More status quo than change. Employer associations’ preferences in Dutch and Danish welfare

Abstract

Danish and Dutch employers’ associations (EAs) support the status quo on welfare policies. These status quo positions are related to welfare effort (spending) as well as to welfare orientation and welfare boundaries (the mix between universal, occupational and market provided welfare). In relation to welfare boundaries, policy control is a key EA preference. This preference should be seen in the context of the important roles EAs in both countries have as producers of, and not only stakeholders in, welfare, not least via CAs and most clearly seen in relation to pensions. However, EAs in the Netherlands show, in general, more preferences for cost-containment and market-based solutions, and less for universal welfare than the Danish EAs, and the Dutch EAs take corporatist institutions and collective bargaining less for granted than in earlier decades. In relation to explaining the pattern and development of EA's preferences, we found that a single mechanism could not explain these. EAs' own interests and path-dependency appear as important in both countries, whereas less support was found for actor power and political context-related explanations, although these factors were not without effect altogether.