Equally to All? The Significance of Collectively Negotiated Sickness Benefits in Cross-Nordic Social Policy Analysis
| DOI | 10.1177/138826271301500403 |
| Author | Laura Järvi,Susan Kuivalainen |
| Published date | 01 December 2013 |
| Date | 01 December 2013 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
European Jour nal of Social Sec urity, Volume 15 (2013), No. 4 341
EQUALLY TO ALL? THE SIGNIFICANCE
OF COLLECTIVELY NEGOTIATED
SICKNESS BENEFITS IN CROSS
NORDIC SOCIAL POLICY ANALYSIS
L J and S K*
Abstract
Most previous research on social welfare has focused on the statutory part of welfare
delivery. By examining collectively-negotiated sickne ss bene ts, this ar ticle introduces
occupational welfare into cross-national analyses of s oc ia l po li cy a nd ex plo re s ho w t his
changes the Nordic welfare model. Instead of limiting its fo cus to one average worker
wage, the article examines ve di erent occupation s representing both low-skilled and
high-sk illed worker s, as well a s public and pr ivate sector e mployees. Using the styli sed
case method and examining three di erent durations of sickness, the study shows that
employees in di erent occupations have di erent rights in relation to occupational
bene t s during sickness. Although the results found by the analysis var y with length of
sickness, the article conclud es that, in general, occupational welfare has a reinforcing
e e ct on the existing di erences between occupations gene rated by public bene ts. e
analysis presents evide nce of not-so-equal aspects of the Nordic welfare model.
Keywords: Nordic countries; occupational welfare; sickness insurance; social policy
analysis; str ati cation
1. INTRODUCTION
Comparative studies of soc ial citizenship in welfare states have placed Nordic welfa re
states in a unique group of countries characterised by universalism, a strong role
played by the state, and high levels of social rights. Nordic countries are seen as
* Laura Järv i is a PhD Candidate in the Dep artment of Social Resea rch, Faculty of Social Scienc es,
Univ ersi ty of Turku , FI-2 0014 , Fin lan d; ph one: +358 23 33 5713 ; e-m ail : lau ra. jar vi@ utu . . Dr Susa n
Kuivalai nen is Head of the Resea rch Department at the Finnish Centre for Pensions; Address:
Kirjuri nkatu 3, FI-000 65 ETK; phone: +358 29 411 2184; e-mail: susan.ku ivalainen@etk . .
Laura Järv i and Susan Kuiva lainen
342 Intersentia
having gone furthest in making social citizenship the basis of social policy, and are
characterised as promoting equality of status, where all citizens are endowed with
sim ilar right s rega rdles s of cl ass or marke t posi tion (E sping -Ander sen 199 0: 25). W ith
very few exceptions, previous comparative studies have compared bene ts granted
through legislation, a choice that was justi ed because the primar y focus was on the
role of the state. Further, this choice was consistent with Marshall’s (1950) idea of
social citizen ship, where social rights referred to legislated social provisions.
Although welfare i s channelled through severa l di erent routes, as Titmus s (1958)
pointed out, occupational welfare has been neglected in previous research. Several
commentators have argued that studies which concentrate on public welfare are too
one-dimensional and fai l to reveal the whole picture (Adema 1999; Castles 1989; Kvist
1997; Rein 1996; Trampusch 2007). If we broaden the view from statutory bene ts
to include non-statutory aspects of welfare delivery, the results change and the
di erences that have been identi ed between countries may be reduced (e.g. Adema
1999). Furthermore, it has been argued that the traditional clustering of countries
ceases to hold when we pay attention to this ‘h idden part of welfare state analysis’, i.e.
to occupational welfare (Greve 2007: 2).
One reason for the narrow focus in previous research is the perception that
occupational welfare plays a tr ivial role in welfare delivery (Far nsworth 2004). Another
reason is the methodological challenge of measuring occupational welfare in cross-
national comparisons, pa rticularly in t he context of a lack of available comparable data.
e c entral questi on in rel ation to c ross-nat ional analy ses of so cial p olicy – w ho gets
what? – is usually answered by using stylised ca ses that o er a common yardstick that
enables systematic comparisons to be made. e social-citizenship approach measures
the extent of social rights through the coverage and level of the protection provided.
Calculations i n previous research have been based primar ily on the average wage of the
standard production worker (e.g. Korpi and Palme 2007; Scruggs 2004), a technique
which no longer re ects today’s reality due to changes in the labour market. Our
ana lysis mo ves away f rom th e stand ard (pro duction) worker a nd exa mines ve d i erent
oc cu pa ti on s r ep re se nt in g b ot h l ow -s ki l le d a nd hi gh -s k il le d w or ke rs , a s w el l a s p ub li c a nd
private sec tor employees. e purp ose is to analyse occupational welfare in the Nordic
countries. We provide answers to two questions. First, to what extent do individuals in
the stylised s cenarios receive similar levels of sick ness bene t s (public and occupational)
when they are exposed to spells of sickness of various lengths? And, secondly, to
what extent do occupational bene ts mitigate or reinforce existing di erences across
occupations generated by public bene ts? (Is there evidence of a stratifying e ect?).
Since we would expect hig her-level occupations to have had stronger bargaining power,
our hypothesis is that oc cupational bene ts have a reinforcing charac ter.
Occupational welfare in this article is understood to consist of social bene ts
provided by employers to employees as a result of employment. Here we focus on
occupational sickness bene ts that are agreed upon by labour market organisations,
that is, collectively negotiated bene ts. Sickness bene ts are an appropriate research
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