Minimum income protection and EU coordination
| Author | Jinxian Wang,Kees Goudswaard,Olaf van Vliet |
| DOI | 10.1177/1388262718798896 |
| Date | 01 September 2018 |
| Published date | 01 September 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Minimum income protection
and EU coordination
Jinxian Wang
Central South University, Changsha, China
Olaf van Vliet
Leiden University, the Netherlands
Kees Goudswaard
Leiden University, the Netherlands
Abstract
A number of studiessuggest that the Europeanisationprocess is having a profoundimpact on national
labour market policies. Nevertheless, rather little research has beendevoted to the development of
socialassistance schemesacross countries and overtime. Relying on two new indicators,benefit levels
and replacement rates, we examined the relationship between the Lisbon Strategy and changes in
nationalsocial assistancebenefits. We found no robust resultsfor the first years of the LisbonStrategy.
However,after its re-launch in 2005,there was a positive association betweenthe Lisbon Strategy and
social assistance benefit levels.In addition to the Lisbon Strategy, domestic political, institutional and
several economic factors were significantly associated with social assistance benefits.
Keywords
comparative political economy, Europeanisation, welfare state reform, social assistance benefits
Introduction
Europeanisation can be defined as the impact of European integration on member states (Radaelli
2002). More specifically, it refers to the impact on policies, polities and politics. In the field of
social policy, the process of Europeanisation has been visible since the introduction of the Lisbon
Strategy. After the Lisbon Summit in 2000, the fight against poverty and social exclusion has
become one of the central tenets in the modernisation of the European social model (European
Council 2000a). A number of studies show that the Europeanisation process has triggered or
contributed to domestic labour market policy reforms (Armingeon 2007, Paetzold and Van Vliet
Corresponding author:
Olaf van Vliet, Department of Economics and at the Institute of Public Administration, Leiden University.
E-mail: o.p.van.vliet@law.leidenuniv.nl
European Journal of Social Security
2018, Vol. 20(3) 253–271
ªThe Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/1388262718798896
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2014, Swank 2011, Van Vliet and Koster 2011). Nevertheless, relatively little research has been
devoted to the relationship between the Lisbon Strategy and domestic social assistance policy
reforms. This is remarkable as these benefit schemes play a central role in combating poverty and
the pursuit of social inclusion. As the last-resort safety net, social assistance benefits are important
instruments for providing social protection, whichwasemphasisedbytheLisbonCouncil
(European Council 2000a). Furthermore, since the European coordination of social policy is still
based on legally non-binding means of governance, it is important to acquire insight into the
domestic impact of the Lisbon Strategy.
In this study, our aim was to complement the existing literature by exploring the Europeanisa-
tion of national social assistance policies. However, it is difficult to assess the extent to which the
Lisbon Strategy has contributed to domestic social assistance benefit reforms.
Assessing the impact of the European strategy might be over-determined due to its non-binding
character (Zeitlin 2009). Hence, the aim of this study was to analyse changes in social assistance
benefits after the launch of the Lisbon Strategy in 2000 and its re-launch in 2005, and to explain the
cross-national variation in benefit policy changes, accounting for several political, economic and
institutional factors.
We seek to make three contributions with this article. First, existing Europeanisation studies
have focused on the Lisbon Strategy that was launched in 2000. In 2005, the governance structure
was modified in order to increase its effectiveness and the strategy was then re-launched. This
study accounts for this re-launch. Second, the empirical analysis is based on two new indicators for
comparing the levels of social assistance benefits across countries and over time, namely, net
benefit levels and net replacement rates (Wang and Van Vliet 2016b). Third, the analysis of the
determinants of benefit levels in welfare state programmes such as unemployment benefits has
been a central subject in the comparative political economy literature (e.g. Allan and Scruggs 2004,
Korpi and Palme 2003). Nelson (2013a) and Van Vliet and Wang (2017) have examined the
determinants of social assistance benefits. With regard to these two studies, the contribution of
the current study is that it includes the role of EU coordination in the analysis.
Europeanisation of social assistance benefits
Social assistance benefits
Social assistance benefits are public transfers that are aimed at helping hou seholds obtain an
adequate standard of living which employ a low-income criterion as the central entitlement
condition (Adema 2006, Immervoll et al. 2015). Because this broad definition encompasses several
low-income programmes, such as child supplements and tax credits, in addition to basic allowan-
ces, the terms ‘social assistance’ and ‘minimum income’ benefits are used interchangeably in this
article. Depending on the specific structure of the welfare state, social assistance generally func-
tions as a last-resort safety net. That is, eligibility for social assistance arises if eligibility for other
transfers has been exhausted. Social assistance benefits have developed considerably over the past
few decades (Van Mechelen and Marchal 2013). Nearly all OECD countries have minimum
income schemes for households that do not have sufficient other resources to support themselves
(Adema 2006). In addition, combating poverty and providing income protection have been central
objectives of the European social policy coordination and integration processes (European Council
2000a). Since the 1990s, minimum income protection has been a recurrent theme of the EU
governance in combating poverty and social exclusion (Vandenbroucke et al. 2013).
254 European Journal of Social Security 20(3)
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