Social Welfare in Europe

Can EU nations still afford expensive welfare programs?

  • By:Sarah Glazer
  • Content Type: Report
  • Publisher: CQ Press
    • Publication year: 2010
    • Online pub date:
  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.4135/cqrglobal20100800

Introduction

The Euro debt crisis and calls for fiscal austerity are putting a harsh new light on Europe's gold-plated welfare and pension programs. According to some economists, Europeans pay for their generous welfare programs — such as national health insurance and universal preschool — with more sluggish economies and higher unemployment than in the United States, which has among the industrialized world's least generous welfare safety nets. But in recent years, Scandinavian countries, the most generous with subsidized child care and paid parental leave, have grown at least as fast as the free-market United States. And, contrary to popular opinion, workers there have a better chance than Americans of climbing further up the economic ladder than their parents. Now Greece, Spain, France and Portugal have all ...

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