Local Civil Regimes for Combating Child Poverty

Abstract

Child poverty is a persistent problem in many European welfare states, irrespective of the welfare state regime. The paper examines approaches on the local level in Belgium and Austria, two countries with a corporatist welfare state tradition and three levels of government. In both countries child poverty rates are high, with 23% (Austria) and 22% (Belgium) (Eurostat, 2019). Child poverty means that the children live in households which are at risk of poverty or social exclusion. Children of such households have a much higher risk of being poor later in life. By conducting case studies in four focus cities (Antwerp, Ghent, Linz and Vienna) the paper contributes to the emerging empirical research on the localisation of social policies in a multi-level governance context. Theoretically, the paper addresses the practices of rescaling of social policies towards the local level. The study examines how the European Commissions’ 2013 Recommendation “Investing in Children: breaking the cycle of disadvantages” is translated into the local social policies. For that purpose, the paper focuses on the local collaborations between the local governments and the partners of the social and solidarity economy on the policy design - and the service provision levels. Our findings show that the discrepancies start already with the vertical policy making competencies, with a stronger role of the Belgian regions. Also, Belgium has a longer tradition of an explicit policy focus of reducing child poverty. In all three pillars of the 2013 Recommendation, the two focus countries face some challenges, despite some progresses, in particular in pillar two (access to affordable quality services). The policy makers of the four cities are guided, in a varying degree, by the social investment paradigm. This was most prominent in the interviews in Linz. Regarding collaborative local policy making, Ghent is the only focus city with an explicit local plan to combat child poverty. In all four cities target group-specific and universal services are provided for poor children and their families. Regarding the delivery of social policies to combat child poverty, there are considerable differences in the governance modes. While both Flemish cities have a tradition of institutionalized local networks to combat early childhood poverty, the servicedelivery modes in the two Austrian cities are much fragmented, when it comes to combat child poverty. The network approach offers better chances to provide an integrated service. On a more positive note, the two Austrian cities provided good practices in managing the transition phase from school to work.