040236 KU Further Topics in Economic Sociology (MA) (2022W)

Welfare states provide social protection against social risks, this should hold particularly during a crisis. Whether European welfare states contribute to the resilience of societies during a crisis is currently debated in politics and social sciences. Resilience as a concept has been widely used across disciplines; it means the capacity of an individual, a group, or a society to mitigate the impact of a crisis and to bounce back. During a recession, employment protection, unemployment benefits and active labour market policies mitigate the risk of job loss. In addition, minimum income schemes should provide a basic safety net for jobless or low work-intensive households. During the last crises, job retention policies (or short-time work schemes) were sought to limit mass unemployment and secure income during the crisis. However, an economic crisis puts additional pressure on financial sustainability of social spending, leading to austerity reform pressures. The seminar will study the resilience of welfare states in respect to their capacity to mitigate economic crises, to absorb the employment shock and adapt to newly arising social risks. Besides more historical economic crises, the Great Recession that started in 2008/09 and the Great Pandemic since 2020 will be used to study the different welfare state responses across European countries in a comparative perspective.