Digitalization and the Welfare State

Abstract

Digitalization is likely to have a lasting impact on work, welfare, health, education, and the income distribution. It will radically transform not only social risks but also the means by which these are addressed. The contributions to this volume explore how digitalization—in different forms—affects the welfare state. They study how it influences concrete social policies as well as the underlying power relationship between actors, i.e. the politics of the welfare state. The volume brings together internationally renowned welfare-state scholars to identify a) the socio-economic challenges resulting from rapid technological change; b) the ensuing political conflicts in the domain of welfare state reform broadly defined; and c) the ways in which these changes challenge and shape existing labour market and welfare state arrangements. Overall, the volume explains the potential and real political and policy responses to these challenges, grasps the contours of future developments, and reflects on whether the current wave of technological change might promote the emergence of a new paradigm of welfare state policy making. We adopt a forward-looking yet empirically-grounded perspective on the impact of digitalization on the welfare state. Based on this approach, the volume uniquely offers a theoretically informed empirical basis for social science and public debates about the long-term implications of the digital revolution for the welfare state, covering a broad range of policy areas such as education, pensions, labour market policies, tax policy, and health care.