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About the topic:
The liberal political culture of social policy in the U.S. has long limited public finance of long-term care to individuals with very low income and assets. A series of changes in the labor market, family structure, and population age structure, along with the failure of private long-term care insurance to extend coverage to the middle class, have ushered in a shift in long-term care finance policy toward a much stronger public role. Washington State's new social long-term care insurance program, the WA Cares Fund, is the leading example of this trend. It was enacted in 2019 and reformed in 2021 and 2022 and begins collecting premiums in 2023 and paying benefits in 2026. The state is also developing a supplemental private insurance market that should be able to offer supplemental coverage to the middle class at a more affordable price point than hitherto. This presentation will discuss what led to enactment of the WA Cares Fund, provide an overview of the policy design, including the supplemental private market, and share early learnings.

About the speaker:
Benjamin W. Veghte is Director of the WA Cares Fund, the first U.S. universal long-term care insurance program in Washington State. He is also an MIT CoLab Mel King Community Fellow, a member of the Care Guild, a group of 125 innovators redesigning care for the 21st century, and an expert on German and OECD social policy. His work focuses on developing policies that improve the economic security of workers and help them balance the responsibilities of work and family caregiving. Veghte studied the history of European social policy during his Ph.D. studies at the University of Chicago. While doing his field work in Germany he took a position at the University of Bremen, where he taught comparative social policy until 2008. In 2008/9 he earned a Mid-Career MPA at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Moderated by Lorraine Frisina-Doetter

Contact: Katharina Scherf at s_cvpwv8@uni-bremen.de

Veränderte Lebensläufe (z. B. Lebensformen und Familienverläufe, Erwerbsverläufe) stellen eine Herausforderung für sozialpolitische Absicherung dar. Zugleich werden traditionelle Formen der (erwerbszentrierten) Absicherung schon immer nur denjenigen Lebensläufen gerecht, welche bestimmten normativen Modellen genügen. Zusätzlich stellen Vermarktlichung, Privatisierung und andere Transformationstendenzen sozialer Sicherung individuelles Lebenslaufhandeln vor neue Probleme und Aufgaben. Sich abzeichnende erneute Verteilungskämpfe und gesellschaftliche Krisen wie diejenige infolge der Covid-19-Pandemie gehen auch mit einer kritischeren Betrachtung des Zusammenspiels zwischen Lebensläufen und Sozialpolitik einher.
Vor diesem Hintergrund sollen auf der geplanten Veranstaltung politische Regelungen und Maßnahmen in den Blick genommen werden, welche anstreben, den Komplexitäten von Erwerbs- und Lebensverläufen besser gerecht zu werden als bisherige Formen sozialer Absicherung. Inkrementelle Reformen und Reformkonzepte werden ebenso diskutiert wie größere Entwürfe, wobei wissenschaftliche und aus der (politischen und anderen) Praxis kommende Perspektiven zusammengebracht werden sollen.
Thematisiert werden Formen von Erwerbstätigkeit und ihre Absicherung (mit dem Schwerpunkt auf atypischer Beschäftigung, Solo-Selbstständigkeit, Erwerbshybridisierung), Migration und lebenslauforientierte soziale Sicherung, Formen von (Sorge-)Arbeit und ihre Anerkennung sowie Konzepte des bedingungslosen Grundeinkommens.

Programme (latest version)

To take part please register. To register please send an email stating your name, affiliation and email address to sek-scherger@uni-bremen.de

Participation is free of charge. We are currently planning to meet face-to-face (if necessary with Corona-related restrictions) but the final meeting mode might be changed at short notice.

Thematic Conference

Technological Change, Digitalization and Life Course Inequalities

Technological change has major implications for social inequality. Most of the research focuses on changes in skill requirements and labor market transformations. Yet, digitalization, more than ever before, has the potential to impact inequalities across a wide range of life domains and for different groups in society. This workshop aims to connect researchers to discuss the most important developments and challenges that digitalization has for inequality. The aim is to stimulate and cross-fertilize research on digitalization and inequality regarding various dimensions of the life course and life periods/stages, across various institutional settings. Example questions are: Are gender inequalities intensified or alleviated by technological changes? Do digital technologies foster family relations across generations? What are the implications of changes in skill requirements at work for the reproduction of social inequality? Can elderly benefit from technological advancements or are they left behind? How doesdigitalization impact ethnic inequalities and segregation (e.g., language barriers, labor market integration)?

Keynote Speakers
Mario L. Small, Harvard University
Glenda Quintini, OECD

ECSR Thematic Conference

For registration, please contact simone.ruiz@uni-bremen.de