PhD thesis defence by Ariane Aumaitre Balado
Over the past few decades, welfare states have undergone significant transformations to address the emergence of new social risks, spurred by profound changes in the socio-economic landscape. This evolution has been driven by the need to adapt to shifting demographics, changing family structures, and the evolving nature of labour markets. Despite these efforts, there remains a critical gap in research concerning the strategies deployed to recalibrate welfare states have achieved their intended goals and, importantly, whether the outcomes for those facing new social risks have improved as a result.
This dissertation aims to answer an ambitious question: Does the post-war social contract, with its promise of security and equity, still hold firm, or has it begun to fray at the edges, leaving certain groups disproportionately disadvantaged? To provide an answer, it introduces an innovative analytical framework to the study of welfare states, conceptualising them as entities bound by a social contract with three distinct layers: gender equality, inter-generational equity, and intra-generational justice. Through this framework, this work bridges the gap between macro-level trends in welfare state evolution and the micro-correlates of individual outcomes. Across these three dimensions, the overarching finding of this dissertation is that certain risk groups, and in particular non-traditional family structures and low-educated individuals, have witnessed a decline in their economic wellbeing.
This dissertation contributes to welfare state research by highlighting the importance of considering individual outcomes, particularly for groups facing new social risks, and by integrating these outcomes into the broader context of welfare state regimes and policy landscapes. Through its multi-dimensional approach, it offers new insights into the evolution of the social contract in post-industrial societies, emphasising the critical role of gender equality, inter-generational justice, and intra-generational equity in shaping welfare states.
Ariane Aumaitre is a PhD candidate at the European University Institute. Her research interests lie in the area of welfare state transformations, gender and generational inequalities and public policy. Within these areas, she works with large-scale socioeconomic data to analyse outcomes at the individual level. She works as a public policy consultant for organisations such as the OECD, Eticas AI, KSNET or ideas42; focusing on areas like social inclusion, poverty, child wellbeing and inequalities. She has previously worked as a Junior Policy Analyst at the Employment, Labour and Social Affairs Directorate at the OECD. She holds a Masters degree in European Public Policy Analysis from the College of Europe in Bruges.