Wim van Oorschot

• Professor at KU Leuven

While the COVID-19 pandemic seemingly juxtaposes the interests of older and younger age cohorts, there is an ongoing discussion about the balance between acute economic needs of young and vulnerable individuals and the increasing costs of old-age welfare provisions. Particularly in public policy, the concern has grown that younger age cohorts are l...

Previous studies have suggested that Europeans’ support for introducing an EU minimum‐income scheme would be determined by a hope‐or‐fear reasoning. Where Northern/Western Europeans may fear that their generous benefits are levelled out, Southern/Eastern Europeans may be critical of their country’s welfare policies and therefore have hopes for a hi...

Transition to the market economy and the related restructuring of welfare systems has produced new vulnerabilities in the formerly communist countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, while simultaneously aggravating the existing ones. Given the limited fiscal capacities of the transition countries, this brings to the fore the issue of which of...

Welfare opinion research has traditionally viewed migration as a potential hazard for welfare solidarity. In this article, we argue that while increased presence of foreigners can indeed make some people less supportive of public welfare provision in general or trigger opposition to migrants’ social rights, the link between migration and solidarity...

Although European welfare states receive high levels of public support, insights into what kind of general redistributive principles Europeans would prefer to be applied in welfare provisions—equity, equality or need—is scarce and fragmented. Analysing the 2008 wave of the European Social Survey, we find that most European populations share a prefe...

In this special issue, authors present and discuss the findings of a series of recent national and EU cross-national empirical studies on public support for basic income. As such, the special issue offers new and innovative insights on such support and its individual and contextual drivers. The articles employ heterogeneous data and methods and the...

Over the past decade, European welfare states have experienced the 2008 banking crisis, which was quickly followed by an economic recession in 2009, which in turn invoked a fiscal and debt crisis in many of them. In reaction, most of the countries implemented fiscal consolidation programs, including significant welfare retrenchment and labour marke...

Over the past decades, the social protection of unemployed people has been high on policy agendas of many welfare states. Here, we address the question how the Dutch general public’s solidarity with the unemployed—in terms of the welfare benefits they would grant this group—has been influenced by economic developments and changes in unemployment ra...

Purpose Whether welfare provision should be broad-based or selectively targeted at the poor is one of the most common themes in social policy discourse. However, empirical evidence concerning people's preferences about these distributive justice principles is very limited. The current paper aims to bridge this gap, by analyzing Europeans' opinions...

In this paper, we investigate whether the communist legacy and economic and institutional differences between Eastern and Western European countries also translate into substantial differences in the perceived welfare deservingness of unemployed people in the two parts of the continent. Using European Social Survey data, we find that the Eastern Eu...

The idea of a universal basic income (BI) is both radical and simple. Obtaining a sufficient citizenship-based income without work obligations is fundamentally opposing the foundations of the welfare systems that are in place nowadays. As BI has gained increasing attention in public debates and among policymakers, questions arise about its social l...

In this article, we examine whether cross-national studies disclose enough information for independent researchers to evaluate the validity and reliability of the findings (evaluation transparency) or to perform a direct replication (replicability transparency). The first contribution is theoretical. We develop a heuristic theoretical model includi...

Rising levels of unemployment in European welfare states have revived questions on the social protection of the unemployed and the people’s solidarity with this claimant group. Does people’s solidarity with the unemployed—in terms of the welfare benefits they would grant this group—decrease when the economy fares ill and unemployment is on the rise...

This article argues that the ever-growing research field of welfare deservingness is in need of qualitative research. Using focus group data collected in Denmark, Germany, and the United Kingdom, we show that citizens discussing matters of social welfare make explicit reference not only to the deservingness criteria of control, reciprocity, and nee...

This article explores how the retrenchment of the Russian welfare state has affected Russians’ attitudes towards it. Using European Social Survey data, we find that the retrenchment has not eroded Russians’ strong preference for a comprehensive system, despite their dissatisfaction with its outcomes. Further, we find that in Russia, some of the ind...

Europe and Russia have a long common history. Over time, a great number of different nations have evolved and dissolved in these regions, each developing their own cultural backgrounds, institutions and values. The relations between Russia and Europe, or European countries, have not been without conflicts stemming from various cultural (e.g., diffe...

Trends in social protection schemes have been one of the main subjects in comparative welfare state research, not least since the financial crisis and the austerity measures that many European countries implemented in its aftermath. One of the key debates in literature is about how to measure the extent of public welfare provision as an indicator o...

This book addresses new perspectives on the perceived popular deservingness of target groups of social services and benefits, offering new insights and analysis to this quickly developing field of welfare attitudes research. It provides an up-to-date state of the art in terms of concepts, theories, research methods and data. The book offers a multi...

Whether people believe that tax burdens are fairly distributed is an important condition for welfare state legitimacy. This article examines how people evaluate this distribution of tax burdens in their country by using latent cluster analysis. We use 2006 International Social Survey Program data for 26 countries and define different “tax opinion p...

When analysing the legitimacy of the welfare state, perceptions of the overuse and underuse of welfare are of great importance. Previous literature suggests that many people perceive overuse (misuse or fraud), and there is evidence that people also perceive underuse (non-take-up) of welfare benefits. Perceptions of overuse have therefore been calle...

In the present contribution, we address the idea that income inequality can ‘get under the skin’ and worsen the symptoms of depression. We investigate whether this effect can be explained by country differences in the average coping resources citizens have at their disposal, as well as the average extent to which they engage in social comparisons....

An oft-heard concern about the sustainability of the welfare state is that generous social welfare provisions serve as an important pull factor in immigrants’ consideration of their preferred country of destination. With their accumulated social risks, immigrants are averagely more likely to claim welfare benefits, suggesting that generous provisio...

In this article, we propose a new variable in the formation of individual attitudes towards governmental responsibilities to the unemployed – the perceived magnitude of unemployment. Our choice is based on the argument that people’s reactions are strongly influenced by subjective meanings ascribed to social realities. We apply a multilevel analysis...

Against the background of a permanent process of welfare reform, in which a pivotal role is played by the socio-political debate on ‘who should get what and why’, this paper addresses the question about the social legitimacy of differently targeted welfare schemes. It aims to review what is known in the academic literature on the social legitimacy...

In the field of welfare attitude research, generally studies examining critical attitudes toward the welfare state are rather limited. However, the existing studies find that people are most negative about the mis-targeting of welfare benefits – that is, people are particularly critical of the high overuse (misuse or fraud) and high underuse (non-t...

An influential policy idea states that reducing inequality is beneficial for improving health in the low and middle income countries (LMICs). Our study provides an empirical test of this idea: we utilized data collected by the Demographic and Health Surveys between 2000 and 2011 in as much as 52 LMICs, and we examined the relationship between house...

Invoking the metaphor of the magnet, an oft-heard concern about the sustainability of the welfare state is that generous social welfare provisions serve as an important pull-factor in immigrants' consideration of their preferred country of destination. With their accumulated social risks, immigrants are on average more likely to claim welfare benef...

This paper re-examines the relationship between wealth inequality and two measures of physical health: anemia status of women and of their children and the experience of women with child mortality. We test the role of individual resources (i.e., wealth) and of the countries’ resources relevant to health (i.e., the level of wealth of the country, th...

As European governments have embraced the credo of austerity, the perennial discussion whether welfare states erode the quality of social networks has taken on a more prominent position on political and social science research agendas. While non-believers of this so-called ‘crowding out’ thesis argue that social networks flourish well in welfare st...

This article analyses European Social Survey data for 22 countries. We assess the relationship between feelings of employment and income insecurity (dual-insecurity) among workers and national flexicurity policies in the areas of lifelong learning, active labour market policy, modern social security systems and flexible and reliable contractual arr...

Welfare state support has two core dimensions: attitudes about what the welfare state should do and beliefs about its actual performance. People can combine any position on one dimension with any position on the other, yielding four opinion clusters: people can combine preferences for a relatively strong role of the welfare state with a perception...

This paper aims to contribute to the debate on the ‘dependent variable problem’ in comparative welfare state analysis, by focusing on ‘benefit recipiency’ as a hitherto largely neglected type of indicator for understanding cross-national and longitudinal variation between welfare states. The pros and cons of the commonly used indicators of social r...

When evaluating the various aspects of the welfare state, people assess some aspects more positively than others. Following a multidimensional approach, this study systematically argues for a framework composed of seven dimensions of the welfare state, which are subject to the opinions of the public. Using confirmatory factor analyses, this concept...

Analyzing the 2008 wave of the European Social Survey, this study assesses whether an elaborate institutional theory is able to explain why levels of welfare chauvinism differ among welfare regimes. As expected, native populations in liberal and conservative welfare regimes prove more reluctant to distributing welfare services to immigrants than th...

Research has shown that several criteria underlie people's opinions about the welfare deservingness of benefit recipients. However, it remains unknown which factors are associated with the emphasis that people place on such criteria. Using a 2006 Dutch national survey on the welfare deservingness of disability pension recipients, we study the influ...

Although European welfare states receive high levels of public support, insights into what kind of welfare state individuals prefer – i.e., one based on the redistributive principle of equity, of equality or of need – is scarce and fragmented. Using the 2008 wave of the European Social Survey, we find that most European populations share a preferen...

Long-term trends in deservingness opinions and how these fluctuate in relation to changes in the economic, institutional and political contexts have not often been examined. In this paper, we address these trend questions by analyzing 22 waves of the repeated cross-sectional Cultural Change in The Netherlands (CCN, 1975–2006) survey. Our analyses s...

The idea that the level of stratification of societies contributes to the well-being of their members is gaining popularity. We contribute to this debate by investigating whether reducing inequalities in the income distribution of societies is a strategy for improving population health, especially appropriate for those countries that have reached t...

In the present ‘Age of Migration’, public policy as well as social scientists are puzzled by the ‘New Liberal Dilemma’ (Newton, 2007) of finding popular support for welfare programs that have been installed in times of cultural homogeneity. In this article, we are interested in the question of whether opinions about immigrants’ access to welfare pr...

In the current literature there is emerging consensus about a positive correlation between countries' welfare efforts and the social capital of their inhabitants: the larger the welfare state, the more social capital its inhabitants have. This paper pulls the discussion an important step further by asking what mechanisms can be responsible for this...

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2008, youth unemployment has risen worldwide. In cross-national perspective, research on youth employment has thus far paid attention to the transition from school to work, but underemphasized the importance of the social psychology of labour market entrance. In this article, European young adults’...

The societal effects of the welfare state are a perennial issue in the public debate. Critics accuse the welfare state of having unintended economic and moral consequences rather than producing its intended social goals. Popular perceptions of possible consequences of the welfare state are a crucial component of welfare state legitimacy, but have r...

Oorschot W van, Meuleman B. Welfarism and the multidimensionality of welfare state legitimacy: evidence from The Netherlands, 2006 Is it possible that citizens who support a substantial role for government in the provision of welfare are, at the same time, critical about specific aspects of such provision? Based on confirmatory factor analyses, and...

In reaction to the recent financial crisis, the European Commission re-stated its view that the balance between flexibility and security is the key to success for the future of the European social economy, as well as its belief in the power of institutional arrangements it deems necessary for this balance. However, do powerful institutions actually...

The European Union benchmarking tool for flexicurity policies and practices consists of four indices concerning lifelong learning (LLL), active labour market policies (ALMP), modern social security systems (MSS), and flexible and reliable labour contracts (FCA). Multi-level analysis techniques were used to determine whether in countries with higher...

Although the welfare state receives high levels of public support across European countries, insights into what kind of welfare state individuals prefer, i.e. one based on equity, equality or need, is scarce and fragmented. Using the 2008 wave of the European Social Survey, we analyze individual preferences of welfare redistribution departing from...

The concept of Flexicurity has been receiving much attention as the European social model. One of the most important concepts within the flexicurity approach is employment security, the security of having secure and continuous employment career, which may entail changing employers and jobs. How do European individuals subjectively perceive their em...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse whether social capital inequalities are smaller in more extensive welfare states. Design/methodology/approach – The paper analyses data from European/World Values Surveys. Findings – No effect of welfare stateness on social capital inequality is found. Research limitations/implications – An extensio...

In this contribution we describe and explain the differences in popular poverty attributions that exist within and between 28 European countries. On the basis of the existing literature we distinguish five predictors: awareness of the existence of poverty, personal experience of disadvantage, personal values, socio-demographic background and struct...

The goal of this study is to give a comprehensive empirical account of push and pull factors, situated at various societal levels, which may influence people's early retirement. Factors in two contrasting European countries have been analysed and compared: Denmark, where the rate of early exit/retirement is relatively low, and The Netherlands, wher...

Various authors point to the connection between public perceptions of poverty and institutionalised strategies of dealing with the poor. The way the general public perceives the poor, and especially the causes of poverty, is generally assumed to have a profound influence on the legitimacy of anti-poverty policies. Yet studies on popular perceptions...

In this paper we theoretically and empirically explore the question whether the unequal distribution of different aspects of social capital (networks, trust, norms) over a number of social dimensions (gender, age, income, employment status, and educational level) is smaller in countries with more developed welfare systems. Our data cover 13 Western...

In this paper we theoretically and empirically explore the question whether the unequal distribution of different aspects of social capital (networks, trust, norms) over a number of social dimensions (gender, age, income, employment status, and educational level) is smaller in countries with more developed welfare systems. Our data cover 13 Western...

In cross-national comparative studies of people's social capital, there is a standard practice of measuring social capital using the size and intensity of people's networks. In this article, we discuss the validity of this practice, from both a theoretical and an empirical perspective. Theoretically, the practice is problematic, because it disregar...

In Europe, social investments on behalf of children have become an important issue in social policy. In the Dutch welfare state debate, however, the issue has only a modest place, which raises questions about whether an extension of existing arrangements would be necessary and what its societal legitimacy would be. This article discusses the first...

Die Anfänge des modernen holländischen Wohlfahrtsstaates werden i.d.R. im Jahre 1874 verortet, als Kinderarbeit von unter 12-Jährigen gesetzlich verboten wurde (Kinderwetje van Van Houten). Nationale Untersuchungen gegen Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts hatten die Armut gro\er Teile der Bevölkerung in ihrem vollen Ausma\ offen gelegt. Die ‚soziale Frage‘...

The concern that immigration could threaten the sustainability of the European Social Model is a reason to have a closer look at popular images of immigrants in the context of European welfare states. The focus is on Europeans’ informal solidarity towards immigrants relative to other vulnerable groups in society. Using data from the European Values...

This article contributes to the scant knowledge about what people believe to be the economic, moral, social and migration consequences of the welfare state. Data from a 2006 Dutch survey show, first, that in the eyes of most Dutch people the positive social consequences of the welfare state outweigh the negative economic and moral consequences. Sec...

"Culture and Welfare State" provides comparative studies in the interplay between cultural factors and welfare policies. Starting with an analysis of the historical and cultural foundations of Western-European welfare states, reflected in the competing ideologies of liberalism, conservatism and socialism, the book goes on to compare the Western-Eur...

How does a nation's welfare spending affect people's concern for immigrants in comparison with other needy groups? Economic self-interest and cultural ideology theory and knowledge about immigration rates in welfare states suggest several hypotheses. Multilevel regression analyses of data for eighteen countries from the European Values Survey 1999/...

The early retirement of older workers, and their low labour participation, was not seen as a major problem by the Dutch government during the years of recession in the 1980s and early 1990s. However, with the upswing of the economy and the rapid ageing of the population, the government's perspective changed drastically and related policy measures w...

This article takes the increased interest in the relation between culture and social policy as a starting point, and discusses how this increasing attention can be understood as the result of contextual factors such as economic, social and academic trends. It discusses these matters and at the same time reviews briefly some of the main findings of...

This article sorts the various aspects of social capital (networks, trust, civism) theoretically and constructs an instrument for measuring its multifacetedness. The instrument is validated using data from the 1999/2000 wave of the European Values Study survey. Using the same data, the article describes how social capital, by its various aspects, i...

This article critically describes and discusses a funda,nental shift in the contents and character of the Dutch welfare state from a model of collective solidarity towards one of personal responsibility. It starts with a brief historical sketch of the main lines along which the Dutch welfare state has developed, and ends with a \,iew of its future...

Welfare states treat different groups of needy people differently. Such differential rationing may reflect various considerations of policymakers, who act in economic, political and cultural contexts. This article aims at contributing to a theoretical and empirical understanding of the popular cultural context of welfare rationing. It examines Euro...

A recurrent critique on the welfare state is that it crowds out social capital (networks, trust and norms). However, the empirical evidence on the crowding out hypothesis is still scarce, findings are sometimes contradictory, and there is variation in the measurement of social capital. In this article we explore the crowding out hypothesis on the b...

English This article tests whether state-organised solidarity substitutes social capital and informal solidarity, based on recent data from the European Values Study. At country level, we find that welfare spending has a reinforcing effect on social capital and a negative substitution effect on informal solidarity. At the individual level, there is...

This paper takes the increased interest in the relation between culture and social policy as a starting point, and discusses how this increasing attention can be understood as the result of economic, social and academic trends. It discusses these matters and at the same time reviews briefly some of the main findings of the cultural analysis of soci...

Increasing the flexibility of work and working life has been high on the agenda of Dutch public debate for at least 15 years. Resulting policies have been guided by the aspiration of combining flexibility and security, or of achieving adequate ‘flexicurity’, as the combination of these goals has come to be known. This article describes and analyses...

As a result of the flexibilisation of labour and the trend towards the ‘activating welfare state’, social policies show an increasing interconnection of work and welfare issues. The Netherlands is no exception. It is generally believed that the Dutch welfare state is successfully activating its unemployed labour potential (often referred to as the...

"The flexibilisation of work and of working life have been issues high on the agenda of the Dutch public debate for at least fifteen years. Mostly, they have been regarded as positive developments, specifically from the viewpoint of their potential for enhancing the employment of the Dutch labour force and for promoting the emancipation and economi...