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Reproduction of social inequalities in liberal welfare states: Case studies from the US and Switzerland
Sun, August 11, 10:30 to 11:30am, New York Hilton, Floor: Third Floor, Trianon BallroomAbstract
Welfare states and their policies aim at reducing social risks. However, they might also reproduce social inequalities or even produce new inequalities, based on gender, race, class, or other categories such as disability or age. Especially, liberal welfare regimes tend to reproduce inequalities by promoting individual responsibility. The two cases chosen for the case study, the US and Switzerland, are classified as liberal welfare regimes (Esping-Anderson 1993).
The aim of the paper is to compare and contrast the mechanism of how liberal welfare states reproduce social inequalities through the implementation of welfare policies. The study adopt three levels of analysis across both cases, that is, the US and Switzerland: 1. Macro-level: (National or State-level) legal basis, 2. Meso-level: (Regional) institutions and 3. Micro-level: frontline workers. Empirical analysis is drawing upon three theoretical concepts: 1. welfare regimes, 2. organizational theory and 3. street-level bureaucrats. Two case studies basing on these concepts and using a data triangulation of interviews, documents and statistics are presented: 1. An ongoing project (2019-2020) on the implementation of California’s TANF program California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids and 2. A recently completed project on the implementation of the Swiss Unemployment Policy (2017-2018).
Swiss case study showcase how the norm of treating every unemployed person as equal leads to an intentional ignoring of structural inequalities, based on gender or race, which reproduces this social inequalities. A similar analysis of the US case study will provide an opportunity to compare and contrast how liberal welfare regimes reproduce social inequality.