Welfare State Classification: The Development of Central Eastern European Welfare
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| 3.2 Communist Welfare States In order to conduct research regarding former communist welfare state, one needs to review the history of these welfare states to be able to understand certain thoughts and ideas about welfare which are present in these countries. When addressing communist welfare states, one needs to take in to account that even though communist social policy in theory was the best expression of social solidarity, in practice scholars (Cerami 2005; Ettrich 1999) state that communist social policy was characterized by lacks and inefficiencies (Cerami 2005). The communist state provided free health care, employment, housing, public pension and a safety net for those unable to take part in the socialist working life (Cerami 2005: 40). In other words, communist welfare states can be considered to be the perfect welfare state. But, as said before, the reality of communist social policy did not match the theory. With regard to housing, one could observe a structural lack of apartments. The apartments which were available were characterized by very low living conditions. In the Vizégrad countries, the lack of housing was lesser than in the former Soviet Union. The housing sector was less state-managed. The state in the Vizégrad countries provided credits for private single-family houses. Concerning full-employment; this was the basis of the communist contract. In other words, the basis of the communist ideology was the fact that all people were working, thus full-employment was provided by the state. In practice, this meant that employment turned out to be an obligation. With 17 respect to retirement, the level of benefits were very low. The benefits were regulated though contributions. In general the benefits were the 50% to 100% of the average of the best 5 years of the last 10 years of work. Health services were free of charge, but at the same time they could be considered to be inefficient and underdeveloped. Mortality and morbidity rates were high. In general lack of funds for hospitals was the norm (Cerami 2005: 40-1). Cerami (2005) argues that the communist welfare state was not only characterized by lacks, but also by some excess in social protection. An example is the three years of childcare protection. The excessive welfare protection led to a high welfare dependency (Cerami 2005: 41). After the collapse of communism in 1989, people still were dependent of welfare programs, especially when the market economy exposed substantial hidden employment. All in all, communist welfare states provided, though not always high quality, excessive welfare programs. People in these countries thus were very welfare dependent. This fact was a heavy burden for policy makers after the collapse of the Berlin Wall. As Hemerijck and Ferrera (2009) put it: “people in the CEE welfare states were expecting the government to secure employment and provide social transfers and services” (Hemerijck & Ferrera 2009: 32). Download 374.54 Kb. Share with your friends:
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