Research

The FaSo research project

The relevance of family for social rights in international comparison: between family allowances and claimed family solidarity (FaSo)

funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG)

Director: Prof. Dr. Patricia Frericks (PhD)

Research assistants: Martin Gurín, Dr. Julia Höppner and Pascal Angerhausen (01/2021-08/2022)

Duration: 01/04/2020 - 01/31/2024

The FaSo team in Corona times

From left to right: Martin Gurín, Dr. Julia Höppner, Prof. Dr. Patricia Frericks. Missing: Pascal Angerhausen.

Publications from the project:

Frericks, Patricia, Höppner, Julia & Gurín, Martin (forthcoming), Umverteilung im deutschen Wohlfahrtsstaat: Familie zwischen gewährten und eingeforderten Ressourcen, Zeitschrift für Sozialreform.

Frericks, Patricia, Gurín, Martin & Höppner, Julia (forthcoming) ‘Evoluce nové metody: institucionální analýza přerozdělování veřejných prostředků na příkladu rodiny‘ (Evolution of the new method: institutional analysis of redistribution on the case of family), in: Data a (vybrané) metody ve veřejněpolitickém výzkumu, Eva M. Hejzlarová, Magdaléna Mouralová, Martina Štěpánková Štýbrová.

Frericks, Patricia, Gurín, Martin & Höppner, Julia (2023), Mapping redistribution in terms of family: A European comparison, International Sociology, OnlineFirst doi.org/10.1177/0268580923116813.

Frericks, P. & Gurín, M. (2023), Family as a redistributive principle of welfare states: an international comparison, Journal of European Social Policy 33 (1), 52-66.

Frericks, Patricia, Gurín, Martin & Höppner, Julia (2023), Family as a redistributive principle of the welfare state. The case of Germany, Journal of Social Policy 52(2): 449–469.

Summary

Family membership has been a central condition for rights over welfare resources. However, it has not been analyzed systematically and in international comparison how family membership is institutionalised in welfare states neither has it been included in welfare state typologies. The proposed project will systematically analyze the financial advantages and disadvantages of family membership in different social security systems and the resulting redistributive mechanisms. In addition, it aims to explain international differences. The project applies varieties of family models to distinguish the variation in financial effects of different welfare institutions. The tool it uses is the European database EUROMOD, and in particular the Hypothetical Household Tool (HHoT). Reflecting the redistributive logic of current welfare state regulations with regard to different family models allows understanding cross-national differences of welfare state norms with regard to families. With this, it contributes to empirical, theoretical and methodological issues of comparative welfare state analysis.

Previous research project

The Welfare State Individualization of Social Citizens: Development and Contradictions in Europe (INDIV)

funded by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation

supported by the Gender Promotion Fund 2015 of the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences of the University of Hamburg

located at the CGG, Research Cluster 2

Director: Prof. Dr. Patricia Frericks (PhD)

Research assistants: Dr. Julia Höppner, Dr. Ralf Och, Dipl.-Soz. Nicola Schwindt

Duration: 01.01.2014 - 30.06.2017

For details and publications from the research project see project website.

 

An overview of completed projects can be found in the Curriculum Vitae.