ARTICLES
Policy Instruments and Infant Feeding for Mothers on Social Assistance: A Comparative Study of Canadian Provinces.
Abstract
Using a modified framework of the social constructions of target populations (SCTP) and Vedung’s typology of policy instruments, this contribution presents a comparative analysis of policy instruments targeting mothers on social assistance to impose “successful” breastfeeding norms in the Canadian provinces. This framework distinguishes between the traditional policy tools of welfare offices and the inclusion of additional oversight by health professionals. The findings expose a variety of policy mixes despite similar commitments to encourage breastfeeding and dissuade the use of infant formula. Most provinces utilize burdened policy instruments for mothers who choose infant formula, such as requiring a medical note. For mothers who breastfeed, most provinces typically deploy beneficial policy instruments such as raising their monthly allowance with little [government] oversight. However, some provinces utilize very different tools which illustrate the diverse health care and social assistance landscape. Québec, for instance, is the only province to provide additional support for women who choose to use formula without medical authorization. In Prince Edward Island, social workers may require a medical note for breastfeeding while in Manitoba there is no additional support for the nutritional needs of breastfeeding mothers.
The Politics of Senior Bureaucratic Turnover in the Westminster Administrative Tradition: Trust, Control and the Choice between Internal and External Appointments.
Abstract
The extent to which new governments appoint and dismiss senior public servants is widely claimed to be influenced by their country’s underlying administrative tradition. This is particularly the case within the Westminster tradition where such turnover is limited in nature, with most appointees coming from within the ranks of the public service. This article challenges the assertion that turnover in the Westminster tradition is homogeneously internal. Theorizing that new governments appoint senior public servants to increase their control over the bureaucracy, and that the desire for control is negatively correlated to trust, this article develops hypotheses between the trust new governments harbour towards the bureaucracy and whether they appoint and dismiss bureaucrats from within or outside the public service. The hypotheses are tested with longitudinal data measuring internal and external appointments and departures to the senior public service in Canada’s provincial governments over a period of 18 years. The results from various multinomial regression models suggest that political appointments to the public service are not as homogenous as frequently suggested. Although a transition in the governing party and a newly elected premier from the same party of the previous government both lead to an increase in bureaucratic turnover, a newly elected first minister has a greater incidence of internal turnover than a change in party, meanwhile the level of external turnover does not meaningfully differ between these two political events.
Who Cares? Preferences for Formal and Informal Care among Older Adults in Québec.
Abstract
Policy makers, practitioners, and scholars are increasingly examining the types of care services (formal vs. informal) offered to older adults. This study evaluates predictors of these adults’ preferences for care types in Québec, Canada, based on a province-wide survey inserted in a magazine of the largest seniors’ club in Canada (FADOQ). More than twice as many respondents indicated a preference for formal rather than informal care. Multinomial logistic regressions demonstrate that older adults’ past and current experiences and perceptions of formal and informal services continue to play an important role in their preference formation regarding care services. The study determined that preferring informal care is significantly more prevalent when one is accustomed to this type of care, and that men are significantly more likely to prefer informal care than women, and that lower-income individuals are less likely to favor formal care.
Aging in Place With a Spouse in Need: Neighborhood Cohesion and Older Adult Spouses’ Physical and Mental Health
Abstract
This study examines the association of perceived neighborhood cohesion (NC) with older adults’ health and the buffering effects of NC against the negative effects of spousal caregiving on health. Data of 3329 community-living older adults living with a spouse in need of care from the Health and Retirement Study were collected at two time-points. Multiple regression analyses were computed for each of the four health outcomes. For men, NC predicted fewer depressive symptoms and better cognition. NC buffered the negative effect of providing activities of daily living (ADL) help to the wife on cognition. For women, NC predicted fewer depressive symptoms and better cognition. NC buffered the negative effect of providing ADL help to the husband on ADL difficulties. The results accentuate the importance of residency location for older adults’ physical and mental health. The health benefits of NC may have more implications for older adults providing spousal care.
Resistance, Innovation and Improvisation: Comparing the Responses of Nursing Home Workers to the Covid-19 Pandemic in Canada and the United States
Abstract
Comparing the situation of workers in nursing homes in two Canadian provinces and two states in the USA, this study draws on narrative accounts from frontline workers and finds that despite variation in the severity of the outbreaks they experienced, nursing home workers in each jurisdiction demonstrated three types of responses to pandemic policy changes that are theorized as resistance, innovation, and improvisation. Data for the study was compiled using a novel method of interrogating newspaper articles to identify narrative accounts and interviews with nursing home workers.Note: In the interests of space, street-level theory and the pandemic context underpinning the articles for this Special Issue are discussed in detail in the Introduction to the Issue
Ageism and COVID-19: What does our society’s response say about us?
Abstract
The goal of this commentary is to highlight the ageism that has emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. Over 20 international researchers in the field of ageing have contributed to this document. This commentary discusses how older people are misrepresented and undervalued in the current public discourse surrounding the pandemic. It points to issues in documenting the deaths of older adults, the lack of preparation for such a crisis in long-term care homes, how some ‘protective’ policies can be considered patronising and how the initial perception of the public was that the virus was really an older adult problem. This commentary also calls attention to important intergenerational solidarity that has occurred during this crisis to ensure support and social-inclusion of older adults, even at a distance. Our hope is that with this commentary we can contribute to the discourse on older adults during this pandemic and diminish the ageist attitudes that have circulated.
Introduction : Les territoires du vieillissement
Three competing interpretations of policy problems: Tame and Wicked Problems through the Lenses of Population Aging
Abstract
This contribution presents competing lenses of population aging as policy problems and it compares their impact on the treatment of policy problems. Three lenses are analysed: intergenerational, biomedical and social gerontological. The intergenerational lens treats population aging as a new form of class conflict along age groups. The social gerontological lens claims that population aging is first and foremost a social issue and it stands in opposition to the dominance of biomedical approaches that treat aging as a pathology. The presence of these three alternative conceptions of the policy problem is indicative of the complexity surrounding population aging and the importance of having divergent definitions of policy problems. Via an analysis of informal care giving in the Canadian context, this contribution also presents a comparison of the three lenses with a focus on the roots of these conceptualisations in various disciplines, their prevalence in various public organisations, and the policy consequences of their strength or weakness.
Compassionate Canadians and Conflictual Americans? Portrayals of Ageism in Liberal and Conservative Media
Abstract
Building upon earlier studies on ageism in the media and the polarised ageism framework, this contribution compares the prevalence of three forms of ageism – intergenerational, compassionate and new ageism – in four Canadian and American newspapers. The analysis has three objectives. First, it adapts the polarised ageism framework to a comparative case study to assess its usefulness beyond Canada. Second, it analyses which form of ageism occurs more frequently in the coverage of ageing-related stories in Canadian or American newspapers. Third, it studies the importance of the political orientation of news media across both countries by comparing the portrayal of ageing-related stories in conservative and liberal newspapers. Core findings include the presence of a stronger focus on intergenerational ageism in American and conservative newspapers and more frequent prevalence of compassionate ageism in Canada and liberal newspapers. American newspapers also typically employ more pejorative and sensational language.
Does it Matter Who Works at the Center? A Comparative Policy Analysis of Executive Styles
Abstract
This article develops the concept of executive style to explore how variations in the relationships between politicians, career civil servants, and political appointees affect the types of policy outputs. A comparative analysis of home care policies in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia finds that the former’s civil service executive style – where professional civil servants work in close partnership with politicians in all phases of the policy process – led to the development of an innovative home care program with a long-term vision, whereas the latter’s politicized executive style – where politicians marginalize the role of civil servants in favor of political appointees – led to frequent changes in policy largely driven by short-term considerations.
The Invisible Women: Gender and Caregiving in Francophone Newspapers
Abstract
This contribution analyses the importance given to gender in articles related to caregiving for older adults in five francophone newspapers (Le Soir, Le Devoir, Figaro, Libération and La Presse) across three countries (Belgium, France and Canada). Out of the 254 articles in our sample, less than a fifth (49) made any mention of gender. A closer analysis of the gender related contributions reveal that only 18 articles devote more than a line to the interaction between gender and caregiving activities and its multiple socio-economic consequences. This is highly surprising since women provide the bulk of caregiving efforts and are the ones facing difficulties due to the lack of governmental actions to assist with these functions. These consequences are well documented in the scientific literature and feature caregiving burnout, loss of employment and economic insecurity. This contribution features an analysis and some extracts from the 18 articles in question.
Soutien aux proches aidants : Composer avec la réalité québécoise
Abstract
Cet article vise à sensibiliser les proches aidants, les familles, les intervenants, les chercheurs et les gestionnaires concernant les composantes de la réalité québécoise en termes de soutien à domicile et les enjeux liés à l’offre de services aux proches aidants. Les lois canadiennes et provinciales qui encadrent le soutien aux proches aidants laissent d’ailleurs un flou sur le plan de leur statut légal. Plusieurs organismes décrient les conditions ardues des proches aidants soutenant un proche. Ces observations sont également partagées par le grand public qui reconnait la situation difficile que vit cette population. Cet article présente aussi les efforts de mobilisation pour réformer les politiques gouvernementales et les lois régissant le statut des proches aidants afin de mieux les aider. Malgré le désir des différents acteurs de soutenir les proches aidants, les contraintes budgétaires et organisationnelles limitent leur capacité d’action.
How Should We Administer Population Aging? A Canadian Comparison
Abstract
This article presents a comparative analysis of four Canadian provinces (Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Quebec, and Saskatchewan) with different administrative responses to population aging. The way in which population aging is tackled administratively matters greatly because it drives the type of policy responses being proposed and implemented.
Résumé
Cet article présente une analyse comparative de quatre provinces canadiennes (Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador, Nouvelle-Écosse, le Québec et la Saskatchewan) avec différentes réponses administratives quant au vieillissement de la population. La façon dont le vieillissement de la population est abordée d’un point de vue administratif compte grandement, car elle détermine le type de réponses politiques qui sont proposées et mises en œuvre.
A Swedish Welfare State in North America? The Development of the Saskatchewan Welfare State, 1944-1982
Squeezing Social Partners to Embrace Reforms: The Case of Private Earnings Related Pension Schemes
Abstract
How do changes to public schemes and ongoing economic difficulties impact private earnings-related pension schemes (PERPS) governed by social partners? The decreasing generosity of public schemes does put strong pressure onto social partners to improve their PERPS; however, PERPS face challenges of their own related to their integration within the pension system and their financing mechanisms. Based on a comparative analysis of Finland, France, the Netherlands and Sweden, this contribution demonstrates that PERPS have all enacted measures to reduce the generosity of their scheme. Yet, the emerging policy measures responding to these challenges are quite different and depend on the previous public/private mix and the financial structure behind their PERPS.
The Impact of Gender and Immigration on Pension Outcomes in Canada
Abstract
This paper analyzes Canadian retirement incomes by focusing on the dynamics of gender and immigration. We demonstrate that elderly women living alone and post-1970 immigrants are more likely to rely on the means-tested component of Canada’s pension system, the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS), which is an indication of their restricted capacity to maintain an autonomous household. The strong reliance of the Canadian pension system on both public and private earnings-related pensions accentuates the disparities within the labour market, causing both women and immigrants to have lower earnings in retirement. In addition, immigrants suffer from the residency requirements attached to basic pension programs.
Résumé
Dans cet article, nous analysons l’état des revenus de retraite au Canada, en axant notre étude sur les effets de deux critères: le fait d’être une femme ou un homme, et d’être immigrant ou né au Canada. Nous montrons ainsi que les femmes âgées vivant seules et les immigrants arrivés après les années 1970 sont deux groupes pour lesquels la composante du système de pensions canadien qui est liée aux revenus – le Supplément de revenu garanti (SRG) –, est plus importante, ce qui indique la capacité restreinte de ces citoyens à constituer des ménages autonomes. Le système de pensions canadien – qu’il s’agisse des régimes publics ou privés – étant très étroitement lié à des caractéristiques relatives aux gains, cela accentue les disparités sur le marché du travail, et les femmes et les immigrants ont des revenus de retraite inférieurs. De plus, les immigrants sont désavantagés, à cause des obligations en matière de résidence sur lesquelles sont fondés programmes de retraite de base.
Empowering Epistemic Communities: Specialised politicians, policy experts, and policy reform
Abstract
A handful of Swedish parliamentarians, assisted by experts within the civil service, generated one of the most discussed pension reforms since the Chilean reform of the 1980s. This article argues that they formed a successful epistemic community. The group shared similar pension values, a commitment to finding a long-term solution, and a devotion to improving the pension system. The inclusion of politicians within epistemic communities is essential to transpose knowledge into policy. Politicians involved in committees possess political knowledge necessary to bridge the gap between the experts and other legislators and the specialised knowledge needed to interact with members of the scientific community. Contrary to a ‘traditional’ epistemic community, this ‘political’ epistemic community had privileged access to the state and could translate directly the results of its discussions into concrete policy proposals.
Welfare retrenchment as social justice: pension reform in Mexico
Abstract
This article analyses critically the applicability of current theories of welfare state retrenchment to the 2004 public pension reform in Mexico, with the 1995 reform acting as a complementary case. In particular, this article contributes to the literature by analysing the reasons for which a potentially unpopular reform was successfully enacted. Available evidence suggests that – contrary to the existing literature’s assertions – Mexican politicians responsible for the 2004 reform sought credit for these changes, rather than to avoid blame. Also, by presenting the reform as necessary to enhance socioeconomic equality, politicians were able to gather substantial popular support and defeat labour unions opposing this pension restructuring process. Hence, we propose that by framing the public debate as a matter of social justice, promoters of pension reform increased significantly popular support for the retrenchment of important benefits from a core group of civil servants, and successfully pressured Congress to promulgate this reform. We suggest that this created a reform path that will facilitate future efforts at reforming the remaining public pension schemes in Mexico.
The Politics of Protest Avoidance: Labor Mobilization and Social Policy Reform in France
Abstract
Students of public policy and social mobilization alike should pay more attention to the political strategies of protest avoidance. Distinct from traditional blame-avoidance strategies, protest avoidance occurs when elected officials, facing direct and nearly inescapable blame, attempt to reduce the scope of social mobilization triggered by unpopular reforms. In recent decades, successive French governments have introduced major, unpopular reforms in the field of public pensions, and because of the concentration of state power in France, avoidance of blame was nearly inescapable. Focusing on the 2003 pension reform, we argue that by dividing the labor movement through strategic bargaining, and by launching controversial reforms during or immediately before the summer holiday season, French governments reduced the scope of labor mobilization and facilitated the enactment of these proposals. Beyond the field of social policy, the concept of protest avoidance could shed new light on an understudied phenomenon: the strategies political actors
pursue to reduce the scope of social mobilization against them.
Unions and Pension Reforms in Mexico: The Impact of Democratic Governance
Abstract
In the fall of2004, the Mexican Congress promulgated an important piece of legislation, which reformed the pension system of the employees of the Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (IMSS). As a result of these changes, from August 2004, new IMSS employees will be enrolled into a mandatory contributive private pension plan. This retirement benefits package is largely based upon the existing pension scheme for private sector workers, which stemmed from an extensive reform crafted in 1995 and which also targeted the IMSS. This legislation is important since it is the first to tackle civil servants, whose benefits have been far more generous than other types of employees. It is noteworthy that, in both cases of IMSS reform, Mexican labour unions were unsuccessful in their efforts to stop or significantly water down these processes of social security reform.
Recognizing Precarity? A Comparative Analysis of Governmental Documents in Provincial and Federal Administrations.
Abstract
With an aging population, have federal and provincial governments acknowledged the diversity of the policy needs of older adults? This contribution analyzes administrative and policy documents across ministries to study the frequency and the depth of engagement involving older adults with a disability, older immigrants, and those living in poverty. Precarity received marginal treatment with very limited discussions combining aging in relation to disability, immigration and migration, or poverty. Most documents focused on poverty. Disability and aging are discussed in parallel and rarely in conjunction with aging. These findings suggest a low level of priority for precarity and aging.
Do Assessment Tools Shape Policy Preferences? Analysing Policy Framing Effects on Older Adult Service Users.
Abstract
The concept of autonomy is essential in the practice and study of gerontology and in long-term care policies. For older adults with expanding care needs, scores from tightly specified assessment instruments, which aim to measure the autonomy of service users, usually determine access to social services. These instruments emphasise functional independence in the performance of activities of daily living. In an effort to broaden the understanding of autonomy into needs assessment practice, the province of Québec (Canada) added social and relational elements into the assessment tool. In the wake of these changes, this article studies the interaction between the use of assessment instruments and the extent to which they alter how older adults define their autonomy as service users. This matters since the conceptualisation of autonomy shapes the formulation of long-term care policy problems, influencing both the demand and supply of services and the types of services that ought to be prioritised by governments. Relying on focus groups, this study shows that the functional autonomy frame dominates problem definitions, while social/relational framings are marginal. This reflects the more authoritative weight of functional autonomy within the assessment tool and contributes to the biomedicalisation of aging.
How will COVID-19 Alter the Politics of Long-Term Care? A Comparative Policy Analysis of Popular Reform Options
Abstract
This policy analysis reviews three popular proposals with significant political endorsement to enhance long-term care (LTC), here defined broadly to include residential care facilities, home care, and community care, in the wake of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) crisis: national standards, provincial autonomy, and de-privatization. The proposals are summarized succinctly followed by a neo-institutionalist analysis of the obstacles to enact them based upon a series of interviews conducted prior to COVID-19 with senior civil servants in Canadian provinces for a newly published book (Marier, 2021) and political considerations. While the federal government has pursued the avenue of instituting national standards, the provinces have clearly expressed a desire to secure higher federal health transfers and pursue LTC reforms on their own. Considering the diversity of LTC arrangements across the provinces, which impact the politics of LTC within each jurisdiction, and the presence of many Conservative governments in provincial capitals, Ottawa faces an uphill battle to transform profoundly the LTC landscape.
Résumé
Cette analyse des politiques passe en revue trois propositions populaires bénéficiant d’un important soutien politique et qui visent l’amélioration des soins de longue durée, définis ici au sens large pour inclure les établissements de soins de longue durée, les soins à domicile et les soins communautaires, dans le sillage de la crise de la COVID-19 : normes nationales, autonomie provinciale et déprivatisation. Les propositions sont résumées succinctement et suivies d’une analyse néo-institutionnaliste des obstacles à leur mise en œuvre. Ces obstacles ont été identifiés lors d’une série d’entretiens menés avant la COVID-19 avec de hauts fonctionnaires des provinces canadiennes, dans le cadre de la rédaction d’un livre qui a été publié récemment (Marier, 2021), et en tenant compte de considérations politiques. Bien que le gouvernement fédéral ait poursuivi la voie de l’instauration de normes nationales, les provinces ont clairement exprimé leur désir d’obtenir des transferts fédéraux plus élevés en santé et de poursuivre les réformes des SLD par elles-mêmes. Compte tenu de la diversité des dispositions en matière de SLD dans les diverses provinces, qui elles ont un impact sur la politique des SLD de chaque juridiction, et de la présence de nombreux gouvernements conservateurs dans les capitales provinciales, Ottawa est confronté, dans son initiative de transformation profonde des soins de longue durée, à un défi de taille.
The Politics of Senior Bureaucratic Turnover in the Westminster Administrative Tradition: Trust and the Choice between Internal and External Appointments
Abstract
The extent to which new governments appoint and dismiss senior public servants is widely claimed to be influenced by their country’s underlying administrative tradition. This is particularly the case within the Westminster tradition where such turnover is limited in nature, with most appointees coming from within the ranks of the public service. This article challenges the assertion that turnover in the Westminster tradition is homogeneously internal. Theorizing that new governments appoint senior public servants to increase their control over the bureaucracy, and that the desire for control is negatively correlated to trust, this article develops hypotheses between the trust new governments harbour towards the bureaucracy and whether they appoint and dismiss bureaucrats from within or outside the public service. The hypotheses are tested with longitudinal data measuring internal and external appointments and departures to the senior public service in Canada’s provincial governments over a period of 18 years. The results from various multinomial regression models suggest that political appointments to the public service are not as homogenous as frequently suggested. Although a transition in the governing party and a newly elected premier from the same party of the previous government both lead to an increase in bureaucratic turnover, a newly elected first minister has a greater incidence of internal turnover than a change in party, meanwhile the level of external turnover does not meaningfully differ between these two political events.
COVID-19 and Long-Term Care Policy for Older People in Canada
Abstract
Older people are especially vulnerable to COVID-19, including and especially people living in long-term care facilities. In this Perspective, we discuss the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on long-term care policy in Canada. More specifically, we use the example of recent developments in Quebec, where a tragedy in a specific facility is acting as a dramatic “focusing event”. It draws attention to the problems facing long-term care facilities, considering existing policy legacies and the opening of a “policy window” that may facilitate comprehensive reforms in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Precarity and aging: A scoping review
Abstract
The concept of precarity holds the potential to understand insecurities and risks experienced by older people in the contemporary social, economic, political and cultural context. This study maps existing conceptualizations of precarity in relation to aging and later life, identifies key themes, and considers the use of precarity in two subfields.This article presents the findings of a two-phase scoping study of the international literature on precarity in later life. Phase I involved a review of definitions and understandings of precarity and aging. Phase II explored two emerging subthemes of disability and im/migration as related to aging and late life. A total of 121 published studies were reviewed across Phase I and Phase II. Findings reveal that the definition of precarity is connected with insecurity, vulnerability, and labor and that particular social locations, trajectories, or conditions may heighten the risk of precarity in late life. The article concludes by outlining the need for conceptual clarity, research on the unique multidimensional features of aging and precarity, the delineation of allied concepts and emerging applications, and the importance of linking research results with processes of theory building and the development of policy directives for change
Awaiting Long Term Care Services in a Rapidly Changing Environment: Voices from Older Chinese Adults
Abstract
In light of rapid socio-economic transformations combined with a growing ageing population, Chinese authorities have embarked on multiple initiatives to improve their long-term care (LTC) policies. As in Western countries, many of these new strategies involve the deployment of measures to facilitate ageing within one’s community. Relying on interviews of older adults in urban China, this study reveals the tension between policy imperatives and lived experiences by analysing their apprehensions, perceptions and expectations of LTC services. The findings reveal that LTC facilities continue to be perceived as a last resort solution, which accentuates worries concerning the under-development of home- and community-based health and social services. In addition, the interviews denote shifting filial relationships and expectations that have important consequences on the types, quality and quantity of LTC services and of the support older adults expect to receive from their children. In some cases, the narrative has shifted entirely towards sacrificing one’s well-being in order to support younger adults.
Precarity in Late Life: Understanding new forms of risk and insecurity
Abstract
Population aging and longevity in the context of declining social commitments, raises concerns about disadvantage and widening inequality in late life. This paper explores the concept of precarity as a means to understand new and sustained forms of risk and insecurity that affect late life. The article begins with a review of the definition and uses of precarity in a range of scholarly fields including social gerontology. It then draws on illustrations from three locations of experience including older women, aging with a disability, and the foreign-born, to outline how precarity renders visible the disadvantages carried into late life, and new insecurities that emerge at the moment of needing care in the context of austerity. The argument being put forward is that precarity can be used to illustrate how risks and insecurities, experienced over time, in longevity, and the context of austerity, can deepen disadvantage. This lens thus holds the potential to challenge individual interpretations of risk, and situate experiences of disadvantage in the economic and political context. We conclude that contemporary conditions of austerity and longevity intersect to produce and sustain risk and disadvantage into late life.
The Politics of Policy Adoption: A Saga on the Difficulties of Enacting Policy Diffusion or Transfer across Industrialized Countries
Abstract
While studies of policy diffusion and policy transfer have focused largely on industrialized countries, it is the exact opposite when it comes to pension policies where the focus remains on national elements such as institutions and partisanship. Focusing on a case with a high degree of programmatic similarities, this contribution fills this gap by analyzing the adoptive process in an industrialized country. The empirical analysis involves the transfer and diffusion of the Swedish pension reform in Norway. Norway has a long history of borrowing from Sweden. Following a highly publicized Swedish pension reform embraced by the World Bank, Norwegian policy makers could have easily introduced this reform at home when they embarked into a reform process in the early 2000s. By analyzing core policy instruments of the Swedish pension reform and the agenda-setting and the formulation stages in the policy process in the Norwegian case, this contribution explains why it proves complex and difficult to attribute the outcome of a reform to a diffuser and it argues that more attention is needed on the process behind the adoption of policies from abroad.
Technocracy or Transformation? Mapping Women’s Policy Agencies and Orienting Gender (In)Equality in the Canadian Provinces
Abstract
Canadian gender equality policy has taken a “technocratic turn” that favours bureaucratic expertise to monitor and measure (in)equality rather than participatory and consultative mechanisms. While the processes and impacts of this shift are well documented at the federal level, less is known at the provincial level. This article takes stock of provincial gender equality mechanisms, demonstrating variations in women’s policy agencies (WPAs) across the ten provinces. It then links these variations to the discursive politics of gender equality within each province. We demonstrate that the potential for transformative orientations of gender equality emerges in WPAs with broad consultative mechanisms.
Devine Intervention? Lessons in Systemic Retrenchment from Canada’s Most Generous Welfare State
Abstract
This article tackles the importance of systemic retrenchment in welfare state research by focusing on two core elements neglected in the literature: the civil service and governmental revenues. Saskatchewan has possessed key ingredients associated with generous welfare states: a dominant left-wing party, a supportive bureaucracy and important non-visible fiscal revenues. According to the comparative welfare state literature, this is also an excellent recipe for maintaining a generous welfare state amid attempts, primarily by right-wing governments, to scale it back. Yet, most social indicators in the post-Devine years demonstrate that Saskatchewan can no longer be considered a leading welfare state in Canada. Reforms to the bureaucracy and a host of financial measures resulting in a near default explain why the Devine government was successful in its efforts to disrupt the CCF/NDP social legacy despite the fact that the NDP regained power for 16 years afterwards.
From quacks to professionals: the importance of changing social constructions in the policy-making process
Abstract
The social construction of target populations (SCTP) approach assumes that policies are constructed to benefit (or punish) specific groups of citizens based on their relative power and social construction. This contribution tackles one of the most sustained critiques of the SCTP literature, namely, how a group can alter its social construction and power. Stated differently, how does a group move from being constructed as dependent or deviant to contenders or advantaged? In 1991, the government in Ontario, Canada, proclaimed what is arguably the most progressive midwifery legislation in the world. The Midwifery Act established midwifery as a self-regulating profession, fully integrated into the province’s public health insurance system, and enables midwives to catch babies in hospitals, homes and birthing centres. What is striking about the legislation is the contentious debate preceding it, in which midwives were constructed as ‘quacks’, incompetent and unclean, compared to professional physicians. In this paper, we explore the role of commissions of inquiries (COI) in shifting social constructions. Specifically, we argue that COI legitimised the authoritative knowledge of moral entrepreneurs and facilitated the necessary interaction between moral and political entrepreneurs, which in turn reconstructed midwives from ‘quacks’ to experts, and resulted in significant policy change.
How Should We Administer Population Aging? A Canadian Comparison
Abstract
This article presents a comparative analysis of four Canadian provinces (Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Quebec, and Saskatchewan) with different administrative responses to population aging. The way in which population aging is tackled administratively matters greatly because it drives the type of policy responses being proposed and implemented.
Résumé
Cet article présente une analyse comparative de quatre provinces canadiennes (Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador, Nouvelle-Écosse, le Québec et la Saskatchewan) avec différentes réponses administratives quant au vieillissement de la population. La façon dont le vieillissement de la population est abordée d’un point de vue administratif compte grandement, car elle détermine le type de réponses politiques qui sont proposées et mises en œuvre.
Who Pays the Piper Calls the Tune? Comparing Canada’s and EU’s Expansionary Role in Pensions
Abstract
Both Canada and the European Union (EU) have been active in developing pension policies despite the lack of formal mandates to do so. While the Canadian government used its fiscal powers to expand its role in pension programs when pension emerged as a policy issue, the EU has been strongly limited by its lack of resources, institutional complexities, and the maturity of public pension programs in its member states. The EU experience generates interesting lessons for Canadian policy makers who are dealing with increasingly complex pension issues.
The Power of Institutionalized Learning: The Uses and Practices of Commissions to Generate Policy Change
Abstract
This article analyses the conditions under which commissions succeed in influencing policy change. The paper tackles three questions: What do governments gain by establishing a commission? What are the tools employed by commissions in order to make their recommendations and ensure that their output will have political significance? And how do commissions influence policy outcomes? Five different types of influence are introduced and tested by focusing on the role of pension commissions in France, Sweden, and the UK.
The Changing Conception of Pension Rights in Canada, Mexico, and the United States
Abstract
Relying on four conceptualizations of the welfare state (universalism, redistribution, state capacity, and intergenerational equity), this article presents an overview of recent pension reforms in Canada, Mexico and the United States. Each country has introduced important reforms in the past 25 years and is currently engaged in debates to make other adjustments. The state is reducing its financial and programmatic commitment towards current and future retirees and is promulgating reforms tightening the link between contributions and benefits. In Canada, the government raised contribution rates substantially to maintain the same level of benefits while it sought to alter its universal flat-rate benefit. In the USA, changes to Social Security have resulted in a higher retirement age and lower replacement rates. In the case of Mexico, the most important public schemes have actually been privatized.
Adapting Public Policies for an Aging Society
Affirming, Transforming, or Neglecting Gender? The Politics of Gender in the Pension Reform Process.
Abstract
This article analyzes the gender visions adopted by policy actors in pension reform debates. Based on the work of Fraser ( Fraser, N. 1994 . “After the Family Wage: Gender Equity and the Welfare State.” Political Theory 22 : 591–618; Fraser, N. 1995 . “From Redistribution to Recognition? Dilemmas of Justice in a ‘Post-Socialist’ Age.” New Left Review 212:68–93), four gendered visions of public pensions are introduced and then applied to pension reforms in Belgium and Sweden. In line with international trends, both cases seek to integrate women within a pension system that treats men and women the same regardless of their nonmarket activities. However, in both cases, some compensation is introduced to acknowledge the caring functions performed mainly by women. Based on Fraser’s typology, this arrangement leads to one of the worst-case scenarios since it legitimizes pension systems that are predominantly geared toward full-time contributors and penalizes those individuals most likely to spend sometimes away from the labor market. The Belgian case emphasizes the negative role of the EU in retrenching pension rights and benefits for women. The Swedish case is interesting because of the scope of its reform and the fact that women in the service sector end up supporting the principle of tying benefits to contributions.
Where did the Bureaucrats Go? Role and Influence of the Public Bureaucracy in the Swedish and French pension reform debate
Abstract
This article has two key objectives. First, despite having been considered as a key element to favor the expansion and elaboration of the welfare state in industrial countries, bureaucrats have been largely ignored by the “New” Politics of the Welfare State. This article demonstrates that bureaucrats still matter in times of retrenchment, because they can facilitate or obstruct various phases of the policy process. The degree of independence of the bureaucracy vis-à-vis the government, the government’s level of dependency and trust on public expertise, the locus of ministerial power, and political deadlocks contribute to either accentuate or decrease the influence of the bureaucracy in the retrenchment of social policies. Second, these elements are analyzed via a comparison of the pension reform processes in France and Sweden. This article argues that the French bureaucracy, despite its high degree of centralization and powers, has been far less successful than its Swedish counterpart. The Swedish institutional structure, the predominance of social ministries in pension affairs, and the trust given to an independent agency account for this puzzling outcome.
Executive Authority, the Personal Vote, and Budget Authority in Latin America and Caribbean Countries
Abstract
Recent scholarship on budgeting in Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries indicates that political institutions impact the level of budget discipline. Building upon this previous research, we argue that the principal problem that must be addressed in both the government and the legislature to insure strong fiscal discipline is the common pool resource (CPR) problem. At the cabinet level, the CPR problem arises because ministers consider the implications of decisions on their ministries only. The level of the CPR problem in the legislature depends upon the electoral system. Using a data set of LAC countries for the period 1988–97, we find that executive power in the budget process is most effective in reducing budget deficits when electoral incentives for the personal vote is high in the legislature, while strengthening the president (or prime minister) in countries where the personal vote is low in the legislature has no effect.