354 2005 Lecture 7

							POL S 354 Welfare States in
       Comparison

             Lecture 7
             Conservative welfare
             States: Germany
Lecture outline

1.   Introduction
2.   Recap: conservative/corporatist welfare
     states
3.   The foundations of Germany’s welfare state
4.   Race and gender in the corporatist model
5.   Crisis, challenge and change
6.   Summary
1. Introduction

   Germany is usually considered to be an
    archetypal conservative welfare state
   German welfare has historically enjoyed
    considerable support and institutional
    stability
   Social policies of East and West Germany
    had divergent implications for gender
   Recent governments have responded to new
    problems such as long term unemployment
    and aging by implementing neo-liberal
    reforms to welfare
2. Recap: conservative/corporatist
    welfare states

   The state uses generous social insurance to
    preserve inequalities: ‘Bismarckian’
   Limited redistribution
   Principle of subsidiarity
   Catholic Church, traditional family
   Germany, Austria, France, Italy
   Moderate de-commodification
   Moderate stratification
3. The foundations of Germany’s
    welfare state

   Bismarck: ‘defensive modernization’ (Zapf)
   1880s: occupationally segregated pension
    schemes
   Securing the support of civil servants
   Corporatist: employers and unions negotiate
    sector-wide terms (Kitschelt and Streecht)
   ‘Institutionalized class solidarity’ (Offe)
   Employment is full time and long term
Subsidiarity

•   Rather than provide services, the German
    state has tended to regulate non-government
    actors: unions, employers, churches
•   Church-based organizations have a
    significant role in service delivery
•   Social assistance and services are the
    responsibility of the Lander (provincial)
    governments: geographical variation
•   Subsiding women’s home-making: insurance
    co-entitlements
The ‘post-war miracle’ in the FRG

   The Marshall Plan (1947)
   West Germany’s Basic Law (1949)
   German social policy as a ‘middle way’
    between capitalism and socialism (Leibfried)
   Highest social spending in the West (in net
    terms)
   Success in the 1970s and 1980s while
    ‘liberal’ welfare states floundered
    economically
4. Race and gender in the German
    model(s)

   The German state has historically actively
    enforced a single male breadwinner model
   Bismarckian social insurance is employment-
    centered: disadvantages those with limited
    connections to work
   Constitutional provisions discouraging
    working mothers
   Until 1977: women had to seek written
    permission from husbands to work
   Limited public child care, especially below 3 years
    and above schooling age
   Lack of a low wage service sector limits
    opportunities for ‘unskilled’ women and the supply of
    child care
   Part time work discouraged by regulations
   Lone parents receive limited state support and have
    low employment rates: child support plays major role
Women and welfare in the German
Democratic Republic (East Germany)

   The above observations apply to social
    policy in the Federal Republic of Germany
    (West Germany)
   Women in East Germany had very high
    employment participation rates
   The GDR provided extensive state-
    sponsored child care
   Women expected to undertake home making
    as well as work: the double-shift
Ethnicity, immigration and welfare

   German notions of nationality and citizenship
    based on ‘blood’ rather than birth place
   Persons of ‘German descent’ have enjoyed
    privileged immigration status and welfare
    rights (Kymlicka)
   Guest workers: constitutional rights,
    exclusionary policy discourses and labor
    market discrimination (Joppke)
5. Crisis, challenge and change

   1980s: Helmut Kohl’s CDU/CSU coalition –
    ‘consolidating’ the welfare state
   Cutting social spending
   Reunification 1990: triumph of capitalism
   Extension of the Western model into the
    East, retrenchment of GDR’s extensive child
    care system
   1990s: very high unemployment in the East -
    social spending at 55.5% of GDP
   Privileging immigrants of German descent
    from the former USSR until 1993
   Institutional stability now seen by some as a
    hindrance to making Germany more flexible
   The demographic crisis
   Concern about ‘non wage labor costs’
   The rise of xenophobia and Neo-Nazism
   Major areas of retrenchment under Kohl:
    asylum seekers and immigrants from former
    Eastern Bloc
Schroder’s reforms

   The Hartz Commission (2002)
   Agenda 2010: reducing tax rates,
    encouraging female employment, making
    pensions ‘sustainable’
   The Riester Rente (2002): Germany’s first
    private pension
   Increasing labor flexibility: midi- and mini-
    jobs
   Hartz IV: merging unemployment and social
    welfare benefits, cutting rates and duration,
    requiring work
   Public opposition to reforms: the new
    ‘Monday Demonstrations’
   The new politics of welfare: spending
    determined by available funds, not need
    (Pierson, Leibfried)
6. Summary

   Five historical pillars of German welfare:
    employment, corporatism, subsidiarity,
    patriarchy, race (Poole)
   The East German model does not fit into the
    conservative regime type
   West Germany’s ‘middle way’ was once seen
    as the key to the post war miracle, but it is
    increasingly characterized as impeding
    necessary reforms in the context of
    globalization
   German welfare is slowly shifting away from
    the conservative approach and towards a
    more individualized, liberal model of social
    protection
Next week’s readings

   Cochrane et al (2001) Chapter 6
   OECD (2004)
Questions for discussion

1.   How does the principle of subsidiarity
     operate in practice in Germany?
2.   What is the role of race and gender in
     German social policy?
3.   How would you characterize East German
     social policy in relation to Esping-
     Andersen’s approach?
4.   Are recent reforms moving Germany away
     from the conservative model, and if so,
     how?
Agenda 2010

1.   Why, according to the Federal Government,
     must the German welfare state be reformed?
2.   What are the key policy instruments that are
     being used to ‘restore’ Germany’s economic
     performance?
3.   In what ways does the reform agenda preserve
     and undermine the conservative model?
4.   Evaluate the notion of ‘sustainability’ as it is
     used throughout the report.