Ali Bargu
Valerie Frey
Content or Discontent? Perceptions of Social Protection in France, Germany and the United Kingdom
1. Situating France in the welfare state literature
Abstract
This chapter presents the concept of welfare state regimes, offers an overview of how France, Germany and the United Kingdom have been classified in the academic literature, and discusses academic findings on the drivers of social policy preferences and satisfaction with social policies. This literature review informs the hypotheses that are tested empirically in later chapters of this report using data from the 27‑country OECD Risks that Matter Survey.
1.1. Introduction: The modern welfare state
This report explores perceptions of social protection in France in comparative perspective, with a focus on Germany and the United Kingdom. The research contrasts public perceptions against the actual size, shape and outcomes of social programmes. Using OECD Risks that Matter (RTM) survey data, this project builds on a long literature looking at socio-economic determinants of welfare state design and contributes to a budding literature measuring and exploring determinants of satisfaction with social programmes – recognising, of course, that preferences for policy design and perceptions of policy outcomes are quite interdependent.
The concept of the modern welfare state gained importance in the early to mid‑20th century, influenced by numerous social, economic, and political factors, including the rise of industrialisation, urbanisation, trade unions, political factors and the recognition of social rights (Briggs, 1961[1]). The time following WWII is often referred to as the “Golden Age of the Welfare State”, as post-war construction went hand-in-hand with expansions of social protection and the goal of full employment in Europe and the United States (Esping-Andersen, 1996[2]). Academic discourse on the welfare state has explored its different models and variations across countries and has created typologies to identify different archetypes that exhibit many communalities (Esping-Andersen, 1990[3]).
The welfare state encompasses a collection of institutions, social and economic policies, and attitudes that shape the coverage and generosity of social safety nets across countries. Its fundamental principle is the recognition of the government’s responsibility to provide social protection, ensuring that the life opportunities of citizens are not entirely determined by factors such as misfortune, economic distress, or social disadvantages (Briggs, 1961, p. 16[1]). It involves a range of public interventions and collective efforts undertaken by the government to protect citizens from risks and uncertainties associated with life, such as poverty, unemployment, illness, disability, and old age (Iversen and Soskice, 2001[4]).
While the terms welfare state and welfare regime are often used interchangeably, their difference provides analytical clarity: Welfare state refers to the specific policies and programmes of social welfare within a country, while welfare regime refers to the broader institutional and ideological framework that shapes the welfare state and influences its operation. The concept of welfare regime provides a more comprehensive understanding of the underlying principles and societal arrangements that shape a country’s welfare system (Esping-Andersen, 1996[2]).
Welfare regimes play a crucial role in shaping and mediating citizens’ attitudes and expectations towards social policies, alongside individual-level factors. (Kulin and Svallfors, 2013[5]) show how institutions can explain cross-national disparities in welfare policy support, thus establishing a linkage between macro-level welfare regimes and individual-level public attitudes.
This chapter presents the concept of welfare state regimes, describes the state of play on drivers of social policy preferences, and offers an overview on how France, Germany and the United Kingdom have been classified in the academic literature and the underlying reasons for this variation. The academic literature into the determinants of welfare states and public satisfaction with welfare states helps to inform the hypotheses tested empirically in this paper using the OECD’s Risks that Matter survey data. Risks that Matter is a unique, cross-national survey that exploring perceptions of the welfare state and preferences for social protection.
In his seminal work, Esping-Andersen (1990[3]) describes a framework that uses decommodification, stratification and social citizenship as the main criteria to classify welfare states into three broad regime types: Liberal, Corporatist/Conservative and Social Democratic. Though this work was not the first to attempt to classify welfare states into groups (see Titmuss (1958[6]) for an early example) this tripartite classification became a keystone that the rest of the literature had to situate itself against (Powell and Barrientos, 2011[7]).
The level of decommodification describes the extent to which welfare states provide their citizens with protection against market forces by reducing their reliance on the market for basic needs. It examines the degree of social rights and social benefits provided, such as income support, healthcare, education, and housing, which enable individuals to maintain a decent standard of living regardless of their labour market participation.
The degree of stratification focuses on whether welfare states actively address and mitigate social disparities or perpetuate them. It evaluates how welfare states handle social inequalities and the extent to which they differentiate between different social groups. It examines the level of social stratification and the potential for social exclusion based on factors such as social class, occupation, gender, and ethnicity.
Lastly, the degree of social citizenship assesses the degree of universalism or selectivity in the provision of welfare benefits and services. It examines whether welfare states emphasise equal rights and entitlements for all citizens (universalism) or whether access to social protection is contingent on certain conditions, such as employment status or income level (selectivity through means-test). This criterion assesses the inclusiveness and breadth of social citizenship within the welfare state.
Based on the variation in these criteria, Esping-Andersen identifies three main types of welfare states:
Liberal Welfare Regimes: This type of welfare state emphasises market mechanisms, individual responsibility, and means-tested social assistance. It exhibits a relatively low level of decommodification, higher levels of social inequality, and limited universal social rights. Examples of countries following this model include the United States, Ireland, Canada and the United Kingdom.
Conservative/Corporatist Welfare Regimes: This type of welfare state is characterised by a strong role for traditional family structures, occupational welfare, and social insurance based on contributions. It exhibits moderate levels of decommodification, moderate levels of social stratification, and differentiated entitlements based on social groups. Examples include Austria, Belgium, Germany and France.
Social Democratic Welfare Regimes: This type of welfare state emphasises universal and comprehensive welfare provisions, high levels of decommodification, and a focus on reducing social inequalities. It aims to provide equal social rights and benefits to all citizens. Examples of countries following this model include Norway, Finland, Sweden and Denmark.
Numerous other studies proposed alternative classifications attempting to capture the multifaceted functions of a welfare state, frequently examining on different policy areas or trends over time (e.g. typology based on public health (Bambra, 2007[8]), defamilisation (Bambra, 2007[9]) extending it to poverty rates and over time (Danforth, 2014[10]), extending the geographic scope (Yörük, Öker and Tafoya, 2022[11])).
Danforth (2014) expanded the dimensions used to classify welfare state regimes to assess if historically, a stable classification of countries into three categories is possible (see Table 1 for dimensions). He examines welfare state data for each 5‑year interval from 1950 to 2000 and finds evidence of the initially proposed tripartite clustering when expanding the dimensions to provide a more holistic picture of the welfare state. This cements the usefulness and continued relevance of welfare state regimes as a heuristic to understand differences and similarities across countries in their provision and governance of social policies.
Table 1.1. Core dimensions of the welfare regime framework
Notes: This represents an expansion from the two original dimensions proposed by Esping-Andersen (1990) to seven distinct dimensions of welfare regimes.
Source: (Danforth, 2014[10]), “Worlds of welfare in time: A historical reassessment of the three-world typology”.
1.2. Welfare state regimes in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom
Esping-Andersen’s original typology has spawned many replications. France and Germany are usually classified within the same welfare regime type (Conservative corporatist) across 14 studies that included both countries, illustrating that overall the two countries have relatively comparable welfare systems compared to other developed countries. As discussed, France and Germany are countries where occupational social security systems and traditional family structures are comparatively more important for the welfare of their citizens. Further, these countries both exhibit a heavy reliance on social security contributions from the employee and employer for financing occupation-specific social insurance programmes. The United Kingdom is mostly classified as a Liberal Welfare Regime, characterised by heavy reliance on individual responsibility paired with means-tested social assistance programmes that are usually financed through general taxation. An exception to this rule are studies that include health into the welfare regime classification, as the tax-financed universal National Health Service exhibits characteristics of Social Democratic welfare regimes (Bambra, 2007[8]).
Table 1.2. Welfare regime classifications for FRA, DEU and GBR
Note: Note. EA (90), Esping‐Andersen (1990); L, liberal; C, conservative; SD, social democratic; CM (92) Castles and Mitchell (1992); R, radical; NRM, non‐right Hegemony; BO (97), Bonoli (1997); BSH, Bismarckian/high‐spending; BSL, Bismarckian/low‐spending; BVH, Beveridgean/high‐spending; BVL, Beveridgean/low‐spending; EA (99), Esping‐Andersen (1999); U, universalist; RE, Residual; SI, Social Insurance; N/C, not classified; GO(01), Goodin (2001); CL, low spending corporatist; CH, high spending corporatist; P, post‐productivist; SAD(03), Saint‐Arnaud and Bernard (2003); LA, latin; PB(04), Powell and Barrientos (2004), BA(05), Bambra (2005); SC, Scandinavian; CC, conservative focused on cash; C, conservative; LL, liberal low health; LH, liberal high health; FF(05), Ferreira and Figueiredo (2005): 1; 2; 3 (after enlargement); BA(06), Bambra (2006); HD, high decommodification; MD, medium decommodification; LD, low decommodification; SA(06), Scruggs and Allan (2006); LG, low generosity; MG, medium generosity; HG, high generosity; SA(08) Scruggs and Allan (2008): no mutually exclusive groups found; JE(08), Jensen (2008); HK(09), Hudson and Kühner (2009) Ideal types: P, productive protective; PT, protective; PD, productive; W, weak and combinations for hybrids and PD+, productive plus; PT+, protective plus; PK(11), Pöder & Kerem (2011); M, Mediterranean; C, Continentals; PC, Post‐communist; Anglo‐Americans; N, Nordics; FST(12), Ferragina et al. (2012); CD, Christian democratic; VB(12), Van der Veen and van der Brug (2013); H1 = Hybrid 1; Hybrid 2; VR (12), Vrooman (2012); DF(14), Danforth (2014) (2000 model chosen) 1, first cluster; 2, second cluster; 3, third cluster; TA(14), Talme (2013): L, Liberal; C, Conservative; S, Socialist.
Source: Adapted from: (Powell, Yörük and Bargu, 2020[12]), “Thirty years of the three worlds of welfare capitalism: A review of reviews”.
1.3. Popular attitudes towards the welfare state
There is a circular causal relationship between preferences for social protection and outcomes of social protection: preferences for social protection influence policy outcomes, and – conversely – social protection policies and outcomes shape preferences for social protection. Research on welfare regimes revealed that across macro-level welfare regimes there are significant differences in preferences for social policies and the role of the state, and, at the same time, welfare institutions shape individual-level social policy preferences (Kulin and Svallfors, 2013[5]).
The academic literature on determinants of the welfare state is well-developed, and many causal mechanisms have been established. The shape and size of welfare institutions are endogenous to factors like levels of inequality in society (Meltzer and Richard, 1981[13]; Moene and Wallerstein, 2001[14]; Gingrich and Ansell, 2012[15]; Iversen and Soskice, 2009[16]), ethnic/racial heterogeneity (Alesina and Glaeser, 2004[17]), economic risks (Iversen and Soskice, 2001[4]; Gingrich and Ansell, 2012[15]; Rueda and Stegmueller, 2019[18]; Rehm, Hacker and Schlesinger, 2012[19]) (including vis-à-vis potential income displacement related to technological chance (Busemeyer et al., 2022[20]), political institutions (Iversen and Soskice, 2006[21]), and partisanship, with recent literature shifting from the traditional left-right paradigm and exploring the populist yet exclusionary welfare preferences of the radical right wing (Chueri, 2022[22]).
Literature attempting to understand the causal effects of the welfare state on public perceptions is much less well developed. It is difficult to assess the degree to which the size and shape of welfare states, specifically, affect attitudes. Yet the existing welfare state literature – looking principally at inputs into policy design – offers some guidance, as does the limited research on determinants of satisfaction with policies and survey data on perceptions of social protection. Overall, expectations for government intervention in social programmes tends to be highest in Social-Democratic Welfare Regimes, like those found in the Nordics, and lowest in Liberal Welfare Regimes, typically the Anglophone OECD countries.
The OECD Risks that Matter Survey explores perceptions of social protection systems across 1 000 representative respondents in each of 27 participating OECD countries. Results of the 2022 wave of the OECD Risks that Matter survey show that indeed, there are significant differences in attitudes towards social policies across welfare regime types. Figure 1.1. shows the share of respondents who agree that many people receive public benefits without deserving them across the three welfare regimes established by Esping-Andersen (1990[3]).1 People in Conservative/Corporatist Welfare Regimes (incl. France and Germany) have the highest share of respondents who find that many people receive public benefits without deserving them (63%), followed by Liberal Welfare Regimes (incl. the United Kingdom and the United States) (61%), followed by and Social-Democratic Welfare Regimes (incl. Denmark and Norway) where only 57% of the populations view many benefit recipients as underserving.
It is important to keep in mind, however, that this does not take actual benefit coverage and generosity and inequality levels into consideration. Inequalities tend to be higher in Liberal Welfare Regimes, as these countries generally have lower levels of government involvement and redistribution, including lower levels of direct taxation and social security contributions. More generous, universal benefits are a key feature of Social-Democratic Welfare Regimes and benefits.
When asked whether their government should do less, more, or as much as it is currently doing to ensure their social and economic security, people are most likely to call for a continuation of current levels of social protection in Social-Democratic Welfare Regimes, at a rate of 24%, on average across OECD-RTM Social Democratic countries (compared to 22% in Conservative/Corporatist and 18% in Liberal Welfare Regimes).
Figure 1.1. In social-democratic welfare state regimes, more people consider benefit recipients as “deserving”
Share of respondents who agree or strongly agree many people receive public benefits without deserving them, by welfare regime type, 2022
Note: Countries grouped according to the Esping-Andersen taxonomy (1990), illustrating average response from representative samples (n=1 000) of 27 OECD countries participating in RTM: Liberal Welfare Regime: Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, the United States; Conservative/Corporatist Welfare Regimes: Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland; Social-Democratic: Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden. Other regime classifications exist. A useful overview can be found in Powell et al. (2021).
Source: OECD Risks that Matter Survey (2022).
1.4. Determinants of satisfaction with social policies
The previous sections examined how preferences influence the shape and size of social protection, including redistributive and social insurance functions. Of course, people’s satisfaction with the social policies that are in place also vary. What, then, drives satisfaction with social programmes?
Satisfaction with social programmes is studied much less in the literature. This section provides an overview of several factors that help explain differing satisfaction with programmes within the population. Determinants of satisfaction with social policies are complex and interrelated.
Socio-economic and demographic characteristics: People’s satisfaction with social policies is influenced by their personal characteristics, such as their age, income and education. A recent study confirmed the role of demographic factors in pessimism about the future of Social Security in the United States, showing that differences can be mostly explained by socio-economic factors such as education, gender and earnings disparities (Turner, Andrews and Rajnes, 2023[23])
However, the relationship between age and satisfaction with social protection is understudied, as existing studies analyse age differences taking support for public programmes as the outcome. This evidence is mixed. In one cross-national study, older people are found to show greater support for social policies than younger people (Blekesaune and Quadagno, 2003[24]). A recent analysis in France finds higher levels of support for social policies among younger people (Lardeux and Pirus, 2022[25]). The present report finds that older people tend to be less satisfied than younger people with social programmes, women tend to be less satisfied than men, and parents of dependent children tend to be more satisfied than respondents without children, though results vary across policy areas and countries when it comes to differences by gender and parental status (Chapter 3).
Experience with social programmes: People’s satisfaction with social benefits and services is also influenced by their own experience with those programmes. For example, a study in Sweden found that people who have received benefits from social policies are more satisfied with those policies than people who have not received benefits (Kumlin, 2002[26]). This report finds similar results as respondents who have received benefits in the past year report higher satisfaction with social protection in general, and especially with social benefits (Chapter 4).
Public perceptions of recipients’ deservingness: Perceptions of the “deservingness” of beneficiaries likely influences satisfaction with social protection (and approval of the use of taxpayer funds to support it). Perceived deservingness varies across countries and different types of policy fields, such as healthcare, pensions, and unemployment benefits. Van Oorschot’s influential research introduced the CARIN criteria, which help determine who is deemed deserving of welfare support based on factors like control over neediness, a grateful attitude, ability to reciprocate, identity alignment, and support needs (Oorschot, 2000[27]). Based on these criteria, Van Oorschot hypothesized that solidarity is highest for the elderly, followed by sick and disabled individuals, unemployed people, and lowest for migrants, which he confirmed empirically. Since this influential study, this pattern has been confirmed with more recent data for various European countries and policy domains. (Meuleman, Roosma and Abts, 2020[28]; Kootstra, 2017[29])
Data from the OECD’s Risks that Matter survey suggest that higher feelings that beneficiaries are “deserving” is indeed associated with more expansive social protection systems across countries (OECD, 2021[30]). However, perceptions of deservingness are not consistently associated with satisfaction with social protection in the three countries studied here once perceptions of representativeness in social policy design and financial fairness views regarding the social protection system are taken into account (Chapter 4).
Political ideology: People’s satisfaction with social policies is also influenced by their political ideology. For example, people who are more left-leaning are more likely to be satisfied with social policies that are universal and generous, whereas people who vote for radical right parties tend to favour policies for the elderly and “native‑born” individuals that follow a workfare logic (Busemeyer, Rathgeb and Sahm, 2021[31]; McCright, Dunlap and Marquart-Pyatt, 2016[32]). This report finds that supporters of non-establishment parties, in particular those of radical right-wing parties, and non-voters are substantially less satisfied than establishment voters.
Trust in government: People’s satisfaction with public policies is likely positively associated with their trust in government. Data from the 22 countries participating in the 2021 OECD Trust Survey suggest, for example, that among people who have moderate to high trust in their national government, 78% on average are also satisfied with the educational system, whereas only 10% are dissatisfied (OECD, 2022[33]).
Similarly, the present report finds that perceptions of representativeness in social policy design, which likely correlate with trust in government, show the strongest association with satisfaction with social protection, as respondents who feel represented are substantially more satisfied than those who do not. In fact, more negative perceptions of representativeness in social policy design among non-establishment voters and non-voters appear to help explain why these groups of respondents report particularly low levels of satisfaction with social protection (Chapter 4).
Country-level contextual factors: People’s satisfaction with social policies is also influenced by country-level factors, such as the level of economic development, the perceived quality of social welfare programmes, and the level of income inequality. (Gugushvili and Otto, 2021[34]; Jæger, 2013[35]; van Oorschot et al., 2022[36]).
A useful concept in this regard is the policy deficit, which describes the difference between people’s expectations of what a social policy should achieve and their perceptions of what the policy actually achieves (Ringen, 1987[37]; Polavieja, 2013[38]). It is a useful concept to describe determinants of policy satisfaction because it captures the gap between people’s ideal and reality. A higher policy deficit (larger discrepancy between expectations and outcomes) has been shown beyond the welfare state literature to influence popular opinions on how well democracy as a whole is functioning (Sirovátka, Guzi and Saxonberg, 2018[39]). Studies have highlighted that if an enduring discrepancy persists between the expectations of citizens and the government’s actual policy provisions, this can result in heightened level of political alienation, especially when there have been recent cutbacks to social policies (Oskarson, 2007[40]).
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Note
← 1. Please note that due to data limitations, not all the original 18 countries are included in the analysis. A detailed list of which countries are classified within which welfare regime can be found in the notes below Figure 1.1.