后工业社会福利国家的压力增加了还是减少了?

Pressures on State Welfare in Post-industrial Societies:Are More or Less Better?

尽管对现代福利国家的比较研究已使我们获得了对福利国家如何应对由内因和外因带来的压力拥有了丰富的认识,但对后工业社会这些压力的性质和潜在的含义还不甚明了。在研究的文献中,学者们探讨了诸多对福利国家产生压力的各种社会现象,诸如:全球化、欧洲化、人口的统计规律、个体化和变迁中的劳动力。全球化和欧洲一体化作为外在压力,其对福利国家的影响尚有待证明,而人口老龄化、劳动人口的相对下降、工作年限的缩短、多样化的家庭和个人生活方式等内生压力对福利国家造成的影响要重要得多。压力在后工业社会并不是像大家通常所认为的那样被福利国家消解了或重构了,相反,对福利国家而言,真实情况是压力更多了而不是减少了。

Although contemporary comparative welfare state research has advanced our knowledge ot now welfare states respond to exogenous and endogenous pressures, the nature and implications of these pressures themselves on post-industrial societies remain somewhat unknown. In the research literature phenomena such as globalization, Europeanization, demographics, individualization and changing labour markets are often claimed to put considerable pressure on welfare states. We analyse which of the alleged pressures are real ＂crises＂ or ＂challenges＂ to welfare states and which pressures should only be considered as ＂controversies＂-phenomena whose impacts are non-significant, ambiguous, or have not been asserted. We suggest that pressures on post-industrial societies may not, as is commonly believed, be countered with retrenchment and restructuring of welfare states. In fact, some pressures seem to call for more rather than less welfare state.