The Politics of Occupational Welfare

Having a job is itself important in order to gain income. However, there seems also to be more often hidden aspects of labour market participation that might include more dualization in welfare states. This article will focus on occupational welfare in Denmark. The definition of occupational welfare used in this article revolves around especially on collective solutions, e.g., decisions taken among the labour market partners. Whether this is supplementary or substitute for public welfare is thus not the central scope of analysis, neither as at least a starting point whether the development has been supported by fiscal welfare (taxexpenditures). Emphasis will be on the core aspects of what the social partners in Denmark - sometimes as part of tri-partite agreements - has focused on that resembles or can directly be seen as provision of welfare either as services or benefits in-cash delivered only to those being on the labour market. It shows how occupational welfare has developed in two central welfare policy areas - such as pensions and family life. The question for the article is thus whether more occupational welfare challenges the universal approach in the Danish welfare state or just supplements existing welfare. A further question is whether and how this might influence equality in a Nordic welfare state. The article shows that the development towards more occupational welfare in these specific areas are argued to be mainly driven, in relation to pension, a historical need to increase saving, and with regard to family life the change in roles between men and women implying a need for a stronger focus on how to reconcile work and family life. These changes are further driven mainly as a way of supplementing the universal welfare state. However, these changes also imply new types of dualization and degrees of inequality between those more and those less strongly attached to the labor market.