Social Quality and the Policy Domain of Employment in Belgium

Abstract

What's in a name? 'Social quality' is an attractive yet vague concept. It has an appeal in the context of post-industrial aspirations to rise above the quantitative and the material, towards qualitative, immaterial goals; it emphasises 'social' aspects that lie beyond individualistic preoccupations and are oriented towards considerations of collectivity and solidarity. These aspects can be represented in terms of two dimensions (Figure 1), where the notion of social quality is situated in the upper left quadrant. But does this show the real content of this 'container concept', and does it reflect present everyday reality? The concept of social quality has been adapted (or rather adopted) in the context of the labour market in terms of the notion of 'flexicurity '. We shall discover that to an important extent this notion includes both ends of the dimensions; in other words, it is not what it seems. At the end of the 1990s the Belgian economy showed a high level of social protection, even after decades of public debate on the shrinking the state. Recent decades had, for the most part, seen continued economic growth, with a boom during the late 1990s. Yet, at the same time, the full employment once achieved in the early 1970s remained a lost paradise, leaving a large number of people not, or no longer, active in the labour market. To put it another way, one substantial group was left with perma nent insecurity and the other with an increased threat of insecurity and pressure for more flexibility. This double dependency created additional pressure on the welfare state and public finances to accommodate these shifts, using means both traditional (unemployment benefits, early pen sions, training, family support, additional fiscal and parafiscal incentives) and new (new personal services, new combinations of work and family life, paid informal care and child allowances, time credits). The traditional role of the state, and particularly the welfare state, in insuring against and financing certain risks and needs throughout the life cycle of individuals and families, has involved socialising risk premiums. The traditional risks