Fourteen Modernising social security for lone parents: avoiding fertility and unemployment traps when reforming social policy in Northern Europe
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Anders Freundt
Abstract
From outside the toxified ‘work incentives’ debate in the UK, Anders Freundt, Simon Grundt Straubinger and Jon Kvist tackle the question of fertility and employment traps within contemporary social security systems. Their analysis explores cross-national differences between seven Northern European countries in the relationship between social security arrangements and opportunities for employment and family-building. Using economic indicators, the chapter focuses on the comparisons between the situations of lone parents and single people in order to examine the interface between economics and choices to work and have children. Lone parents are the focus because they are the fastest-rising family form and continue to represent the greatest challenge to the largely obsolete breadwinner model in many welfare states. The chapter shows a clear division between the social-democratic Nordic states and the others – Germany, the Netherlands and the UK. While this patterning may come as no surprise, the findings support the case for universalism rather than means-testing as the key to removing obstacles to employment and avoiding divisions between employed and unemployed people in family welfare.
Abstract
From outside the toxified ‘work incentives’ debate in the UK, Anders Freundt, Simon Grundt Straubinger and Jon Kvist tackle the question of fertility and employment traps within contemporary social security systems. Their analysis explores cross-national differences between seven Northern European countries in the relationship between social security arrangements and opportunities for employment and family-building. Using economic indicators, the chapter focuses on the comparisons between the situations of lone parents and single people in order to examine the interface between economics and choices to work and have children. Lone parents are the focus because they are the fastest-rising family form and continue to represent the greatest challenge to the largely obsolete breadwinner model in many welfare states. The chapter shows a clear division between the social-democratic Nordic states and the others – Germany, the Netherlands and the UK. While this patterning may come as no surprise, the findings support the case for universalism rather than means-testing as the key to removing obstacles to employment and avoiding divisions between employed and unemployed people in family welfare.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- Notes on contributors v
- Introduction xi
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Contemporary debates and developments in the UK
- Introducing Universal Credit 3
- Reconciling fuel poverty and climate change policy under the Coalition government: Green Deal or no deal? 23
- Doctors in the driving seat? Reforms in NHS primary care and commissioning 47
- Financing later life: pensions, care, housing equity and the new politics of old age 67
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Contributions from the Social Policy Association/East Asian Social Policy Research Network Conference of 2012
- It’s time to move on from ‘race’? The official ‘invisibilisation’ of minority ethnic disadvantage 93
- Corporations as political actors: new perspectives for health policy research 113
- Square pegs and round holes: extending existing typologies fails to capture the complexities of Chinese social policy 129
- The Earned Income Tax Credit as an anti-poverty programme: palliative or cure? 149
- Social policy and culture: the cases of Japan and South Korea 167
- Load-shedding and reloading: changes in government responsibility – the case of Israeli immigration and integration policy 2004–10 183
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Themed section: work, employment and insecurity
- ‘What unemployment means’ three decades and two recessions later 207
- Precarious employment and EU employment regulation 227
- How do activation policies affect social citizenship? The issue of autonomy 249
- Modernising social security for lone parents: avoiding fertility and unemployment traps when reforming social policy in Northern Europe 271
- Women, families and the ‘Great Recession’ in the UK 293
- Index 315
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- Notes on contributors v
- Introduction xi
-
Contemporary debates and developments in the UK
- Introducing Universal Credit 3
- Reconciling fuel poverty and climate change policy under the Coalition government: Green Deal or no deal? 23
- Doctors in the driving seat? Reforms in NHS primary care and commissioning 47
- Financing later life: pensions, care, housing equity and the new politics of old age 67
-
Contributions from the Social Policy Association/East Asian Social Policy Research Network Conference of 2012
- It’s time to move on from ‘race’? The official ‘invisibilisation’ of minority ethnic disadvantage 93
- Corporations as political actors: new perspectives for health policy research 113
- Square pegs and round holes: extending existing typologies fails to capture the complexities of Chinese social policy 129
- The Earned Income Tax Credit as an anti-poverty programme: palliative or cure? 149
- Social policy and culture: the cases of Japan and South Korea 167
- Load-shedding and reloading: changes in government responsibility – the case of Israeli immigration and integration policy 2004–10 183
-
Themed section: work, employment and insecurity
- ‘What unemployment means’ three decades and two recessions later 207
- Precarious employment and EU employment regulation 227
- How do activation policies affect social citizenship? The issue of autonomy 249
- Modernising social security for lone parents: avoiding fertility and unemployment traps when reforming social policy in Northern Europe 271
- Women, families and the ‘Great Recession’ in the UK 293
- Index 315
