Three researchers react to the prospect of drastic austerity cures which are emerging for European countries in the post-crisis context. They reaffirm the imperative of social investment, central to the Lisbon agenda, for the period to come.
The idea of social investment is not new. It is a global and coherent response to the challenges of post-industrial society, challenges that are demographic, economic and social. It considers social protection as a condition of possibility and not an obstacle to sustained economic growth. It is also intended to be a corrective alternative to the strategies of the Third Way, whose insistence on individual responsibility is to the detriment of the conditions for effective equality of opportunity. It partly inspired the European strategy known as the Lisbon Strategy and was developed more systematically in a book edited by Esping-Andersen in 2002, entitled Why We Need a New Welfare State.
The central idea of this book is that the inertia of protection systems aimed at ensuring replacement income for male workers leads to a sub-optimal distribution of collective resources. It contributes to the maintenance or even reinforcement of inequalities in life courses, in income, in the ability to access education. This redistribution is thus as inequitable as it is harmful to overall productivity and therefore to future growth. Based on this observation, Esping-Andersen and his co-authors proposed a strategy for reorienting social protection towards new risks (linked to the accelerated obsolescence of skills ; to the reconciliation of family and professional life ; the greater demand for care and the erosion of social security income). This is all the more important as these new risks hit the least qualified first.
Lessons can be learned from previous experiences, notably from the Lisbon agenda. The salient points required for the application of a social investment strategy in the light of these partial implementations are as follows: the investment aims to globally improve life courses, it is distinguished from categorical approaches and statics of social protection ; investment cannot be a strategy adopted at low cost ; finally it aims for equality and quality in protection. We can then examine questions of governance.
Despite its theoretical coherence and the beginnings of implementation that it has received, the social investment strategy is today strongly called into question, because it is caught in a double constraint between the strong demands for protectionist or nationalist withdrawal in terms of social protection and/or economic regulation on the one hand and the “ requirements ” of the “ markets » radical austerity measures to clean up public finances.
This is why the social objectives of the 2020 agenda must support the idea of social investment. There is no shortage of reasons not only to take it seriously but also to enrich it, so that economic growth and social progress go hand in hand in the future of the Union:
– An investment strategy focused on childhood
– An increase in investment in human capital
– Increased emphasis on policies to reconcile professional and family life
– A more flexible and later retirement thanks to improved working conditions and lifelong training
– Integration of immigrants through education and participation
– Social minimums and a universal offer of quality social services