News from Project A06 (2022-2025)

Workshop on November 13 and 14, 2023, at the CRC 1342

The workshop on "Global Varieties of Dualization – Historical Dynamics of Inclusion & Generosity in Social Policy" took place on November 13th and 14th, 2023, at Bremen University. It was organized by Dr. Aline Grünewald, Dr. Tobias Böger (both from Bremen University and CRC 1342), Dr. Armin Müller (Constructor University and CRC 1342), and Prof. Dr. Paul Marx (University of Bonn).

The organizers convened the workshop to discuss draft papers for a special issue exploring the use of the twin concepts of economic dualism and institutional dualization as a general framework for charting, understanding and explaining global and historical dynamics of inclusion and generosity of social policy. Contributions included regional and country studies from renowned experts covering India (Azad Singh Bali, PhD; Prof. Dr. M. Ramesh; Nargis Vasundhara, PhD), China (Dr. Armin Müller; Prof. Dr. John Gibson; Prof. Dr. Tobias ten Brink), South Korea (Sungjun Park, M.A.; Prof. Dr. Sophia Seung-yoon Lee; Hyojin Seo, PhD; Prof. Dr. Heejung Chung); Southern Africa (Prof. Dr. Jeremy Seekings) and Latin America (Camila Arza, PhD) as well as quantitative and qualitative global studies originating from the CRC 1342 "Global Dynamics of Social Policsy" (Dr. Johanna Kuhlmann; Dr. Kerem Gabriel Öktem; Laura Andrea Álvarez Tobar, M.A.; Prof. Dr. Frank Nullmeier; Prof. Dr. Delia González de Reufels; Dr. Jakob Henninger; Mara Junge, M.A.; Dr. Friederike Römer; Prof. Dr. Ulrich Mückenberger; Andrea Schäfer, M.A.; Marina Carlino, M.A.).


Contact:
Dr. Tobias Böger
CRC 1342: Global Dynamics of Social Policy
Mary-Somerville-Straße 7
28359 Bremen
Phone: +49 421 218-57068
E-Mail: tobias.boeger@uni-bremen.de

Prof. Merike Blofield, University of Hamburg
Prof. Merike Blofield, University of Hamburg
Prof. Merike Blofield, University of Hamburg

To kick off the Jour Fixe in the winter term 2023/24, Dr. Merike Blofield, Professor of Latin American Society and Politics at the University of Hamburg, visited the Collaborative Research Center 1342 on Wednesday, October 11, 2023. During her lecture, she presented her current book "The Politics of Social Protection During Times of Crisis" published by Cambridge University Press in July 2023. The event was not only well attended on site, but was also broadcast as a video conference so that other interested colleagues could participate digitally.

Abstract:
In 2020, as Latin American countries shuttered their economies, it became clear that effective lockdowns would require states to provide income support. In a region that has historically struggled to build systems of social protection, the effort to expand benefits was notable. Policies varied in scope and generosity, but in what seemed to signify a new era of state-building, Latin American democracies demonstrated a nearly uniform commitment to providing assistance to the poor. Why did some countries implement broader and more adequate programs than others and why did countries vary in their ability to sustain support over time? This Element argues that three factors explain cross-national and cross-temporal differences in policy effort: policy legacies, unified/divided government, and fiscal space. The Element shows that in settings of crisis, the democratic politics of social policy expansion shifts, with traditional factors like ideology and electoral competition playing a less central role.

„The Politics of Social Protection During Times of Crisis“

Merike Blofield is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Hamburg, where her focus is on global health and social policy. Prior to moving to the University of Hamburg, she was Director of the Institute for Latin American Studies at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA) and a Professor of Political Science and Director of Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Miami. With a focus on Latin America, her research has analyzed policy areas that intersect social, health, family, gender and labor policy.

Publications:

The Politics of Social Protection during Times of Crisis (2023), with Jenny Pribble and Cecilia Giambruno, July 2023.

Setbacks in the quest for universal health coverage in Mexico: polarised politics, policy upheaval, and pandemic disruption, led by Felicia Knaul, came out on August 7th, 2023, and is open access.

Oxford Handbook of Governance and Public Management of Social Policy (2023), co-editor of the Latin America section with Camila Arza and Fernando Filgueira.. 

Lancet Global Health Viewpoint on linkages between cash transfers and intimate partner violence programming in Latin America, published during the International Day to End Violence Against Women, November 25, 2021.


Contact:
Anh Tran
CRC 1342: Global Dynamics of Social Policy
Mary-Somerville-Straße 7
28359 Bremen
Phone: +49 421 218-57089
E-Mail: atran@uni-bremen.de

Dr. Keonhi Son, Postdoctoral Researcher, CRC 1342
Dr. Keonhi Son, Postdoctoral Researcher, CRC 1342
Research visit in Cologne from 15th of October until 15th of December

A postdoctoral researcher from the A06 project "Pathways to Family Policy Universalism: Coverage and Generosity of Family Policies in a Global Perspective" will participate in the Visiting Researchers Program of the Max Planck Society for two months.

During her research visit from 15th of October until 15th of December at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne, she aims to examine the complex interplay between growth regimes, gender inequality, and welfare policies during the Fordism era, when advanced capitalist economies began to diverge in their paths towards "gender equal" or "conservative" welfare states. 

Keonhi Son’s argument is twofold: first, growth regimes have shaped gender inequality in the labor market since the Fordism era. Growth strategies centered around specific sectors disadvantaged women through wage moderation and gendered hierarchy in the labor market. Second, the demand for women's labor influenced policymakers' preferences on welfare policies for women workers. If female labor played a minimal role in a state's growth strategy, policymakers were likely to perceive women as dependents of male workers in the industrial sector rather than as workers themselves, and thus reluctant to extend welfare policies for working women. To test her arguments, she will conduct a comparative case study that examines the patterns of gender inequality in labor markets, as well as the political discourse surrounding the early development of paid maternity leave in Germany and Sweden during the 1950s and 1960s. 

Her research interest encompasses leave policy development in the Global South, the origin of work-family policies, and the role of female agency on social policy development. She is constructing three historical databases that measure inclusiveness and generosity of maternity, paternity and parental leave in the Global South, covering 165 countries from 1883 until 2018.

Publications:

Son, Keonhi. (2023). The Origin of Social Policy for Women Workers: The Emergence of Paid Maternity Leave in Western Countries, Comparative Political Studies (online first). https://doi.org/10.1177/00104140231169024.

Son, Keonhi. (2022). Colonialism and Paid Maternity Leave Policies in Sub-Saharan Africa, In Dobrotić, Ivana, Blum, Sonja, & Koslowski, Alison. (Eds.), Research Handbook on Leave Policy, 310-323. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781800372214.00033.

Son, Keonhi. (2022). Ship of Theseus: from ILO Standards to Outcome of Maternity Protection Policy. Journal of Social Policyhttps://doi.org/10.1017/S0047279422000010.

Son, Keonhi. (2022). Do International Treaties Only Have an Impact on Ratifying States?: the Influence of the ILO Maternity Protection Conventions in 160 States, 1883 until 2018. International Labour Reviewhttps://doi.org/10.1111/ilr.12371.


Contact:
Dr. Keonhi Son
MZES
A5, 6 (Building A)
68159 Mannheim
Phone: +49 621 181-2803
E-Mail: son@uni-mannheim.de

Anh Tran
Anh Tran
Before joining the CRC, Anh was working in international projects on social protection. As a PhD student in project A06, she is now investigating child benefits and their effect on social inclusion.

Dear Anh, what have you been doing before the CRC?

I moved here from London where I was working for the research consultancy Development Pathways. I mostly worked on issues related to inclusion and exclusion in social protection.

Who did you address with your results?

The agency is internationally oriented and most of the projects were commissioned by the UN and iNGOs: I worked with actors in the Global South, including providing advisory support to Government agencies and conducting research with local communities. I contributed to projects in several countries across East Africa and Asia.

Was that you first job after university?

Yes, I was working for Development Pathways for about five and a half years. Before that I was doing my master’s degree in Maastricht in public policy and human development. I was quite lucky to find a research-oriented role in the field of social protection, as this was the focus of my master's programme. I was specialising in social protection, policy design and financing.

What did you write your Master's thesis about?

I wrote about inequality of educational opportunities in Vietnam. I was inspired by having travelled to Vietnam and with my family being from there, and knowing how the education system is increasingly becoming more privatized or depending more on your private contributions to accessing education. That was what made me interested in looking closer at the drivers of these inequalities.

What have you found is driving this privatization trend and these inequalities in education?

While economic growth has led to reductions in overall poverty levels and increases in basic educational attainment, the market economy has become more pivotal in the provision of education in Vietnam.  Interestingly, I did not find a significant difference between educational opportunities – in terms of quality of education and educational achievements - of students enrolled in public or private education. However, I did find that having educational and cultural resources at home played a role. Families’ welfare and their ability to access resources that stimulate their child’s school engagement therefore affected achievements at school. Moreover, students from rural highland areas, where more ethnic minorities reside, experienced more disadvantages. Other studies also found an increasing number of children in urban areas who are attending private classes or tutoring which leads to higher disparities between population groups.

Your background is social protection and education policy. How big is the shift for you now working for the CRC’s project A06, focusing on family policy?

The shift is not too big, actually. While education policy was the topic of my master’s thesis, its focus was mostly on equity and social exclusion. At Development Pathways, I focused on similar challenges of social exclusion but looked at how these can be addressed through social security. I looked at the potential for addressing income security across the entire life cycle - from childhood through to old age, including challenges of persons with disabilities. Within project A06 I will focus mostly on collecting data and assessing coverage and generosity of child benefits.

Child benefits are common in OECD countries/the Global North – how about the Global South?

Across the Global South there is quite a substantial number of countries that have some kind of child benefit, but they take a lot of different shapes and sizes. For example in some countries in Africa and Asia, there are social insurance provisions for families but with limited coverage of those in certain sectors of the formal labour market. An increasing number of countries are implementing - also influenced by global agenda setting - social cash transfers which support families, although they are often targeted at the entire household and determine eligibility based on poverty or vulnerability status. They were predominantly intended as poverty relief rather than an individual child benefit as we find it in most countries across the Global North.

Would you then exclude those countries from your exploration? I guess you would need to be very specific in defining what child benefits have to look like in order to keep the data comparable …

Well, that indeed is still the question. My predecessor Simone Tonelli has already looked at the historical legacies of child benefits and at the legislation. And he also looked at including quite a number of cash transfer programmes as well. For my thesis, I'm actually quite interested in looking at how these types of programmes have come about and what the influences of trans-national institutions on domestic policy-making had been. And from a gender perspective, I would like to look at how effective these programmes have been in terms of supporting families, supporting women, addressing the cost of childcare and if they are really effective in addressing social inclusion or if they are based on the traditional role of women as mothers and care-givers, which may pose barriers to their participation in work and the labour market.

How are you going about to collect the data? Can you use global databases via the internet or do you also have to travel and look at specific cases as well?

I am still at the stage of figuring that out. There is quite a lot to build on what my team has fed into WeSIS and there are datasets out there that try to measure indices of women's empowerment and the coverage and generosity of child benefits. But beyond the macro level, for my thesis I would like to use a mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative methods with qualitative case studies. That would allow me to delve a bit deeper also into intersectionalities of social inclusion and exclusion, i.e. whether in-/exclusion has to do with gender as well as your social position in society, income, ethnicity, caste or disability, for example.

That sounds pretty exciting!

May be a bit ambitious and I am sure I will have to narrow it down, but yes, I am excited.

Have you got any plans for the time after your PhD already?

The role that I had been in before was about implementing research projects, with a mix of advising and supporting governments and policy-making. I then made the move from consulting to the CRC because I was always drawn towards the research aspects of my work. And this is what I am focused on right now. In general, I am interested in how research intersects with policy-making. I am not yet sure in what capacity I would like to move forward but I am sure I will get an idea of that over the course of the PhD.