1,720,998 research outputs found
The pension contract - a matter of obligations
No full textBook abstract: The ‘Golden Age' of the welfare state in Europe was characterised by a strengthening of social rights as citizens became increasingly protected through the collective provision of income security and social services. The oil crisis, inflation and high unemployment of the 1970s largely saw the end of welfare expansion with critical voices claiming the welfare state had created an unbalanced focus on the social rights of individuals, above their responsibilities as citizens. During the 1980s many western countries developed contractual modes of thinking and regulation within welfare policy. Contractualism has proved a significant organising principle for public reforms in general, and for social policy reforms in particular as it embraces both a way of justifying certain welfare policies and of constructing specific socio-legal policy instruments. <br/
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
From Unilateral Towards Reciprocal Social Policies:The Changing Normative Basis of the Danish Welfare State
No full textFrom Unilateral Towards Reciprocal Social Policies:The Changing Normative Basis of the Danish Welfare State
No full textBruk av skift og turnus i ulike virksomheter: En kartlegging
Full text linkMålet for dette prosjektet var å kartlegge bruk av skift og turnus i ulike næringer. Hvilket omfang av ubekvem arbeidstid finner vi og hvordan er denne tiden fordelt i form av natt, helg og kveldsarbeid innenfor ulike næringer og virksomheter?Arbeids- og inkluderingsdepartementet (Arbeidsmiljø- og sikkerhetsavdelingen
European Pension Policy Initiatives and National Reforms: Between Financial Sustainability and Adequacy
Full text linkThe EU Open method of Coordination (OMC) represents one strategy for pension reform that ideally combines agreement on common objectives with different institutional and national approaches as means of reaching these objectives. This paper will focus on the OMC in pensions, seen as representing a pension policy discourse, and how it relates to national pension policy in three particular countries; two member states; Germany and the UK and one non-member country; Norway. Each of the three countries represents different welfare state and pension models, i.e. the Bismarck-, the Beveridge-, and the Nordic model respectively. Two key questions are addressed: Does the OMC process promote a particular kind of pension system model through its goal of providing adequate, sustainable and modernized pensions? How does it compare to and does it challenge existing national systems as found in the three selected cases in terms of their institutional and normative foundations? In addition the paper briefly discusses in what way the OMC in pension potentially impact national pension debates and reforms. The empirical material applied for analysis focuses mainly on the National Strategy Reports and the Joint reports by the Commission and the Council. Theoretically an institutional perspective is followed stressing the interaction between different institutions of pension provision and the adhering discourses surrounding these institutions. Thus, institutions are seen as instruments for solving problems (for instance income security in old age) and at the same time they are expressing a normative content inherent in their specific solutions. In this way each pension pillar (seen as an institution) contains its own more or less particular discourse. This paper distinguishes between three particular discourses: Social right-, status security-, and a private pension discourse. Analysing the OMC pension discourse as laid out in the Joint reports, the following key elements are identified: Firstly, the issue of financial sustainability takes precedence over the goal of adequacy. To obtain sustainability there is a need to raise employment rates and to stem growth in public pension expenditures. Secondly, this argumentation implies a new division of pension pillars by increasing the role of occupational and private pensions. In addition, it entails internal normative changes of pension pillars by strengthening traits known from private pension insurance. Thirdly, the goal of adequacy is shaped by the financial sustainability discourse and its focus on public pension expenditures. Fourthly, seen as a pension model the OMC on pensions promotes a hybrid model of pension provision containing elements from all three pension systems, but with the important qualification that it is really «hybridization with a bias». This means that the model represents a new pension blend that contains fewest traits from the Bismarckian model and with more prominence to elements known from multi-pillar systems as well as minimum pension guarantees as found in the new postreform Nordic model. From this follows that this hybrid pension model has various implications in terms of challenges to national paradigms: In the German case we find a clear move away from public first pillar provision and increasing reliance on second and third pillar provision. In addition, focus on minimum security challenge the status security orientation of the German system. For the UK there is no confrontation in terms of financial sustainability, implying a continuance of the tradition of pension privatisation, and providing a complex system of means tested benefits to secure minimum security. For the Norwegian case the hybrid OMC paradigm represents a challenge in terms of increasing reliance on occupational pension provision in providing standard security and by containing future public pension spending
Global Normative Standards and National Solutions for Pension Provision: The World Bank, ILO, Norway and South Africa in Comparative Perspective
Full text linkThis paper identifies and describes the normative content of ideas concerning pension systems/social security schemes in terms of the concepts of fairness or justice laid out by two selected international organisations: the World Bank and the ILO. In this context, these organisations are regarded as setting global normative standards and as acting in ways that influence local powers to adopt policies that accord with these ideas. The focus is on the ideas implicit in policy stories, i.e. on the frameworks of understanding within which problems are specifically identified, their causes singled out, and remedies pursued. Three factors crucial to an understanding of the concepts of distributive justice that underlie these organisations are discussed: the coverage or scope of the pension system, redistribution, and the adequacy of pensions. The paper then presents the institutional framework of pension provision in Norway and provides a brief account of the South African system. On the basis of these four cases, the paper concludes with a comparative normative account of these frameworks and a description of various contrasts and similarities.Dette notatet identifiserar og diskuterar det normative innhaldet i idear om pensjonssystem med omsyn til rettferdsforståingar slik desse blir lagt fram av to internasjonale organisasjonar; Verdsbanken og ILO. Desse organisasjonane blir her sett som globale normative standard settarar. Dei er aktørar som prøver å påverke lokale makthavarar til å tilpasse seg slike standardar i politikkutforminga. Fokus ligg på idear forstått som policy historier, det vil seie eit rammeverk for forståing som inneheld problemidentifisering, årsaksforståing og løysingsforslag. Diskusjonen her er konsentrert om tre aspekt som er sentrale i høve til å forstå fordelingsrettferdskonsepsjonen til desse organisasjonane: medlemsskapsomfang, omfordeling og substansielt omfang til pensjonane. Notatet syner så den institusjonelle utforminga av pensjonssystemet i Noreg og gir ei kort framstilling av det Sør Afrikanske systemet. Ut frå desse fire døma konkluderer notatet gjennom ei komparativ samanstilling av desse normative rammeverka for å få fram kontrastar og likskapar
The Redistributive Aim of Social Policy: A Comparative Analysis of Taxes, Tax Expenditure Transfers and Direct Transfers in Eight Countries
No full textIn this paper I will study in a comparative perspective how taxes, social transfers and tax expenditures effect the social policy goal of redistributing income. The following countries are included in the analysis: Australia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom and United States. These countries reveal variation both with respect to the organization of their welfare and taxation systems and in relation to income distribution. The aim of the study is threefold: to show how these welfare states combine the tools of taxes and transfers differently, resulting in substantial variations of redistributive capacity; to identify and account for changes in the redistributive capacity of these welfare states through and analysis of data for the time period ca 1980-1995.; and the use of tax expenditures
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
- …
