Principal investigator:

Dott. Giacomo Canepa

Partner:

University of Basel, Department of History

Abstract:

Demographic expertise has become a crucial perspective in debates around the development of modern welfare states. Since the 1960s, many reforms answer to demographic changes (e.g. ageing societies); and demographic calculations are now regularly used for the technical construction of social protection policies. In public debates, demographic statistics also serve as an objectifying rhetoric, legitimising welfare state reforms as necessary or inescapable. However, demography is not a black box: what exactly is counted in demographic assessments (age, sex, fertility, migration) varies a lot, between national contexts and historically over recent decades. This project examines from a historical and comparative perspective how demography became a core element of modern welfare state policies since the 1960s. By analysing three fields of the welfare state (old-age pensions programs, health care and family policies) in three representative European countries (France, Italy and Switzerland), SPADE aims to identify which actors and which institutions contributed to making the problem of the demographic sustainability of social protection systems a political priority, and which solutions were envisaged. The project thus broadens the historiography of the welfare states, traditionally marked by approaches from social and political history, with novel perspectives from the history of science. By combining transnational and comparative approaches and by looking at the origins of the discourse about the so-called “welfare state crisis”, SPADE cast a new light on the transformations that the welfare state as a whole has undergone since the 1970s.

Obiettivi:

By connecting the history of demographic facts, the history of demographic theory, and the history of the welfare state, the project aims to provide new insights into the welfare state’s historical transformation in Western Europe from 1) the post-war model based on occupational categories to 2) the Keynesian model of the 1960s and, finally, to 3) the market-based, supply-side policies of the 1980s. It pursues four main objectives: 1: create new knowledge on the scientific debates and networks which identified demographic challenges as a problem for the sustainability of social protection systems. 2: reconstruct the interactions detected by the scientific experts between demographic and labour market transformations, and assess the variety of solutions identified to address them. 3: analyse the political discourses on ageing societies and the potential trade-offs between intergenerational and social inequalities, by comparing debates, choices made by national governments and their implementation. 4: examine, from the specific viewpoint of demographic change, the capacity of Welfare regime models outlined by political science to serve as a useful analytical tool. By adopting a large chronological compass, starting with the 1960s, when the prospect of the demographic ageing of European societies first emerged, the project takes a new look at the origins of debates about the crisis of the welfare state. Furthermore, it broadens the historiography of the welfare states, traditionally marked by approaches from social and political history, with novel perspectives from the history of science. Finally, it combines comparative and transnational history approaches by analising  three exemplary cases – France, Italy, and Switzerland – as well as  border-crossing transfers of ideas and the influence of international organizations in order to understand the modalities of appropriation and adaptation of social policies between policy-makers of different nation-states.

Piano delle attività:

The project is based on traditional historical methodology, enriched by public policy analysis, and on new approaches in transnational history seeking to capture the circulation of actors and ideas. SPADE will draw on the research and consultation of published and unpublished documents produced by demographers, actuarial analysts, policy makers and political leaders, as well as by their interactions from the 1960s to the 1990s. The research combines a focus on international transfers with an in-depth look at three national case-studies: France, Italy and Switzerland. They represent different types of welfare states, but they differ also because of their diversity in the timing of the demographic transition, in the weight of demography – as a discipline and as an object of public debate – and in the characteristics of the social protection systems. This approach  implies a pluralism of sources, both edited and unpublished. The literature review will be followed by a wide survey of grey literature, focusing on international and national journals in the field, in which demographers, actuaries and policy-makers exchanged views, as well as on reports on the limits of welfare state and its crisis, papers published by demographic institutes and the publications of political parties. Archival sources will make it possible to delve into the thinking and strategies of the experts, as well as into the ways in which they confronted political actors.  They can be divided into five main groups: 1) the archives of international institutions (such as Cee, Ilo and Oecd); 2) the institutional archives of government bodies; 3) the archives of public bodies: research institutes that dealt with the problem as well as the social security funds; 4) the archives of political parties and trade unions; 5) a selection of personal papers.

Contatti:

giacomo.canepa@unipd.it