Transcript A Comparative Analysis of Welfare Regimes in the South

A Comparative Analysis of
Welfare Regimes in the South:
The social origins of social assistance
outside of the established democracies
Jeremy Seekings
(University of Cape Town)
Presentation at Social Policy Forum, Boğazici University,
Istanbul, 3 November 2004
1. Introduction: Public Policy and
Distribution in ‘North’ and
‘South’
The ‘Crisis’ in Public Welfare
Provision: North and South
In the ‘North’ in the late twentieth century:
• ‘Almost all advanced industrial democracies cut entitlements in
some programs’
• but it was/is politically difficult to roll back substantially the
public provision of welfare
In the ‘South’, at the same time:
• Partial or full privatisation of contributory welfare systems
(especially in Latin America and post-Communist Eastern
Europe and central Asia)
• but elsewhere: extensions of welfare provision to the poor,
especially through non-contributory social assistance schemes
(including Brazil and Mexico; South Africa, Namibia, and
Botswana; India and Nepal; Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea)
Esping-Andersen’s Three Worlds
of Welfare Capitalism (in North)
Liberal
Social democratic
Conservative
Family
Marginal
Marginal
central
Market
Central
Marginal
marginal
Marginal
Central
subsidiary
dominant mode of solidarity
Individual
Universal
kinship;
corporatism;
etatism
dominant locus of solidarity
Market
State
family
degree of decommodification
Minimal
Maximum
high (for
breadwinner)
degree of defamilialisation
medium
high
low
Low
High
medium
Role of:
State
Welfare state:
Extent of redistribution
Relevant criticisms of the EspingAndersen ‘three worlds’ typology?
• It mis-categorises non-modal cases, including most
late industrialising countries
• It addresses inadequately gender differences and
household/family dynamics
• It underestimates the importance of labour-market
policies influencing wages and therefore miscategorises countries that achieved distributional
goals through such policies
• It neglects broader developmental policies, i.e.
policies shaping the economic ‘growth path’ (and
hence distribution)
• It inadequately addresses the equity-enhancing
imperative of ‘commodification’ (through increased
employment) prior to ‘decommodification’
Key elements of a ‘distributional regime’
Growth strategy
External context
(incl. policies on
sectors, skills,
openness)
(esp. global demand
for exports)
Growth path
Employment- and
wage-setting
institutions/policies
Redistribution through
the budget: Welfare,
tax and social policies
Distributional
outcome
Distributional vs welfare
regimes:
overall effects on equity
In South Africa:
• The welfare regime is very redistributive:
– generous social assistance (plus pro-poor
educational and health spending),
– financed out of an efficient, progressive tax
system
• But the overall distributional regime is
neutral, because:
– Wage-setting and growth path policies produce a
skill-intensive growth path and very high
unemployment, increasing inequality and poverty
• Today, I focus on welfare regimes, with
incomplete and uneven attention to
other aspects of distributional regimes
• I focus on the question: what are the
‘social origins’ of social assistance?
• I try to answer this question through
– Proposing an alternative typology of the
‘Southern’ worlds of welfare capitalism,
and
– Examining how and why these different
worlds were established in specific
historical settings
2. Developing a Typology of
Welfare Regimes in the South
Public expenditure / GDP
OECD
Africa
South Asia
etc
GDP per capita
Public expenditure/GDP
Latin
America
East Asia
GDP per capita
Based on
EspingAndersen
State
Latin
America
East Asia (and
World Bank model)
Family/
kin
Market
Role of kin
Both state and market were/are new and weak
across much of the South.
Therefore the family/kin was/is:
• the provider of default
• the major provider, even now for old age:
– only 30% of the world’s elderly are covered by
formal arrangements
– only 40% of the world’s working population
participate in any formal arrangements for their
future old age
• the provider, under the constitution or law, in
much of South/East Asia and Africa
Alternatives to kin …
• Rights / claims linked to commodification,
i.e. to employment
– Whether through the state (social insurance)
– Or through ‘market’ (private, but generally stateregulated, contributory risk-pooling and saving)
• Rights independent of commodification, i.e.
‘decommodification’
– Social assistance, i.e. moves towards a basic
income
• Charity
Based on
EspingAndersen
State
Latin
America
East Asia (and
World Bank model)
Family/
kin
Market
EspingAndersen
reinterpreted
State
Formal
employment
Family/
kin
Market
Welfare regimes in the South
1.
Agrarian: private provision of welfare dependent on access
to land and/or kin (and appropriate state support)
•
2.
Inegalitarian corporatism: risk-pooling and/or savings
dependent on employment
•
(2a) a more market-oriented version (private, contributory
schemes)
(2b) a more statist version (formal social insurance)
•
•
3.
Measured through % of population receiving a subsistence income
from agricultural production
Measured through % of population covered by social insurance or
private contributory schemes, or through benefits or contributions
as % of GDP
Redistributive: tax-financed provision of welfare independent
of employment
•
Measured through social assistance payments as % of GDP
Welfare
regimes
in the
South
Agrarian
Redistributive
Inegalitaria
n
corporatism
Welfare
regimes
in the
South
Redistributive
SA
Bang
Ken
Agrarian
Kor
Br
Tur
Inegalitaria
n
corporatism
Typology of southern welfare
regimes
Agrarian
Inegalitarian
corporatist (or
employment-based)
Redistributive
Central
Marginal
Marginal
Marginal
Central
Marginal
Varied
Varied
Central
dominant mode of
solidarity
Kinship
Individual or corporate
(occupational)
universal
dominant locus of
solidarity
Family
Market or state
State
degree of
decommodification
Varied
Minimum
Maximum
low
varied
Medium to high
Varied
Low
Medium to high
Role of:
Family
Employment
State
Welfare state:
degree of defamilialisation
Extent of redistribution
The role of ideas: what norms of
welfare provision?
Anglo liberal tradition
(Beverıdge, Marshall)
Corporatist tradition
(ILO)
Rights as citizens (when
‘deservıng’) and/or as workers
Rights as workers
Poverty reduction + risk-pooling
+ income-smoothing over lifecourse
Risk-pooling + incomesmoothing over life-course
Universal norms of welfare
provision
Employment-based norms of
welfare provision
Social assistance + social
insurance
Social insurance only
3. Examining the Origins of
‘Redistributive’ Welfare
Regimes in the South
Periodisation of the making of
welfare regimes in the South
•
Early C20th: Struggles for welfare provision by industrial and public
sector workers, typically among unionised immigrants primarily, with
the objective of state-subsidised risk-pooling: this generally resulted
in corporatist social insurance
– outside of these social groups, poverty was the concern of kin
– only in exceptional circumstances did the state accept the need for statefunded social assistance
•
Mid-C20th: Concern with agrarian crisis (and urban poverty) in context
of wartime ideals led to reform in two directions:
– the predominant response was the ‘developmental’ one, either through reestablishing an agrarian economy or through ISI, therefore poverty
addressed by kin or through the extension of corporatıst risk-pooling /
income-smoothing among wage-earners
– less often: the extension of social assistance
•
•
Late C20th: broadening of inegalitarian corporatism, i.e. broader
coverage
End of C20th: demographic change, massive deagrarianisation and
democratisation increased pressures for welfare reform including
social assistance
(Inegalitarian) Corporatism in the
South
Standard story:
• state-enforced, contributory social insurance for (1) military
(2) civil servants (3) formal workers in key sectors
• Fragmented by occupation; unequal benefits; state
subsidies; limited coverage; costs to employers passed onto
consumers
• E.g. Brazil, Chile
A deviant case: South Africa
• 1928 non-contributory old-age pensions for white/coloured
elderly (and, later, non-contributory grants for disabled
people and single mothers)
• Deagrarianisation; semi-open economy; electoral competition
for non-unionised poor, urban voters; an inclusive ideology
(but more racism/Afrikaner nationalism not socialism)
The Agrarian Moment
1940s: new concern with poverty across much of the colonial South (as
well as the North)
Universal norms of welfare provision: 1938 New Zealand Social
Security Act, 1941 Atlantic Charter, 1942 Beveridge Report,
1940/1945 (British) Colonial Development and Welfare Acts,
constitutions of new postwar states, etc
Response: revive agrarian society through active state interventions
(‘development’) eg land reform, marketing infrastructure, transport
infrastructure, financial infrastructure, agricultural extension, social
welfare (development) officers
e.g. most of Africa, South Asia, East Asia, South-east Asia
Deviant cases: South Africa, Mauritius, some Caribbean
South Africa
• Non-contributory social assistance for
white and coloured people from 1920s
• 1944: extended to African and Indian people
(but with racially unequal benefıts)
• Why?
–
–
–
–
Deagrarianisation
Semi-open economy (gold)
Influence of universal norms during war
Paternalism, not electoral competition
Mauritius
• Small, open economy: sugar estates with landless
rural proletariat
• 1937 riots => proposals but prevarication
• 1948 competitive elections to Legislative Council
(pre-independence parliament)
• 1950: non-contributory old-age pensions
• Meade (1961): ‘In the conditions of Mauritius, low
wages (to stimulate expanded employment) plus a
moderate dose of social-security benefits ór costof-living subsidies (to support the standard of
living) together make up a very sensible policy’
South Korea and Taiwan
Agrarian regimes until late introduction of (unsubsidised) social insurance
Open economies
Democratisation => social assistance
South Korea:
• 1988 (to 1992) opposition parties had majority in legislature
• 1988 contributory old-age pension system established; also national health
insurance
• 1996 opposition parties again in majority
• 1998 non-contributory old-age pensions
Taiwan:
• 1993 opposition DPP promised a universal old-age pension; ruling KMT
matched the promise
• 1993: means-tested old-age pensions (1994: universal health insurance)
• Mid-1990s: other, supplementary social assistance for small farmers and in
some towns
Case
Deagrarianisation
Universal
norms
Open
economy
Electoral
competition
Entrenched
corporatism
Uruguay
+
+
?
+
S/Africa ’27
+
(+)
(+)
+
S/Africa ’44
+
+
(+)
S/Africa
80s/90s
+
+
(+)
+ (early
1990s)
Caribbean
+
+
+
+
Mauritius
+
+
+
+
Hong Kong
+
+
+
+ (1990s)
Korea /
Taiwan
?
?
+
+
Brazil 1970s
+
Brazil 1990s
+
?
+
-
Mexico City
+
?
+
-
-
-
Future prospects for social
assistance
• Reforms:
– Rhetorical support for universal/basic income? E.g. Brazil
– Actual support for ‘deserving poor’: elderly, disabled,
children, single parents
• Pressures:
– competitive electoral politics
– demographic change
– Socio-economic change (deagrarianisation, weakened
kinship links)
– Fiscal costs of public subsidies of existing social insurance
schemes
– More open economies
• Obstacles:
– Vetoes by beneficiaries of existing inegalitarian corporatist
regime (trade unions, professional associations, pensioner
associations) if subsidised
– Fiscal conservatism