Time Matters

TLDR

Western welfare states were built postwar to protect male breadwinners, yet social risks have shifted to precarious employment, long‑term unemployment, working poverty, single parenthood, and work–family conflict, prompting adaptation mainly in Nordic countries. The article argues that the Nordic welfare state’s reorientation was possible because new social risks emerged before the maturation of postwar welfare states. The authors employ comparative statistical analysis linking the timing of key socioeconomic developments to current policy spending levels. This analysis demonstrates that the Nordic welfare state’s earlier reorientation was driven by the earlier emergence of new social risks.

Abstract

Western welfare states were built during the postwar years, with one key objective: to protect family (male) breadwinners against the consequences of losing their ability to extract an income from the labor market. Structures of social risk, however, have changed dramatically since then, so that current social risks include precarious employment, long-term unemployment, being a working poor, single parenthood, or inability to reconcile work and family life. Changes in structures of social risk have resulted in the adaptation of welfare states only in the Nordic countries but much less in continental and southern Europe. To account for this divergence in social policy trajectories, this article argues that the reorientation of the Nordic welfare state was possible because new social risks emerged before the maturation of the postwar welfare states. The argument is demonstrated through comparative statistical analysis relating the timing of key socioeconomic developments to current levels of spending in relevant policies.