Well-being in socio-political context : European welfare regimes in comparison

This study seeks to comparatively analyse how well-being is distributed across the social structure in European welfare regimes. Welfare regime refers to a group of countries having a relatively similar orientation and culture regarding social policy. Well-being is interpreted and operationalised as a multidimensional concept. More concretely, well-being is approached in terms of the traditional core areas of welfare and social policy (indicators: economic hardship, sickness) but a special emphasis is piaced upon social aspects of life (indicators: social relations, social contribution, local ties, recognition and societal pessimism). The perspective of vulnerable social positions (unemployment, poverty, immigration background etc.) is chosen in all the analyses. The data set of the European Social Survey (round 3, 2006/2007) is used in the study since it includes an extensive module on well-being, which enables convenient and fruitful analytical paths. Multilevel analysis is chosen as the key method for the study due to its ability to handle data that involve grouped observations (e.g. individuals in countries) and research questions that are of multilevel nature themselves. The overall methodological idea is to start from general and broad descriptions and move towards a narrower and more specific focus. Four indicators are chosen for the in-depth analysis: economic hardship, sickness, societal pessimism and recognition. The results mostly corroborate the view that well-being is to a significant extent conditioned by the position one occupies in the social structure and also by the welfare regime one lives in. How life chances are distributed across the social structure varies between the country groups due to their different approaches to welfare policy. The Eastern European country group is generally characterised by relatively frequent ill-being — lack of well-being — on almost all dimensions included in the analysis. Economic hardship is conspicuousiy prevalent in these nations, especially among the unemployed. In fact, unemployment is a major risk factor for economic hardship in all regimes. The Nordic regime is distinguished by low rates of ill-being in virtually all dimensions, but the relatively high sickness rate is an exception: poverty in particular exposes to sickness in the Nordic world of welfare. The link between vulnerability and societal pessimism is rather typical for both the Eastern European and Continental European regimes. Poverty makes future views bleaker in almost ali country groups, whereas immigrants are generally less pessimistic. However, in the Nordic regime immigration background seems to be an adverse factor with respect to well-being. Poverty, unemployment and oneliness are associated to low recognition, whereas old age seems to be related to more respectful treatment. Living in the liberal welfare regime and being poor or unemployed is the combination that most severely exposes its occupant to the demoralising expetiences of low recognition. In other words, the moral flavour of everyday life in a vulnerable social position differs by country groups. Welfare regimes are more than just systems of benefit allocation and service production - also culture matters