Direct Payments as a Policy Measure to Alleviate the Consequences of Covid-19 Crisis
Due to government-imposed restrictions to limit the spread of Covid-19, the lecture is open only to SSE Riga staff, faculty and Year 3 students.
SSE Riga is excited to provide a chance to hear from one of the leading Finnish scholars in social policy. Heikki Hiilamo, Professor of Social Policy at Helsinki University, and Päivi Mäntyneva, a postdoc researcher at the University of Helsinki, will present a study on the social policy responses to the corona crisis in various OECD countries.
What is the topic of this lecture?
"Global crisis such as pandemics with threat, time-pressure and uncertainty act as stress-tests for welfare states and governments. Crisis may also present the governments with opportunities to try new and even radical policy options, which if implemented may create path-dependency for future policies.
The economic fallout of COVID-19 crisis has caused unprecedented insecurity and hardship across the world. Due to lockdown measures like school and business closures new kinds of need for social protection have appeared. New measures to meet these needs are required not only to ensure immediate wellbeing of citizens but also to guarantee positive transitions through the crisis and enhance trust of the citizens.
As an example, many countries have implemented emergency basic income (EBI) or a similar direct income support as an income support for people in difficult situations: out of work, on reduced hours, at-risk working in unsafe conditions, recipients of targeted social assistance benefits (lack of income from informal sector), senior citizens exposed to the danger of the virus and struggle with greater health risks.
In our comparative social political study of 13 OECD countries representing different welfare state regimes, we examine with content analysis, the social policy responses to the corona crisis with the special task of identifying new measures to support individuals and families economically. We study if these measures are more symbolic acts with temporary effects or if they possess potential for transformation and paradigmatic changes beyond welfare states."
Presenters:
PhD Heikki Hiilamo works as a professor of social policy at University of Helsinki and as a research professor at National Institute for Health and Welfare. Previously Hiilamo has worked as research professor at Social Insurance Institution on Finland. He has worked as visiting professor at University of California San Francisco and VID Specialized University Oslo. Hiilamo has the title of Docent from University of Tampere and University of Eastern Finland. Hiilamo’s research interests include family policy, basic income, poverty, inequality, welfare state research and tobacco control. He is specialized in quantitative methods. His articles have appeared in leading international journals including Journal of Social Policy, Journal of European Social Policy, International Journal of Epidemiology, American Journal of Public Health and Social Science and Medicine. In 2018 he published a book on household debts for Edward Elgar. In 2016 Hiilamo was awarded with State Award for Public Information.
Dr. Päivi Mäntyneva works as a postdoc researcher at the University of Helsinki since the beginning of 2021. Her research group just finished a manuscript of the comparative study in 13 countries, concerning the social policy measures during the COVID-19 pandemic in the year 2020. Recently she presented research papers covering this research at the Annual Sociology Conference (ESA) and the annual conference of Network for European Social Policy Analysis (ESPAnet). She graduated with a doctorate in political sciences from the University of Helsinki in 2020. Her article-based dissertation addressed active social policy and questions of inclusion, human agency, and capabilities in the context of rehabilitative work activities and long-term unemployment. She has years of pedagogical experience working as a senior lecturer and teaching and supervising in higher education (Bachelor’s Degree in Social Services) as well as working as an expert being responsible for reports and evaluations in the field of social development, employment and urban policies. Recently, she visited as a public servant researcher in the Finnish Parliaments’ research service (1.8.2019 – 31.7.2020).
Please note, that only individuals with a valid digital Covid-19 recovery or vaccination certificate issued or acknowledged in Latvia can participate in the on-site event.
Due to government-imposed restrictions to limit the spread of Covid-19, the lecture is open only to SSE Riga staff, faculty and Year 3 students. Registration is required!