Some people in Britain have the impression that this country's welfare state is a unique creation. Actually, nearly all democracies have a welfare state.

This morning I heard a talk by Profesor Neil Gilbert from the University of California at Berkeley (given under the auspices of the Foundation for Law, Justice and Society). Here are a few notes (please forgive my uncertainty about a lot of significant details. I think the ideas are worth mentioning even though my notes are not as good as they should be):

- The share of expenditure on welfare (did he say welfare or social security?) as a proportion of GDP in OECD countries nearly doubled from the 1960s to the 1980s. (I am not sure whether he was measuring from 1960 to 1990. I suspect he meant a shorter period of 20 years)

- After the 1980s, there was a wave of work-oriented reforms across the OECD - particularly relating to unemployment and disability. I think he said that this was a reflection of the ballooning costs and a realisation that there had been unintended consequences resulting from welfare benefits.

- He quoted a German academic who has argued that during this period there was a profound change of psychology so that work became expected.

- I think he said there was a 'Purple' coalition in Holland whose programme was 'work, work and work again'.

- The Dutch pro-work reforms were radical. There were also reforms in Norway, Sweden and so on and on. There were a few instances where reforms went in the other direction but not many.

- In Holland, there had been one out of five [working age?] people on disability benefits. That seems an amazing figure. As part explanation at least, he said that as a disabled person you used to get 70pc of your salary for life! The figure for disability was a great deal higher than in neighbouring Germany.

- He said that it was easier to do pro-work reforms as an economy was growing. OECD GDP grew at an average 2.6pc a year from 1994/2007 and that rate was remarkably consistent. [One sidelight: remember how Gordon Brown used to boast that Britain was producing unparallelled, consistent growth? It turns out if was the normal sort of experience in the advanced world during this period.] Unemployment fell from 6% to 5%. The percentage of working age people in work rose from 64% to 66%.

- He regards the economic downturn starting in 2007 as a 'gamechanger'. Now, unemployment in the Euro area [did he mean the Eurozone or the EU?] is 9.9%. That hides a big range from 19% in Spain to 4% in Denmark. He said that GDP fell by 3.4% [I am not sure over what period exactly]. No wonder, incidentally, that some fear that Spain will default on its debts.

- In France, co-payments for healthcare are increasing. (Co-payments are payments by individuals that are not covered by the state health insurance and perhaps, in France's case, not even covered by the usual additional insurance).

I asked him if he thought that the attempted pull-back of the welfare state across the OECD was something that would last or whether the democratic pressure would always lead to welfare states being up against the ceiling of what states can afford. I don't think I can do justice to his reply but among other things he said there was a large build-up of obligations that had been promised and that therefore the cost would continue to be very high. He mentioned pensions, in particular.

Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in Reform • Welfare benefits

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