reframing the social inclusion/social exclusion debate for the 21st - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

reframing the social inclusion/social exclusion debate for the 21st century: Australia

Paul Smyth University of Melbourne- Brotherhood of St Laurence

New century: new paradigm

Welfare in 1990s:

• A poverty war :

‘end’ Versus ‘save’ welfare as we know it Ending the stalemate:

• Continued high social spending (Howard)
• Postcode poverty
• The social capital moment
• Ec boom with underutilised labour

From welfare to social investment

• Rethinking disadvantage (Sen)
• Eg ‘social barometer’: children’s chances
• The ‘Third Wave’ of economic reform
• The ‘3 Ps’ participation\ productivity\

population

• ‘long tails of under-achievement’
• Fired up by Ageing society\ skills shortages

benefits of the education and training part of NRA

Investing in social inclusion?

• Multidimensional \cumulative
• Focus on what people are enabled to do and

be

• Recognise people value different things
• Identify the threshold of resources

individuals\ communities need to realise social and economic capabilities

Restating the welfare goal

• ‘An equal society protects and promotes equal

real freedom and substantive opportunity to live in the ways people value and would choose, so that everyone can flourish. An equal society recognizes people’s different needs, situations and goals and removes the barriers that limit what people can do and be’ (UK’s EHRC, 2007)

Varieties of social inclusion

liberal social democratic

• Conception of integration specialisation

monopoly

• Source of integration

exchange citizenship

• Ideology

liberalism social\democratic

• Discourse

underclass inequality

• Thinkers

Locke \Smith Marx\Marshall

• Social policies

Residual (charity) Universal (state)

‘big society or ‘social investment state’

• big society: help underclass trapped in

dependency, addiction, debt and family breakdown by private charity and family help

• ‘SI state’ : bring each citizen to a threshold

level of sufficiency in each capability (Sen); with conditions of mutual recognition\respect (Nancy Fraser)

Path Dependency: federation

• “Workingmans’ Paradise”
• Against the two tier society (Pember Reeves)
• Regulate to spread opportunity (land;

infrastructure; services)

• Invest in competitiveness: high wage path
• provide a fair go: Harvester judgement (living

wage)

• Against government welfare (Poor Law)

Welfare reform:WW2

• 1. industrial rights prevented exploitation and

gave lower paid workers ‘a fair share in the product of their industry’;

• 2. social services ‘to give effect to the popular

democratic belief that every individual should have as good an opportunity in life as his neighbor’.

• 3. assistance for the poor.

1st national welfare plan

• “The trapeze artist’s net protects him through

the whole course of his flight. The net is not,

• f course, part of the main show; that goes on

high above, and the higher it goes, the better we enjoy it. So it is with social security.”

• The ‘main show’ was full employment and

growth

• ‘Social security’ a by-product of ‘increasing

abundance’, equitably redistributed.

Today

• Wage earners welfare : ‘of historical interest
• nly’
• Social services: public as second class services

for second class citizens

• Income support (unemployment\ sole

parents) less social protection than 1st encounter with poverty

A New Social Contract

• New economic and social rights for the 21st

century

• A Contract for a Competitive Economy
• A Contract for an Inclusive Society

An inclusive society across the life course

Identify the threshold of resources people need to realise social and economic capabilities across life course:

• early years
• school to work
• working years
• retirement- ageing

For each: new entitlements\\ new obligations

An inclusive society in a competitive economy

• Against two tier economy = create more and

better jobs

• strategy beyond ‘rocks and crops’
• tackle ‘low skill traps’
• high performance management practices
• national training standards
• R and D support for business to close gaps on

competitors

• Invest in firms with high innovation potential

Flexibility with security

• active labour market programs
• life long learning systems
• adequate income support (insurance?)
• Work-life balance