This book introduces the concept of new social risks in welfare state studies and explains their relevance to the comparative understanding of social policy in Europe. New social risks arise from shifts in the balance of work and family life as a direct result of the declining importance of the male breadwinner family, changes in the labor market, and the impact of globalization on national policy-making. They differ from the old social risks of the standard industrial life-course, which were concerned primarily with interruptions to income from sickness, unemployment, retirement, and similar...

Throughout the world, politicians from all the main parties are cutting back on state welfare provision, encouraging people to use the private sector instead and developing increasingly stringent techniques for the surveillance of the poor. Almost all experts agree that we are likely to see further constraints on state welfare in the 21st Century.

Gathering together the findings from up-to-date attitude surveys in Europe East and West, the US and Australasia, this revealing book shows that, contrary to the claims of many experts and policy-makers, the welfare state is still highly...

European Welfare Futures presents a clear and up-to-date analysis of developments in social policy in the main EU member states. It provides a systematic account of welfare retrenchment and assesses the competing explanations of this process. The authors provide convincing evidence for the view that an 'ever closer union' in social policy will require a much more difficult process than that which led to monetary union.

The book makes a major contribution to understanding how welfare policy in Europe will develop over the next few years. It offers an original and wide-ranging...

Exerpt from the Financial Times Comment & Analysis Europe takes on reform of the welfare state: A new study indicates that while the UK has transformed its social policies, the rest of Europe has been far from idle -

A] stimulating new book on European welfare states Welfare States under Pressure] suggests that the view of Britain as the only great welfare state reformer is overstated. And it adds that the game across Europe is about to change....

This new study argues that, particularly in the late 1990s, there has been more reform in the rest of Europe...

Exerpt from the Financial Times Comment & Analysis Europe takes on reform of the welfare state: A new study indicates that while the UK has transformed its social policies, the rest of Europe has been far from idle -

A] stimulating new book on European welfare states Welfare States under Pressure] suggests that the view of Britain as the only great welfare state reformer is overstated. And it adds that the game across Europe is about to change....

This new study argues that, particularly in the late 1990s, there has been more reform in the rest of Europe...

The new welfare settlement in Europe involves a re-direction of policy in the context of a unified market and currency system and of more stringent economic competition. Realignment of the policy assumptions and goals of the key actors is central to this process. This book reviews the main policy paradigms and analyzes the processes whereby they have changed in the most salient policy areas, and is based on recent interviews with more than two hundred and fifty senior policy actors in seven West European countries.

This volume provides an up-to-date account of developments in Europe across a range of policy fields, from labour markets to disability and poverty to health care.

• An up-to-date account of a rapidly changing field.


• Covers developments across a range of policy fields, from labour markets to disability and poverty to health care.


• Situates debates about welfare convergence and divergence in a theoretical context.


• Draws on sociological, social policy, political science and economic theoretical...

Throughout the world, governments are restructuring social and welfare provision to give a stronger role to opportunity, aspiration and individual responsibility, and to competition, markets, and consumer choice. This approach centers on a logic of individual rational action: people are the best judges of what serves their own interests and government should give them as much freedom of choice as possible. The UK has gone further than any other major European country in reform and provides a useful object lesson.
Reframing Social Citizenship analyzes the pressures on social citizenship...

Throughout the world, governments are restructuring social and welfare provision to give a stronger role to opportunity, aspiration and individual responsibility, and to competition, markets, and consumer choice. This approach centers on a logic of individual rational action: people are the best judges of what serves their own interests and government should give them as much freedom of choice as possible. The UK has gone further than any other major European country in reform and provides a useful object lesson.
Reframing Social Citizenship analyzes the pressures on social citizenship...

First published in 1992. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.