Preventive welfare state

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The preventive welfare state is a welfare state concept that was developed in Scandinavian countries. The term was adopted by the SPD and is primarily used by them as a political catchphrase .

It is based on the idea that social policy should not limit itself to cushioning the effects of social emergencies (" aftercare "), but should primarily aim to prevent such emergencies from occurring. Understood in this sense, “preventive social policy” encompasses a very broad field that also includes education , upbringing , health care , the economy and other areas of life. The main objective of the preventive welfare state is to help people to achieve permanent income with which they no longer need a social policy that compensates for loss of income.

The first social democratic basic program in which the concept of the precautionary welfare state is mentioned is the Hamburg program from 2007. It says:

“In order to renew [the] promise of security and advancement in our time, we are developing the welfare state into a preventive welfare state. It fights poverty and enables people to manage their lives independently . [...]
The overriding task of the preventive welfare state is the integration of all people into society . That is why preventive social policy links different tasks such as economic , financial and labor market policy , education and health policy , family and gender equality policy or the integration of immigrants . [...]
The central goals of the preventive welfare state are security, participation and emancipation . "

- SPD : Hamburg Program, p. 56 f.

"The new model of the preventive welfare state" came up in this formulation for the first time in the run-up to the discussion on the Hamburg program by the SPD presidium in April 2006. In a speech at the Herbert-Wehner-Bildungswerk in Dresden on July 7, 2007, SPD party chairman Kurt Beck denied that it was a new idea:

“We have not reinvented the idea of ​​the preventive welfare state. Herbert Wehner said in a speech in 1978 that 'the preventive function of social policy must be expanded'. The welfare state should not just run as a 'medical column' 'with the plasterboard behind developments'. And the Berlin program says that social policy must 'shape with foresight'. "

- Kurt Beck, SPD party chairman

After Martin Schulz took office as party leader of the SPD and candidate for the office of Federal Chancellor in the 2017 federal election , SPD politicians recommended a revival of the concept of the preventive welfare state as a counter-model to Agenda 2010 . The focus here is on the hope of being able to reduce “after-care” measures such as the provision of low-skilled workers with poorly paid work.

Providing and activating welfare state

There is a close relationship between the concepts of the preventive and the activating welfare state . In Denmark's political practice, for example, the unemployed are de facto forced to seek further training and to remain in close contact with the labor authority if they do not want to risk losing their monetary transfer benefits. There is freedom of choice in education policy, but there is a certain degree of compulsion for all employable residents of Denmark to be educated (and the quality of educational progress is compulsorily evaluated). Like tax policy, social policy includes aspects of government coercion.

An essential difference to the activating welfare state, which is also advocated by liberals or conservatives, is that the precautionary welfare state of the Scandinavian type takes on more of the tasks it has set itself.

The union - related Hans Böckler Foundation emphasizes that Scandinavian countries are characterized by the combination of egalitarian education and a strong welfare state: “It is striking that in these countries the educational results differ only slightly according to the social origin of the students. The states allow comparatively little educational poverty. This shows how both areas of activity interact - because school or vocational qualifications make future need less likely, the education system relieves the welfare state. "Germany, on the other hand, offers" good education for a few ". The insufficient link between educational and social policy is expressed in the fact that educational poverty can quickly turn into material poverty and then burden the welfare state. In this respect one can only compare the policies of the Scandinavian countries and Germany to a limited extent. The pressure to establish and maintain a low-wage sector for the low-skilled is significantly lower in Scandinavia than in Germany.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Sven Jochem: The preventive welfare state. Examples from the labor and social policy of the Scandinavian countries . Friedrich Ebert Foundation 2012
  2. ↑ Thilo Fehmel: Preventive welfare state - the future of the welfare state? . Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. July 2007, p. 4
  3. ↑ Hamburg program. Basic program of the Social Democratic Party of Germany ( Memento of the original from December 26, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF), October 28, 2007 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / parteitag.spd.de
  4. ↑ SPD wants a "better welfare state". Der Tagesspiegel, April 9, 2006
  5. ↑ Kurt Beck: "Social Democracy - Democratic Socialism". ( Memento of the original from October 21, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Speech at the Herbert-Wehner-Bildungswerk, July 7, 2007 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kurt-beck.de
  6. ↑ Reiner Burger: Dusel in Düsseldorf . faz-net, March 17, 2017
  7. ^ Sven Jochem: The preventive welfare state. Examples from the labor and social policy of the Scandinavian countries . Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. 2012. p. 51
  8. ↑ Country comparison - it's all in the mix: Successful countries invest in education and social issues . Böckler impulse. Edition 14/2010