The social investment approach as a field of job creation. From the ‘recalibration’ to a resurgent trade-off between employment growth and low wage (white) jobs. A comparison between Germany and Italy

ABSTRACT

The social investment approach emerged as a new welfare paradigm, aimed at reconciling the traditional functions of the welfare supply with a productive social agenda, designed at preparing people to confront the ‘new social risks’, whether they be related to the problem of balancing paid work and family responsibilities, upgrading the skills, preventing inequalities and promoting the availability of in-kind services. In order to achieve these objectives, especially those related to care needs and work-life balance, the adoption of social investment-based strategies necessarily implies an expansion of the jobs related to health and social care services. In more recent years, many studies have analysed the limitations of the social investment policies because of their different redistributive impacts on social groups. Several studies have found a higher use of these policies for high-income families. Another source of criticism on social investment is that spending on these policies would seem to crowd out more traditional passive social expenditures. In this article, we examine another question related to the widespread of this approach: what are the effects of the social investment policies in terms of direct job creation? In fact, one of the more controversial issues, related to social investment policies, is their direct contribution to the labour market in terms of both quantity and quality of work within welfare services. The article analyses these issues focusing on Germany and Italy, two countries that represent not only two different care regimes but also two distinct models regarding job creation strategies in the care sector. In doing so, particular attention will be paid to long-term care policies, as they represent one of the pivotal areas of the social investment approach, both in terms of social services, to address new social risks, and new jobs related to welfare services

KEYWORDS:

• White jobs
• care labour market
• welfare regimes

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Note on contributor

Andrea Ciarini, PhD in Sociology, is currently researcher in the Department of Social and Economic Sciences of the Sapienza University of Rome, where he teaches Welfare Systems in Europe. His main research interests are in the fields of comparative welfare studies, labour market and industrial relations

ORCiD

Andrea Ciarini http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7815-2803

Notes

1. According to Eurostat the definition ‘personal and household services’(PHS) covers a broad range of activities that contribute to the well-being at home of families and individuals: child care (CC), long term care (LTC) for the elderly and for people with disabilities, cleaning, remedial classes, home repairs, gardening, ICT support.

2. According to the Europe 2020 strategy white jobs refer to employment in the health and social services sector. They include jobs in the health care sector as well as residential and domiciliary services.

3. Data source: Eurostat – Labour Force Survey

4. Ver.Di (Vereinte Dienstleistungsgewerkschaft) is a services German union. It should be count 2.2 million members

5. According to EU definitions (European Parliament 2013; see also Eiro 2002), economically dependent self-employed workers are workers who are formally self-employed but depend on a single employer for their income. The replacement of directly employed staff with workers who are legally self-employed but in fact dependent on the employer is a phenomenon common to other European countries. However, its extent in Europe is rather limited compared to Italy, where these contracts accounted until recent years for more than 6% of the total employment (Isfol 2012; Reyneri and Pintaldi 2013). Actually the widespread diffusion of this kind of workers is what makes Italy a sui generis case compared to other European countries. We are dealing with a group of autonomous workers – largely young and employed in the service economy – only formally independent but factually dependant in every respect, excluded from the basic system of welfare protection, especially with regard to passive measures aimed at prevent the risk of poverty.

6. Data from Inps – Osservatorio sul lavoro domestico