How And Why Are Scandinavian Welfare Systems Different From Other West European Welfare States?

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ed after the German Chancellor the man who provided the ideas behind the first laws on social insurance. Here the social benefits are only given to those who have been on the labour market. This model is also known as the Central European, the conservative or the achievement-oriented model. The Subsidiarity model, in which social responsibilities are to be solved within the family, or as close to the family as possible, is also called the Southern European or Catholic model.
The principle behind the Scandinavian welfare model is that benefits should be given to all citizens who fulfil the conditions, without regard to employment or family situation. The system covers everyone; it is universal. And the benefits are given to the individual, so that e.g. married women have rights independently of their husbands. In the fields of sickness and unemployment the right to benefit is, however, always dependent on former employment and at times also on membership of a trade union and the payment of contributions; however the largest share of the financial burden is still carried by the State and financed from general taxation, not in the main from earmarked contributions.
In the Scandinavian countries the State is involved in financing and organising the welfare benefits available to the citizens to a far greater extent than in other European countries. For that reason the welfare model is accompanied by a taxation system which has both a broad basis of taxation and a high taxation burden. The benefits given are more generous than is the case in the British Beveridge model - and in combination with the taxation system this brings about a greater redistribution than is the case in the Bismarck model, which is aimed rather at maintaining the present status. The Scandinavian pattern of organisation is also far simpler and immediately comprehensible than is the case in the other West European countries. In the Scandinavian countries most of the s...