New Social Risks and Welfare State Reforms in Norway and Spain

Abstract

The NorSpaR Project aims to analyse the main public policy initiatives by which Norway and Spain cope with the new social and economic challenges derived from the so-called New Social Risks (NSR). Although both countries present significant differences in their institutional settings (such as Spanish EU membership), or its belonging to diverse welfare regimes types (Norway is generally included in the Nordic regime, while Spain is part of the Mediterranean one), both countries share a common interest in addressing the aforementioned challenges while maintaining social cohesion. In the last decade, governments in both countries have tried to respond to those challenges by reforming their labour markets, adapting their unemployment schemes, as well as their gender, family and long-term care policies. The analysis covered in this project includes three areas of public policy addressing NSR. First, dependency is one of the most daunting challenges for post-industrial societies experiencing population ageing and with an increasing number of frail people in need of care. This situation is forcing governments to rethink their long-term care policies. Second, family and gender public programs need to respond to the growing difficulties of families in reconciling professional and family life. Third, in the transition to a post-industrial order, and in a context of mass unemployment, social protection systems have a renewed prominence. Along with the so-called passive policies offering financial support to the unemployed, active labour market policies are geared to put people back into work. In our analysis we try to find answers to the following questions: What are the challenges that each of these policies have been trying to address in recent years? How have these policies evolved? What kinds of reforms have been implemented, and which ones have been neglected? Have the policy goals and targets of welfare programs been modified in any significant way? Have the policy tools (services, transfers, funding or models of provision) changed? To what extent have these policies been successful in coping with social and economic problems? To what extent a social demand in favour of these changes exist? What are the main political and social actors intervening as stakeholders in these policies? Finally, what are the major similarities and differences existing between the two countries? To what extent are there policy proposals that might easily travel between them? Could they foster mutually enriching exchanges of information?