ADV 2 Practice Exam
I.D
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Scandinavian Welfare
David Popenoe
Welfare policies in Scandinavia, by weakening family units have undermined the very welfare they
seek to promote
1.
Scandinavian welfare and family policies are the envy of liberal-thinking people around the
world. In the Scandinavian nations — Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland — which rank among the
world's wealthiest, a large portion of the riches of economic prosperity has purposefully been
redistributed by government to benefit those in greatest economic need. In other wealthy countries, a
larger proportion of these riches has not been available for the public good but have remained in
private hands, often appearing to be spent uneconomically and even frivolously. Among those
considered "in need" in Scandinavia are not only the poor and the homeless, who not incidentally have
virtually vanished from the Scandinavian scene largely because of these policies, but people at all class
levels, at certain stages of their lives, including couples with children and single mothers with their
children following a divorce. Indeed, the broad spread of the economic redistribution efforts has been
a major reason for the continuing popularity of welfare policies within Scandinavia. The main
government vehicle for these policies rests, of course, on the power to tax; Scandinavian nations have
the world's highest tax rates, together with very large and powerful government sectors.
2.
Like most American social researchers, I am largely in support of the Scandinavian
accomplishments in the area of social welfare. These nations have enormously reduced the economic
luck-of-the-draw aspect of life, and at the same time, thanks to strong government controls, they have
created remarkably livable cities and rural environments that have been heavily protected for the
enjoyment of all. Foreign visitors to the 1994 Winter Olympics in Norway returned with almost
uniformly glowing accounts about the high quality of Norwegian life. One might add that the peoples
of Scandinavia rank at the top of world happiness surveys.
3.
Many Scandinavian family policies also deserve the highest accolades. Although the category of
"family policy" can include many programs, especially noteworthy are the parental leave provisions
that enable working parents to be with their young children, and the child allowance schemes, that
help to offset today's tremendous costs of child rearing. Through policies of this kind, the Scandinavian
nations lead the world in putting children first.
4.
Yet there are areas in which Scandinavian welfare policies are open to criticism. The present
discussion will focus mainly on Sweden, which is not only the Scandinavian nation I know best but is
the most advanced and thus represents to some extent a prototype of the welfare state.
5.
One growing concern is that the generous Scandinavian welfare policies may have been
appropriate during the golden years of Scandinavian economic growth, but in recent years, with the
relative economic decline found not only in Scandinavia but in most Western nations, the
extraordinarily high welfare-driven taxes (which reached a marginal tax rate of 85 percent at one
period in Sweden) have themselves become a major domestic problem. More extensive development
of this point must be left, however, to economists and others. It is important to note that given the
current state of the American economy plus a staunchly anti-tax, anti-government political climate, it
is hard to imagine — due to their very high cost—that Scandinavian welfare policies will be imported
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anytime in the near future. Indeed, the Scandinavian nations themselves are trying diligently to find
ways to cut taxes and return to a more privatized economy.
WELFARE POLICIES – A GROWING CONCERN
6.
My fundamental concern, stated and developed previously elsewhere, is simply this: as the
welfare state has advanced, the family has declined. The weakened family has, in turn, had serious
negative social consequences especially for the children involved. Mature adults may be able to do
without strong families, but children cannot. For children, the family is irreplaceable as the major
source of social and emotional well-being. By weakening the family, the welfare state has undermined
the very welfare it seeks to promote.
7.
How have welfare states contributed to family decline? The paths are many, involving not only
economic welfare programs but socio-economic trends and cultural shifts. It should be noted that
most of the programs, trends and shifts have positive as well as negative outcomes, making them
notoriously difficult to analyze. Many welfare state programs, for example, while desirable in their
own right, have unintended negative consequences to be reckoned with.
8.
First, economic support programs and related welfare-state measures have the unintended
consequences of weakening the bonds of marriage and family life by providing extra-familial sources
of material security, personal services, and leisure pursuits. This is one dimension of what Neil Gilbert
in his book Capitalism and the Welfare State: Dilemmas of Social Benevolence has labeled "the helping
hand dilemma." Families in the welfare state are penalized when they take care of themselves, and are
rewarded when they fail to look after themselves.
9.
Marriage has traditionally been an economic partnership as well as a social commitment, and
one that was favored by the state. Yet in Sweden, as in other Scandinavian nations, all benefits are
given to individuals. The economic incentive for couples to stay together is diminished; if and when
couples break up, the negative economic consequences are rendered benign by the state. The
economic value of being married has unexpectedly fallen close to the value of being divorced. And, as
economic dependence on the family is gradually replaced by dependence on the state, the
interdependencies and reciprocal obligations of family life diminish.
10.
A second set of causes of family fragmentation falls into the realm of socio-economic trends. It is
now generally recognized within the academic community, for example, that the improving
educational attainment and labor force participation of women over the past three decades has been
associated with family break-up. Welfare states, of course, have been in the vanguard with respect to
these trends.
11.
A third set of causes involves cultural or ideational shifts. In every modern society leading values
have shifted — personal independence and self-fulfillment have overtaken an earlier value pattern
based on duty, obligation, and commitment. With a decline of commitment marriages tend to break
up at lower stress levels. Welfare states have accelerated this postmodern cultural shift in a number of
ways, by promoting a secularism and individualism that seeks to free people from dependence on the
family. Often singled out for special attention is the "therapeutic ideology" promoted by welfare-state
professionals. This places the highest value on short-term happiness and self-fulfillment. Whereas
family therapists value individuality and adaptability, family members emphasize cohesion and family
unity. Also, welfare states strongly foster a "value neutrality" toward family forms and thereby
undercut traditional obligations.
12.
The empirical impact of these welfare-state components on family life has been remarkable,
especially in Sweden, the most advanced welfare state in the world. The Swedish marriage rate is the
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lowest in the industrial world and the rate of non-marital cohabitation outranks that of all other
advanced nations. More serious, Sweden also may be the world leader in the combined break-up rate
of cohabiting unions, both marital and non-marital. Unfortunately, break-up rates for unmarried
couples are not routinely available. Sweden has one of Europe's highest divorce rates, but this tells less
and less because so many people in Sweden do not get married. Non-marital cohabitation embodies a
lower level of commitment, and such unions break up at a much higher rate than marital unions, an
estimated three to six times higher.
13.
The impact of such family fragmentation on the life course of children is sobering. A report from
Statistics Sweden, using 1986 data, found that the chances that a Swedish child will not live
continuously to adulthood with both biological parents has reached 40 percent. Today, that
percentage is probably higher, and it is nearly the same as in the United States, the least welfareoriented of the industrial nations. This is indeed surprising in view of the fact that many of the factors
traditionally associated with family break-up in the United States — such as brief courtships and early
marriages, teen pregnancies, poverty and income instability, interethnic and interfaith unions, and
high residential mobility — are all mitigated in Sweden.
14.
Few Swedish social researchers have accepted the argument of welfare-driven family break-up.
In a rebuttal to an article I published in The Public Interest, "Family Decline in the Swedish Welfare
State," six distinguished Swedish researchers had these blunt words to say about the basic thesis:
"Quite frankly, in our view, he is wrong ... Contrary to Popenoe's assertion, there is no evidence of
deteriorating family ... in Sweden." Researchers in the United States have also been hostile to this
thesis. Some of the most positive comments have come from other Scandinavians, outside of Sweden.
A CHANGE FOR THE BETTER?
15.
But the tide of opinion now seems to be turning. The view that economic welfare programs
promote family break-up is similar to the one currently being proposed about welfare programs in the
United States, although the situations in the two nations are very different (in Sweden, for example,
there is no indication that welfare programs have promoted teenage, out-of-wedlock pregnancies).
Until recently, liberal observers have rejected out of hand such a concern about American welfare
programs. But today, one can see many signs of reluctant acceptance. In large part due to welfare's
pernicious effect on families, Bill Clinton promised during his presidential campaign "to end welfare as
we know it." In his 1994 State of the Union address, the president stated: "If we value strong families,
we can't perpetuate a system that actually penalize those who stay together."
16.
In his recent work World Changes in Divorce Patterns, the dean of American family sociologists,
William J. Goode, seems to have accepted by and large my thesis about the decline of the Swedish
family: "It does seem likely ... that these supports weaken the binding commitment between spouses,
and thus what I have called personal investments in the collectivity of the family."
17.
Goode, however, does not agree with my negative evaluation of this trend; indeed, he sees little
one needs to worry about. Referring to the leveling off of the Swedish divorce rate in the 1980s, he
says: "If these policies, which certainly keep many divorced mothers out of poverty do not strengthen
the family, at least they do not appear as yet to weaken it very much." But the 1980s leveling of the
divorce rate in Sweden seems mainly accounted for by the increasing cohabitation among the divorceprone, leaving only the more stable to marry. Moreover, the situation now seems to have turned
around, lending support to my position.
18.
Between 1988 and the early 1990s, a period for which data were not available when Goode was
working on his book, the Swedish divorce rate increased dramatically. Scan, the bulletin of the
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American-Scandinavian Foundation, reports that almost half of all marriages, 48 percent, now dissolve,
compared to 41 percent in 1988. If cohabitation were included in the statistics, the numbers would
double. A total of 28,000 cohabitants in Sweden separated in this period, six times the rate of married
couples.
19.
The empirical evidence now available largely supports the supposition that economic welfare
programs in Scandinavia, the United States, and other modern nations have weakened the marriage
bond. In a recent Journal of Labor Economics review of welfare and the family in Canada, Douglas W.
Allen states that "most economists agree that needs-tested aid to able-bodied individuals ...
encourages marital breakdown." Many other factors are involved in marriage decline, as noted above,
but welfare support is almost surely one causal factor.
20.
All government programs involve trade-offs. One cannot disagree with Goode that Scandinavian
welfare programs have kept divorced mothers out of poverty. More importantly, they have kept the
children of divorce out of poverty. If I were a child of divorce I would rather live in Scandinavia than
anywhere else, not only because of the economic supports but also the high quality of life. Yet, I would
rather not be a child of divorce. In overly crude terms, here is a trade-off question: as a child, would
you rather have economic supports or a father still living in the home? I believe that most children
would rather maintain the daily contact with their father. The average child benefits much more from
having a father in the home than from having welfare supports.
21.
The fundamental problem with Scandinavian welfare and family policies is that they have little
concern for what should be the most important goal of family policy: to increase the proportion of
children who grow up with two married, biological parents and decrease the proportion of children
who do not. As measured by this goal, the Scandinavian policies have been a failure. The proportion of
children who do not grow up with their two married, biological parents is now nearly the same in
Sweden as in the United States. There are many valid reasons for marital breakups and few people
wish to return to the era of no divorce. But when almost half of all couples with children part their
ways before their children reach adulthood, is not something seriously wrong?
22.
Every child has a right to grow up with his or her parents if humanly possible, not a legal right, of
course, but a moral right. This right was affirmed by the United Nations conventions on the Rights of
the Child, "The child ... shall have the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents." This
document has been remarkably overlooked by the industrialized nations. A recent draft statement of
principles prepared for the 1994 World Population Conference states: "Children have a right to be
cared for and supported by both parents." How can we say that a nation is a welfare state, devoted to
the needs of children, when such a moral right is so systematically overlooked?
THE WAY FORWARD – POLICY AND MORALITY
23.
The issue remains, can governments really do anything about this problem? I believe they can. In
general, economic support and other programs should be reformulated to privilege married, childrearing couples, rather than being neutral toward them for fear of stigmatizing "alternative life-styles,"
much less economically penalizing them. Tolerance of alternative lifestyles does not mean they are
equivalent to marriage and it should not mean that we are prohibited from favoring child-rearing
couples who provide society with in enormous increase in social capital.
24.
Welfare states must develop a better realization that, as the American social scientist
Christopher Jencks says in his book Rethinking Social Policy, "Any successful social policy must strike a
balance between collective compassion and individual responsibility." He continues, "A successful
program must not only help those it seeks to help, but must do so in such a way as not to reward folly
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or vice." And finally, he adds. "If we want to promote virtue we have to reward it." Modem welfare
states today assume moral positions in almost any other area and on any issue — the rights of women,
income equality, and race relations — so why not take a moral position on the right of children to have
two parents present in the household during their formative years?
25.
There are several reasons why Scandinavians have not spoken out on this issue, besides not
wanting to sound like moralistic, right-wing conservatives. These societies are controlled by strong
governments and intact, relatively conformity-oriented cultures creating a feeling that enough is
enough, and that a "hands-off' attitude should be taken with regard to people's "private lives." Such a
position may be well and good for adults, but it is not at all good for children. In view of a growing
body of social science evidence, it is simply no longer possible to turn away from the negative
consequences of marital break-up on children.
26.
Very little Scandinavian research has been done on this topic, which is surprising in view of the
fact that the Scandinavians are among the world's leading applied social researchers. The conclusions
of one of the most sophisticated empirical studies, conducted by British researcher Duncan W. G.
Timms as part of Project Metropolitan at the University of Stockholm should be heeded. Focusing on
the relationship between family structure in childhood and mental health in adolescence, it takes
account of the life experiences of every child born in Stockholm in 1953: "The experience of family
disruption involving parental separation or divorce (but not death of a parent) has negative effects on
later mental health whenever it occurs and regardless of the socioeconomic status of the household."
The study further notes that boys born to unmarried women and who live with a married and
cohabiting couple in mid-childhood, but with a separated or divorced parent at the age of seventeen,
have a particularly high rate of impairment in late adolescence.
27.
To overlook such evidence, to disregard the negative consequences of marital dissolution, to say,
as many academics do, that the trend of marital dissolution is inevitable, to state, as William Goode
does in his recent book, that "we should accept the fact that most developed nations can now be high
divorce rate systems, and we should institutionalize understandings and pressures to make it work
reasonably well," represents a betrayal of children. That is why I am unable to join my liberal
colleagues in unequivocally endorsing current Scandinavian welfare policies as the best approach for
America — or for Scandinavia.
David Popenoe is professor of sociology and associate dean of the faculty of arts and sciences at Rutgers
University. New Brunswick, New Jersey. He is author of Private Pleasure. Public Plight (published by
Transaction); and Disturbing the Nest: Family Change and Decline in Modern Societies.
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