Welfare and poverty in the Europe of the 1990s: social progress or social dumping?

Social policy in Europe is changing fundamentally from a system of public (government) support to a welfare pluralism, or a "welfare mix" supported by the private and public sectors and by voluntary agencies. The overall tendencies are privatization, decentralization, and debureaucratization. With the prospect of a single-market economy within the European Communities in 1993, the fight against poverty in member nations may lead to "social dumping." Two major problems are identified: the lack of guaranteed minimum income schemes in the so-called "Latin Rim" countries, and the effect on workers' and citizens' rights in an integrated Europe. The fight against poverty is--despite some efforts from the Commission of the European Communities--basically left to the individual member states. This portends a gloomy scenario for the poorer populations of Europe in the 1990s. The author examines welfare state types within clusters of countries: the modern (Scandinavia), the corporatist (Federal Republic of Germany), the residual (Britain), and the rudimentary (Latin Rim). The conclusion, unfortunately, is that future overall development of European welfare systems in the 1990s will probably be toward "Americanization," with a move away from the modern, or Scandinavian, model toward a corporatist model for welfare policy.