In recent decades, and particularly since the financial crisis, continental Europe has seen an increasing gap between those workers who have well-protected, good-paying jobs with strong benefits and those who work lower-quality, nonstandard jobs, or who have no regular work at all. This situation would seem to call for increased spending on the social safety net, yet governments throughout the region have instead been turning to austerity. In the face of that reality, the options for helping disadvantaged workers are to extend coverage through re-allocating the benefits given to higher-level workers, maintain the benefits of the well-off as the number of outsiders continues to grow, or simply ignore the problem. This book asks why different nations have taken different tacks in handling-or not handling-this problem.
This book asks why different nations have taken different tacks in handling-or not handling-the increasing gap between the regularly employed and those who have nonstandard, irregular work or are unemployed.
1. Struggling with Persistent Gaps Studying the Welfare State
Methodology
2. A Tale of Two RMIs Contextualising the Cases Explaining
Benefit Reform Politics and the RMIs Southern European Characteristics and
Public Pressure
3. Public Attitudes toward the Unemployed in Continental,
Southern Europe, and Beyond Extending the Comparison Examining Public Opinion
4. Southern European Characteristics in the Broader Context The Models
Findings
5. Bismarck, Beveridge, and Making the Transition Contextualising
the Cases Beveridge versus Bismarck Explaining Healthcare Reform Italian
Advancements Staying the Course in France
6. Healthcare Reform and Public
Opinion in Continental and Southern Europe Extending the Comparison Examining
Public Opinion
7. Examining Healthcare Coverage across the OECD The Models
Findings Conclusion
8. Rectifying Coverage Gaps, Bibliography, Appendix: A
Brief Methodological Note.
Anthony Kevins is an Assistant Professor at Aarhus University, Denmark, affiliated with the UNIWEL research project. He received his Ph.D. from McGill University in 2014.
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