ABSTRACT
With the transition to post-industrialism and financial austerity, most Bismarckian welfare systems have started to face similar structural challenges for reforms since the 1970s: budgetary pressures for retrenchment contrast sharply with new demands for social protection, resulting from the failure of both labor markets and traditional family structures (Esping-Andersen 1999). Hence, welfare policies have shifted from a dynamic of steady growth to a period of restructuring and redefinition of social rights. Even though the precise content and timing of the reforms varies across countries, similarities in the new politics and social policies of Bismarckian welfare systems are striking: retrenchment of existing benefits, increasingly means-tested benefit entitlements and a stronger emphasis on activation and social investment, notably with regard to former welfare state outsiders.
