ between state and market: the example of China

Studies of housing systems lying in the ‘middle ground’ between state and market are subject to three important shortcomings. First, the widely used Esping-Andersen (EA) approach assesses only a subset of the key housing outcomes and may be less helpful for describing changes in housing policy regimes. Second, there is too much emphasis on tenure transitions, and an assumed close correspondence between tenure labels and effective system functioning may not be valid. Third, due attention has not been given to the spatial dimensions in which housing systems operate, in particular when housing policies have a significant devolved or localised emphasis. Updating EA’s framework, we suggest a preliminary list of housing system indicators in order to capture the nature of the housing systems being developed and devolved. We verified the applicability of this indicator system with the case of China. This illustrates clearly the need for a more nuanced and systematic basis for categorising differences and changes in welfare and housing policies