In January 2005, the German government enacted a substantial reform of the welfare system, the so-called “Hartz IV reform”. This book evaluates key characteristics of the reform from a microeconometric perspective. It investigates whether a centralized or decentralized organization of welfare administration is more successful to integrate welfare recipients into employment. Moreover, it analyzes the employment effects of an intensified use of benefit sanctions and evaluates the effectiveness and efficiency of the most frequently assigned Active Labor Market Programs. The analyses have a focus on immigrants, who are highly over-represented in the German welfare system.​

One of the fundamental challenges facing modern welfare states is the question of work-family reconciliation. An increasing share of mothers work, but many European welfare states do not adequately support the dual-earner model, especially in southern Europe. After 2005, German policy-makers transformed the nature of Germany’s family policy regime through a number of legislative measures, whilst Italy, a country with many similarities, witnessed little change. Using a multi-methods approach, this book addresses the puzzle of why Germany was able to implement far-reaching reforms in this policy area after a long impasse and Italy was not. As such, it delivers a broad, systematic account of these reforms and sheds light on why similar reforms were not also adopted in other similar welfare states at the same time. More generally, it contributes to understanding the determinants of welfare policy change in modern European welfare states. This text will be of key interest to scholars, students and professionals working on topics linked to European politics, welfare and work-family policies, comparative politics, social policy, and more broadly to political science and gender studies.

The new welfare settlement in Europe involves a re-direction of policy in the context of a unified market and currency system and of more stringent economic competition. Realignment of the policy assumptions and goals of the key actors is central to this process. This book reviews the main policy paradigms and analyzes the processes whereby they have changed in the most salient policy areas, and is based on recent interviews with more than two hundred and fifty senior policy actors in seven West European countries.

The author of this study argues that key politicians and their policy ideas, through "ideational leadership," have played an important role in the passing of structural reforms in the change-resistant German welfare state.

This volume presents a thought provoking analysis of key welfare state issues engaging policy makers across the globe. It provides a unique and comprehensive evaluation of the state of welfare states- developed and developing. It maps the diversity of welfare regimes across the world and brings to fore the particularities and nuances that characterise them. The book also focuses on the on-going reforms and makes a powerful case for the increased relevance of the welfare state in a globalizing era.

Offers an analysis of the political process involved in the reform of the pension systems in European countries.

The German pension system was the first formal pension system in the world, designed by Bismarck nearly 120 years ago. It has been very successful in providing high and reliable pension levels at reasonable contribution rates. While the generosity of the German pension system is considered a great social achievement, negative incentive effects of past reforms in the 1970s and 1980s and population aging are threatening the very core of the system. This has led to fundamental pension reforms since 1992. Based on a detailed simulation model of the German pension system, this book provides a thorough assessment of the system and its reforms. It shows that the latest reforms have put the system back onto a stable path and moved it from the old monolithic towards a multi-pillar system.