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Reforming Welfare States

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Competitiveness, Social Inclusion and Sustainability in a Diverse European Union

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Abstract

We survey the literature on welfare state reform in the EU. We argue that the often postulated trade-off between efficiency and equality thus does not apply in general. Countries looking for growth-friendly social policies should primarily focus providing equal opportunities and avoid exclusion or discrimination on the basis of gender, ethnicity or other characteristics. Welfare State reforms, however, not only entail economic questions on the design of optimal policies, but also the problem how the general public, third sector actors and vested interests can be motivated to support reforms. Theoretical reasoning and empirical results suggest that a theory of Welfare State reform resistance based on the view of reform-resistance driven only by narrow self-interest is severely flawed as the evidence underlines the role of core beliefs in the process of attitude formation, and procedural fairness considerations.

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Acknowledgement

The authors thank the European Commission's 7th framework program (grant agreement No. 290647) for financial support

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. WIFO, Arsenal, Objekt 20, 1030, Vienna, Austria

    Peter Huber, Thomas Leoni & Hans Pitlik

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  1. Peter Huber
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  2. Thomas Leoni
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Correspondence to Peter Huber .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Austrian Institute of Econ. Research (WIFO), Vienna, Austria

    Peter Huber

  2. Mendel University, Brno, Czech Republic

    Danuše Nerudová

  3. Mendel University, Brno, Czech Republic

    Petr Rozmahel

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Huber, P., Leoni, T., Pitlik, H. (2016). Reforming Welfare States. In: Huber, P., Nerudová, D., Rozmahel, P. (eds) Competitiveness, Social Inclusion and Sustainability in a Diverse European Union. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17299-6_11

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