Unemployment benefits in the 21st century: new dimensions of retrenchment and the roles of austerity and populism

This chapter investigates developments in the unemployment benefit systems of 20 advanced economies since the turn of the 20th century, with respect to three core dimensions: their inclusivity, their generosity, and their conditionality. The analysis includes a number of well-established indicators of benefit systems such as coverage rates, net replacement rates, and benefit duration. However, it also considers aspects whose cross-national developments have not previously been much analyzed, including benefit recipiency, job-search and availability requirements, as well as an original measure of benefit degressivity that captures how the benefit level declines over the unemployment duration. By considering these aspects, the analysis can observe additional forms of contractions of countries’ benefit systems, which are not captured by the more commonly used indicators. The chapter also considers how benefit systems may be affected by fiscal austerity and populism, and suggests that their effects are likely to vary across the three core dimensions.