This book provides the first comprehensive analyses of the challenges all European welfare systems have been facing since 2007, combining in-depth country-based studies and comparative chapters. It focuses on: 1) the economic and financial crisis, 2) demographic change, and 3) the balance between avoiding risks and opening up opportunities in social policy. The results show that European welfare systems tend to face the same challenges in different ways and that also their responses to those challenges differ considerably. Although the EU also plays a part in shaping national welfare systems, it becomes evident that European welfare systems are by no means converging: in terms of social policy, national diversity within Europe is still a major factor that will shape future developments in European welfare systems.

Published ten years after the first edition, this new Handbook offers topical, and comprehensive information on the welfare systems of all 28 EU member states and their recent reforms, giving the reader an invaluable introduction and basis for comparative welfare research. Additional chapters provide detailed information on EU social policy, as well as comparative analyses of European welfare systems and their reform pathways. For this second edition, all chapters have been updated and substantially revised, and Croatia additionally included. The second edition of this Handbook is most timely, given the often-fundamental welfare state transformations against the background of the financial and economic crises, transforming social policy ideas, as well as political shifts in a number of European countries. The book sets out to analyse these new developments when it comes to social policy. In the first part, all country chapters provide systematic and comparable information on the foundations of the different national welfare systems and their characteristics. In the second part, using a joint conceptual foundation, they focus on policy changes (especially of the last two decades) in different social policy areas, including old-age, labour market, family, healthcare, and social assistance policies. As the comparative chapters conclude, European welfare system landscapes have been in constant motion in the last two decades. While austerity is not to be seen on the aggregate level, the in-depth country studies show that all policy sectors have been characterised by different reform directions and ideas. The findings not only reveal both change and continuity, but also policy reversal as a distinct type that characterises social policy reform. The book provides a rich resource to the international welfare state research community, and is also useful for social policy teaching.

This book provides the first comprehensive information and detailed data on the welfare systems of all twenty-seven EU member states and offers the reader an invaluable introduction and basis for comparative welfare research. The introductory chapter summarizes the actual debate about welfare states and welfare (state) regimes, gives an overview on current welfare (state) research and analyses the main recent developments necessitating a new focus on European Welfare Systems. The twenty-seven chapters on the welfare systems of the member states are written on the basis of a common structure by experts from the individual states. An additional chapter analyses the current social and welfare policies of the EU and focuses on the interplay and limits between European and national social policies. Two concluding chapters provide (a) a first comparative analysis on the basis of all twenty-seven European Welfare Systems and (b) a theoretical reflection both arguing for and venturing the idea of politically limited pluralism in European welfare politics.

Forty-five contributions from renowned international specialists in the field provide readers with expert analysis of the core issues related to the welfare state, including regional depictions of welfare states around the globe. The second edition of the Routledge Handbook of the Welfare State combines essays on methodologies, core concepts and central policy areas to produce a comprehensive understanding of what ‘the welfare state’ means around the world. In the aftermath of the credit crunch, the Handbook addresses some of the many questions about the welfare state. This second edition has been thoroughly revised and updated to include an in-depth analysis of societal changes in recent years. New articles can be found on topics such as: the impact of ideas, well-being, migration, globalisation, India, welfare typologies, homelessness and long-term care. This volume will be an invaluable reference book for students and scholars throughout the social sciences, particularly in sociology, social policy, public policy, international relations, politics and gender studies.

This volume is the first of its kind to discuss social welfare issues using case studies from a broad range of Southern European countries, both large and small, a decade after the financial crisis. It identifies similarities and differences in the ways in which Southern European countries engage with specific welfare issues and examines whether Southern European welfare is distinct from that of the rest of the continent. The book also engages with the impact of COVID-19 on the social welfare issues under investigation. The volume is divided into four sections, each examining in detail issues including employment, education, health, sexuality, globalization, social movements and migration. With its contributions from experts in the field, the volume is recommended for academics, researchers and students of sociology, social policy, economics, education, politics and social movements.

Southern European welfare states - in common with their northern counterparts - are under stress. They have become the object of studies exploring the southern "type" or "model" of welfare. This collection provides a series of both comparative and specific country analyses.

Globalisation, regionalisation, new technology, demography, voters’ expectations and re-structuring of societies are expected to influence welfare state development for years to come. This handbook analyses how different welfare state models and regimes will be able to cope with contemporary and future challenges, providing a variety of evidence based tools that make it essential reading for students, researchers and policy makers alike.

This book analyzes national anti-poverty measures at a local level via a set of unique and up-to-date empirical studies of minimum income support schemes and activation measures in five European cities. In examining this 'local welfare system' approach, it investigates the role that civil society organizations play, and the governance arrangements that prevail in contacts between public and civil society actors in local anti-poverty strategies. The current financial and economic crisis has caused increasing levels of poverty and unemployment, and put national minimum income protection schemes under severe strain. Combating Poverty in Local Welfare Systems therefore represents a timely and important intervention in the political and scientific debates as to whether more ‘local welfare’ is the solution to the challenges facing European welfare states.

In this book, an international group of public policy scholars revisit the stage of formulating policy solutions by investigating the basic political dimensions inherent to this critical phase of the policy process. The book focuses attention on how policy makers craft their policy proposals, match them with public problems, debate their feasibility to build coalitions and dispute their acceptability as serious contenders for government consideration. Based on international case studies, this book is an invitation to examine the uncertain and often indeterminate aspects of policy-making using qualitative analysis embedded in a political perspective.

Rethinking European Welfare provides a wide-ranging and innovative rethinking of the study of Europe and social policy and offers new ways of analyzing European welfare and its future. Whilst acknowledging the importance of research and analysis of policy making in Europe, this Reader addresses a range of other challenging and provoking issues which have been marginalized or ignored in the study of European social policy. .