Seminar series Social investment: a policy idea whose time has come Add to calendar 2024-10-09 12:30 2024-10-09 14:00 Europe/Rome Social investment: a policy idea whose time has come Sala Triaria Villa Schifanoia YYYY-MM-DD Print Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Send by email When 09 October 2024 12:30 - 14:00 CEST Where Sala Triaria Villa Schifanoia Organised by Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies EGPP: European Governance and Politics Programme Join Anton Hemerijck in this seminar to examine how countries have adopted a social investment approach to welfare reform, and the political factors driving this shift. In a gradual yet transformative manner, many EU member states have, over the past decades, pursued an active welfare reform agenda, encouraged by the European Commission. This reform agenda has focused on social investment, supporting dual-earner families to ease life course and labour market transitions, while making social protection more inclusive in knowledge economies and ageing societies. This paper surveys the long-term shift towards social investment and offers an alternative political explanation, challenging perspectives that focus solely on partisan power and organised interests. It highlights the importance of ideas and policy-learning dynamics across advanced economies, which have inherited significant intergenerational commitments from past periods of passive welfare state expansion. Scientific Organiser(s): Lorenzo Cicchi (European University Institute) Contact(s): Alessandra Caldini Speaker(s): Prof. Anton Hemerijck (EUI - Department of Political and Social Sciences)