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Document Details : Title: Losing Grip Subtitle: The Deteriorating Earnings-capacity of the Less Skilled and the Deficiencies of the Bismarckian Paradigm Author(s): MARX, Ive Journal: Ethical Perspectives Volume: 3 Issue: 1 Date: April 1996 Pages: 29-38 DOI: 10.2143/EP.3.1.563045 Abstract : This article esxplores how the structural decline in the earning-capacity pf the less skilled is affecting the demands on, and the workings of, the welfare state. The focus will be on Belgium as a case-study of a transfer-oriented social insurance system that has been relatively effective in keeping overall poverty levels down under conditions of high unemployment. Whereas the market clearing approach thrugh deregulation has had unexpected adverse social consequences, the transfer-induced labour reduction has produced far more favourable social outcomes. Despite its relative success, however, the transfer model seems to have contributed to the emergence of a new class of excluded individuals: non-employed less skilled women who are unable to gain access to the labour market due, at least partially, to prohibitively high labour cost that are a direct consequence of the need to finance the transfer system. In a sense, the system has fallen victim to its own success by contributing the emergence of a type of need that is inherently incapable of alleviating. About half the poor of working age, mostly non employed less skilled women, are not covered by the social protection system at all. |
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