On the 13th September 2024, Rense Nieuwenhuis will participate in a workshop on “Global Ideas on Resilient Social Policies” organised by the Collaborative Research Centre on “Global Dynamics of Social Policy” of Bielefeld University. The workshop aims to discuss the role of international organisations in social policy during the pandemic and thereafter. A specific focus will be on “resilient social policies”, and thus the question as to how social policies can be designed and adjusted so that they act as meaningful automatic stabilisers in different types of crises.
Nieuwenhuis says “As the idea of resilience is gaining traction in EU policy making, it is very relevant that workshops like this are organised, and I am very happy that the rEUsilience project was invited to contribute. As the concept of resilience is increasingly used to design policies for social and economic issues, such applications should be evaluated critically. Structural inequalities in who have the capacity to be resilient are too often neglected. The rEUsilience evidence I will present shows that families and educational groups who are most likely to have to respond to socio-economic risks (such as unemployment, low work intensity or having a chronic illness), are the least able to avoid negative outcomes associated with these risks, such as poverty or material deprivation. This implies that if policy makers fail to consider who needs to be resilient, they overlook that individuals and families who are most exposed to risks, have the least capacity to respond to these risks.”
The presented evidence comes in part from our interactive compendium of families’ risks, resources and resilience, and a forthcoming deliverable that used EUROMOD policy simulations to show that the tax-benefit system adequately does not function equally well as an automatic stabiliser for all different family types.