WHAT IS WELFARE?
Bent Greve
Roskilde University
This article discusses the meaning of "welfare". It asks whether or not it is solely to be understood in monetary terms or whether it is necessary to include non-mon-etary aspects such as happiness. It asks what the social science understanding of welfare has to offer and what its implications are for the data which is needed to measure welfare—the measurement of welfare being dependant on our under-standing of the concept. Furthermore, the article distinguishes between micro- and macro-level understandings of the concept and presents indicators of the two lev-els. Finally, a tentative ranking of 10 EU countries with regard to welfare is offered.
Keywords: welfare, social indicators, happiness, well-being, welfare state, social welfare.
Bent Greve—Department of Society and Globalisation, Roskilde University Contact: Universitetsvej 1, 4000 Roskilde, Denmark, e-mail: bgr@ruc.dk
Central European Journal of Public Policy
Vol. 2-N8 1—July 2008-pp 50-73 ISSN 1802-4866
ffl 2008 CESES FSV UK, www.cejpp.eu0
Introduction
The word "welfare" has now entered into so many and different combinations that hardly anyone thinks about its meaning. However, in order to analyse wel-fare states or, for that matter, public, fiscal, occupational welfare, and socie¬ties' total welfare, it is important to be clear about what welfare is as that has consequences for our understanding of what a welfare state is and how wel-fare can be measured. This is especially important when making cross-country comparisons or developments.
The notion of welfare has been defined and understood เท many and vari-ous ways, making it "not only slippery and difficult, but... promiscuous as well"
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(George & Page 1995,13.1 do not promise that I will resolve the problems here, but the intention is to cast light on the concept and, by doing so, come closer to an understanding of it and ways of measuring it, including for comparative purposes.
We can take our starting point in the Oxford Dictionary's (2001) definition, namely: "welfare 1 well-being, happiness; health and prosperity (of person, community etc.). 2 (Welfare) financial support from state."
เท some parts of the literature, even when the question of what welfare is is raised, the answer only refers to "perspectives on welfare: happiness, secu-rity, preferences, needs, desert, relative comparisons" (Fitzpatrick 2001,5).
Section 1 presents definitions of welfare put forward in various contexts such as popular discourse, academia, and linguistics. This is done in order to emphasise the variety of understandings of the concept, as this can help clarify the situational position of the term, i.e., the context and time within which it is embedded. The section ends with suggestions for a definition of welfare and in¬dicators which might be used to measure welfare at the macro and micro levels.
Most analyses of welfare states deal with public welfare, fewer with wel¬fare in civil society, and even fewer exist in relation to fiscal and occupational welfare in Titmuss's understanding. The possible consequences of this division will be highlighted in the next section. The section will also examine how we can measure total societal spending on welfare. Section 3 will present, albeit briefly, due to space limitations, data as suggested by the analysis in Section 1. Section 4 will offer some preliminary conclusions concerning the meaning of "welfare" and welfare states.
What is welfare?
Welfare derives from wel fare, that is from "well in its still familiar sense and fare, primarily understood as a journey or arrival but later also as a supply of food" (Williams 1976, 281). The word welfare has historically been related to happiness and prosperity, whereas its current understanding first emerged in the 20th century (Williams 1976).
The concept of welfare has to be understood in the historical and cultural context within which it is embedded. However, there is no intention here to en¬ter into a long historical analysis of the concept.
The Welfare State Reader has a section on approaches to welfare and many references to welfare, but this is only in connection with other words, namely asymmetries, institutions, reforms, regimes, and state (Pierson & Castles 2006). There is, however, no discussion of the concept itself.