WellSIRe

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Investing in the future of the welfare state Social security was the core function of the welfare state when it was founded but today the focus has shifted to social investment, towards building people’s capabilities to participate in the knowledge economy, which will help sustain welfare provision for an ageing society. This topic is central to Professor Anton Hemerijck’s work as Principal Investigator of the WellSIre project. European welfare states have seen continuous reforms in recent decades, as nations seek to adapt to the challenges of demographic ageing, technological innovation, and economic internationalization, alongside changing cultural and gender norms. Consequently, welfare states have moved beyond the traditional function of social security in the direction of social investment policies, such as widening access to childcare, longterm care and lifelong learning, as well as encouraging active ageing. These policies are typically designed to enable households to combine work and family life, and to boost employment rates and workforce productivity in today’s knowledge economy. The WellSIre project, led by PI Anton Hemerijck, Professor of Political Science and Sociology from the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, aims to explain both welfare state stability and change, as well as the effect of social investment reforms on citizens’ life chances and the overall economy. This is conducted by analysing how social investment is associated with employment and redistribution, by gender and age, at the country level (Layer 1); examining the individual- and household- level inferences on employment, poverty (Layer 2) and subjective wellbeing (Layer 3), with a focus on particular

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emphasizing the role of the EU in social investment policy diffusion (Layer 4), and the practices of social investment policy delivery at the sub-national level across post-industrial European cities (Layer 5).

Post-industrial society

risk groups and the availability of social investment provisions across critical lifecourse transitions. The manner and extent to which welfare provision has moved towards the social investment template varies considerably across countries. Making comparative sense of this transformative change, both in theoretical and empirical terms, the project addresses the comparative politics of social investment reforms across European countries,

At its core, the objective of 21st century social investment reform is to enhance people’s opportunities and their ability to deal with the ‘new’ social risks typical of post-industrial societies. Work, income, family, and lifecourse trajectories are central to the social investment paradigm, particularly with the gradual growth in employment rates among women since the 1990s and increasing marital instability. This calls for a more genderinclusive outlook that stresses equal access to employment as a prerequisite for female economic independence and child wellbeing. Based on his team’s research, Hemerijck has been able to confirm a ‘life-course multiplier’ mechanism, whereby social investment returns reaped over the life course generate a positive cycle of wellbeing returns, in terms of employment opportunities and gender equity, with a positive impact on intra- and intergenerational poverty mitigation. Fundamentally, an individual’s prospects of a healthy retirement correlate strongly with whether they enjoyed a happy childhood (see Figure 1 overleaf).

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