Belgium is an exceptional case within the continental welfare regime. While other continental welfare states gradually reformed their existing welfare policy repertoire by curtailing and recalibrating passive policies and expanding capacitating welfare services, Belgium follows a paradoxical trajectory of welfare reform. In some ways, relics of a passive welfare state are still in place, supporting claims of low reform capacity in Belgium. At the same time, signs of progressive reform exist such as specific career break and leave schemes, new policies to takle youth unemployment and also improved incentives for employers to hire long-term unemployed . While critics bemoan their weakness, these reforms clearly indicate a capacity to address new social risks
The following study is motivated by the following question: What explains the seemingly contradictory or incoherent policy approach in Belgium? We address this question on two levels. First, we seek to understand the lack of fundamental reform in unemployment policy, early retirement, active labor market policy. Second, we compare the logic of paradoxical reforms in these policy areas to the successful case of work-life reconciliation policy in order to draw lessons for the reform logic of the Belgian case.
We test two hypotheses to explain the Belgian welfare paradox: the relative size of the groups supporting the old system versus those that support reforms or the role of institutions in structuring incentives. We tests these explanations through an analysis of secondary literature about welfare reform debates and interviews with key policy actors.
