This book analyses existing welfare regimes across Europe, offering an exploration into how basic income principles might influence job search behaviour. Drawing on time-use data and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis, it challenges assumptions about work incentives and demonstrates that institutional contexts significantly mediate welfare effects. The analysis develops an innovative “ideal type” framework that measures how existing systems approximate basic income principles, unconditionality, universalism, and non-withdrawal of benefits. Chapters explore the complex relationships between welfare design and job search intensity, with a special focus on providing evidence as to whether conditionality increases job search or if certain configurations of accessibility and high participation tax rates decrease it. Comparing ten European countries and counterfactual examination of Finland and the UK, the book provides empirical grounding for debates often based on theoretical assumptions. The resulting text provides insights for designing context-appropriate strategies for basic income implementation that enhance income security while preserving individual autonomy.
Chapter One: Rethinking Basic Income: Welfare Principles, Institutional
Contexts, and Job Search Behaviour.
Chapter Two: Basic income principles,
welfare mechanisms and labour market responses.
Chapter three: Empirical
evidence from Basic Income experiment.
Chapter Four: Using qualitative
comparative analysis (QCA) in social policy research.
Chapter Five: Three
worlds of basic income: Developing an ideal type basic income welfare
regime.
Chapter Six: Comparing welfare regimes to basic income ideals.-
Chapter Seven: Mapping job search intensity across European countries.-
Chapter Eight. Incentives and disincentives: Analysing welfare mechanisms'
effects on job search behaviour.
Chapter Nine: Exploring the potential
impact of basic income on job search behaviours.
Chapter Ten. From theory to
practice: Lessons learned and future directions in basic income research.
Simon Watkins is a UK-based researcher focusing on basic income, welfare policy, and labour markets. His work bridges theory with empirical analysis, using innovative methodological approaches to examine how institutional contexts shape welfare outcomes across European regimes. Simon holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Surrey.
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