Abstract
Within the Southern European social model, Spain stands out because of the absence of a coherent child benefit policy. Spain not only constitutes a remarkable case of policy deactivation in the 1970s and 1980s, but also of a continuous series of instable decisions for more than three decades up until the present time. To account for the erratic child benefit policy in Spain since the country’s transition to democracy, this article goes beyond functionalist and institutional explanations. Our main contention is that intra-party configurations, namely different power resources and conflicting preferences about redistributive issues, prevented political parties from holding consistent and stable stances over this policy sector, even when in office. In turn, this triggered a non-decision-making dynamic in the public arena, setting the path for the non-development of child benefit policies in Spain. The argument relies on quantitative data on regulatory changes in child benefits in Spain and Portugal from 1976 to 2005, and qualitative evidence on the Spanish domestic policy process through a wide range of primary and secondary resources.
Introduction: The puzzle
In May 2010, the Spanish Prime Minister, the socialist Rodríguez Zapatero, announced an important package of policy measures to reduce public deficit that included the elimination of cash benefits for families having a child – known as ‘baby cheques’ – only 3 years after implementation. In 2012, the newly elected Prime Minister, the right-wing Mariano Rajoy, abolished the national plan established in 2008 to create nursery schools for 300,000 children – from newborn babies to the age of 3 years – despite a strong defence of family and conciliation in their party manifesto. To what extent were these reforms unexpected? In a context of financial crisis, these austerity measures were predictable. However, assuming a long-term perspective, this paper argues that the elimination of these benefits was just another step in the non-family-friendly public policy developed in Spain after democratic transition.
Child benefit policies have a long-standing tradition in most countries in Europe, at least since the mid 20th century. While the particular delivery of the policy involves some variation across countries, they are for most of the cases an important component of their welfare mix (Guillén, 1997; Jenson, 2003; Palier, 2010; Vogel, 1999). We understand child benefits as support for individuals and couples bringing up a child, regardless of whether they are provided in kind, or through monetary support through social security or by means of the tax system. Despite some conservative bias in their origin for a number of countries, child benefit policies are not out-dated – on the contrary, they remain a key component of social policy. Investing in children is one of the main challenges the welfare state faces in the 21st century (Esping-Andersen and Palier, 2010).
Spain is classified as a country within the Southern European social model that is characterized by a corporatist benefit system, fragmented coverage and strong reliance on family support (Ferrera, 1996). However, a tradition of coherent family policy has proven to be elusive in the country, and also, in this regard, lags behind other Southern European countries (Meil, 2006). Moreover, when focusing on child benefits, Spain constitutes a remarkable case of policy deactivation in the 1970s and 1980s. During its democratic transition, Spain did not engage in significant reforms regarding child benefit policy; those established during Franco’s rule were formally maintained, but progressively reduced in practice. Provisions on family allowances stemming from the early 1970s remained largely unchanged in nominal terms during the 1970s and 1980s. Without indexation rules or discretionary decisions to update them, and because of the high inflation levels experienced by Spain at that time, by 1985 they had dropped, in constant monetary terms, to a level that represented 22 percent of the total amount delivered in 1975 (Iglesias de Ussel and Meil, 2001). To compensate for this, tax breaks towards families were introduced in the late 1970s, although their monetary value was even less than the already diminished family allowances.
In 1990, family allowances were eliminated and monetary child benefits were set according to means-tested instruments. The latter were thus limited to the poorest segments of society, while modest tax-deductions remained in place. Moreover, since the late 1990s different interventions erratically introduced new benefits in kind: these were introduced especially by local and regional governments to address persistent local demands. Probably because of this strategic deficit, during the 1980s and 1990s Spain was the country with the lowest percentage of public expenditure on child benefits within the European Union (EU). It was only in the 2000s, although remaining in the lower ranks, that Spain began improving its position (see Tables 1 and 2).
Total family cash benefits as a percentage of GDP.
Source: OECD Social Expenditure Database (accessed 11 April 2011).
Total family benefits in kind as a percentage of GDP.
Source: OECD Social Expenditure Database (accessed 11 April 2011).
While this research is designed as a case study on the underdevelopment of child benefits in Spain, we also introduce a quantitative comparison with Portuguese regulatory developments in this policy area as a background to contrast Spain’s particularities despite the important similarities in historical, social and cultural aspects that both countries display. The paper examines under which conditions a particular area in social policy – child benefits – can be diminished and pushed towards irrelevance, despite all neighbouring countries continuing their policies. There seem to be no significant country differences underlying such divergent behaviour. Therefore, the study mainly focuses on the role of domestic components in the policy-making process. Our research identifies the constellation of actors promoting this de facto termination of child benefit policies, while also preventing the establishment of new policies. Hence, our main research question is why a renewed child benefit policy failed to emerge in Spain in the aftermath of democratic transition. The paper also discusses which elements contributed to the erratic child benefit policies decades later. Our analysis builds on two main arguments. First, as the main explanatory factor, the analysis captures a persistent pattern in the behaviour of major political parties: internal divisions and conflicting preferences on child benefit policy impeded political parties from clearly positioning themselves, particularly when in office, which in turn triggered a non-decision-making dynamic that prevented policy expansion or adaptation in this particular field. Second, we highlight the effect of a (negative) path-dependence to explain such a weak policy development over many decades. The absence of a sound coalition involving social interests, institutions and political parties may account for the lack of substantial decisions in this policy field until the 2000s, and also for the instability of decisions when pursuing new policy strategies.
Based on the study of regulatory changes in child benefits in Spain, our analysis aims to disentangle the conditions under which political and societal actors in Spain positioned themselves in the field of child benefits. The study develops a mix of quantitative and qualitative methodology. On the one hand, we analysed and codified national regulations in this policy sector in Spain and Portugal from 1976 to 2005. 1 On the other hand, to collect adequate empirical evidence on policy processes, we analysed a wide range of written resources, both primary and secondary. These included party manifestos, 2 documents elaborated by trade unions, feminist organizations and other civil society actors, together with written documents on legislative debates, and national official documents and speeches, to build our understanding of the preferences and strategies of the actors involved at different stages of the policy-making process and in different moments in time. In addition, we resorted to newspapers and press releases, 3 as well as institutional web pages deemed to serve as accounts and interpretations of these same events.
The paper begins with a brief review of the existing literature on child benefit policies, therewith setting the stage for the case study. Based on our empirical research, the third section presents quantitative evidence comparing Portugal and Spain and a qualitative analysis of the flawed child benefit policy in Spain. In so doing, it looks into policy outputs, identifies the relevant actors, and discusses their main policy preferences and cost perceptions, as well as the institutional framework. Finally, the article discusses the main findings and presents some initial conclusions as to the role of party politics in the development of child benefit policy.
Theoretical and empirical relevance
Different strands of research inform the study of child benefit policy. The welfare state literature, on the one hand, has engaged in a lively and fruitful discussion about the variations, drivers and conditions of policy-making (Bonoli and Reber, 2010; Bradshaw et al., 1993), and in a comparative examination of country divergences in this policy area, on the other hand (Gauthier, 2002; Randall, 2000). The bulk of this literature deals with child benefits in a more general vein as the one of the different drivers underlying the development of social policies (Esping-Andersen, 1999). As variations in the provision of child benefits do not fit well with conventional welfare state typologies, this introduces a relevant puzzle, which requires detailed discussion. For example, feminist accounts within this field have stimulated research on the interactions between the family, the market and the state that mediate the development of welfare provisions (Ajzenstadt and Gal, 2010; Mahon, 2002). Other contributions have looked at the effects of specific policies in place. Thus, for instance, and in accordance with the rising focus on gender equality and equal access to the labour market, there has been a growing interest in the provision of childcare services (Michel and Mahon, 2002; Stadelmann-Steffen, 2011). The welfare state literature has partly built on more sociological accounts of the family and its role within the ‘welfare society’ as a way to understand differences in childcare policy. Gender-sensitive studies have demonstrated how female unpaid labour and family traditions have sustained the male breadwinner model and how, conversely, the logics of the Bismarckian welfare system have determined the trajectories of many European welfare states and the provision of child benefits (see, inter alia, Esping-Andersen, 1999; Mahon, 2002; Palier, 2006).
Different accounts in the literature aim to explain variations in the strength of child benefit policy. First, the power-resources hypothesis suggests a link between left parties in power and a greater investment in social policy (that is, Korpi, 1989). Within this perspective, some authors argue that several intervening variables are necessary to promote child policy expansion, namely, the level of women’s political influence (that is, the share of women in parliaments). On the negative side, left parties may fear rising conflict with their supporting unions if they consider that child benefit expansion – particularly through childcare – will increase the labour supply (Bonoli and Reber, 2010). Conversely, a functionalist perspective would suggest the presence of important population needs and demands as triggering the emergence of a child benefit policy: if parents – mothers, in particular – demand public support, this will be progressively provided, either because of electoral competition or because of pressures coming from different social interests. 4 From this point of view, a negative burden to impede child policy expansion may be, for example, the crowding-out effects of pensions, unemployment benefits and healthcare expenditures, all of which grew notably after democratic transition. A third perspective explains variations based on institutions and particularly on the role of path-dependence. Developing programmes in more traditional social policy areas may prevent new investments in child benefits given that policy sectors relying on better-established institutions and undergoing a solid expansion will prevent the emergence of new institutions in the area of child benefits. Timing is also very important: those countries that established child benefit policies earlier experienced fewer problems than those who did so in most recent decades – mainly, because they did not compete with other already established social policies (Bonoli, 2007).
In this paper, we discuss how to interpret the Spanish case singularities in child benefit policy, considering these different theoretical explanations. Initiated meagrely before the transition to democracy, the country developed a welfare system close to the ideal Bismarckian type, in which a stable situation of mutual dependence between men and women was created, where the former provide income and the latter family care (Flaquer, 2000). The institutionalization of the welfare state and the development of major social policies in education and health came at a time when other European states were already engaging in rationalization measures and cost-containment policies to meet the challenges brought about by globalization and by changes within domestic social structures and economies. This late development of the welfare state suggests that an institutional hypothesis may explain the difficulties in establishing child benefit policies in Spain: actors in more solid social policy areas limited child policy developments to prevent competition for resources. This explanation, however, fails to answer the question why child benefit policies were disrupted in democratic Spain, taking as a departure point the traditionalist family policies already established under the Franco dictatorship, as it was the case in its neighbouring country, Portugal. In addition, this was not contradictory to the Bismarckian origins of the model implemented in the country. Even in the early stages of the Franco era – namely, in the 1940s and 1950s – the dictatorship put in place different measures to promote a conservative family model, focusing on economic incentives related to salaries. During the 1960s, a policy change was introduced to stimulate population growth while allowing for social control (Meil, 2006).
Searching for other explanations to make sense of the underdevelopment of a child benefits system in the democratic period, some authors have resorted to a historic – cultural explanation. As this links the low prominence of family policies during the democratic period to the persistence of conservative views that had prevailed during dictatorship (Valiente, 2002), it can thus be seen as a variant of the institutional perspective. As Valiente (1996: 102) remarks, ‘family policy was not a hidden or implicit policy but a recurrent theme in the rhetoric and propaganda of the regime’. Thus, new democratic political elites are presented as having avoided the discussion on family policy and child benefits during the transition, to prevent such association with the old authoritarian rhetoric. Though pointing to important factors shaping the environment within which political decisions were made, this explanation falls short of drawing a causal line towards the non-evolution of this policy area in Spain. By treating the state as a black box, relevant actors, and their preferences and strategies, remain neglected. Moreover, the sole reference to historic legacies overlooks two important facts.
First, after an initial update of the reform in 1971, the Franco regime did not promote any further increase in regulatory density of family policies to the extent that allowances started to lose importance even before the demise of the authoritarian regime. In fact, inflation eroded the real value of the family programmes in place in Spain by the early 1970s. With the onset of the transition in 1975–1976, government officials had already recognized the anachronism of existing child benefit policy. 5 Second, during democratic restoration, several welfare reforms were introduced in different policy areas without major difficulties related to the inheritance of the previous conservative authoritarian frameworks. In contrast, in the case of child benefits, in those same years, the inherited instruments as well as the benefit levels remained largely unchanged until 1990 (Meil, 1994). The reason why inherited instruments were not revised and updated from the beginning of the transition – as was the case in Portugal – requires a more detailed scrutiny. This represents a singular anomaly in the development of the welfare state in Spain that produced cascade effects years and decades after. In fact, the perception during the 1980s, referred to above, in which child benefits were associated with the old regime, was probably an unintended consequence of its non-adjustment and lack of modernization. Completely unreformed and undeveloped, what emerged in society was just the vivid image of the authoritarian legacy, on the one hand, and the extreme appeal to traditional family support, on the other.
Functionalist explanations of child benefits identify needs and demands – and strengths – within the social fabric. In this sense, the non-existence of powerful social actors capable of promoting the development of this policy field in Spain could offer a reasonable account of the case. The most obvious advocates of economic protection of the family, namely family organizations, have been found to exert only marginal influence on Spanish policy-makers (Iglesias de Ussel, 1994, cited in Valiente, 1996) due to their local and regional organizational basis, and their poor articulation at the national level. In addition, less articulated needs and demands, as in the case of those coming from significant segments of the female labour force, might have had a weak impact given the low level of formal women’s employment in the labour market by then. Still, it is more difficult to determine how these absences might account for the continuous dismantling of this policy field for a long period in Spain. In addition, an expanding public budget in pensions, unemployment benefits and healthcare during the democratic transition period could also have been effective in preventing the expansion of this policy area, although this cannot easily explain its reduction as well.
Moreover, and in terms of the political actors involved, we might explore alternative explanations based on the ‘power-resources’ perspective. Nevertheless, from a first approach the partisan hypothesis does not seem to hold in the proposed case. Centre-right and centre-left parties have alternated in governing Spain since the reestablishment of democracy in 1977, 6 and for several decades none of them managed to promote a significant policy shift to address the stagnated situation, at least until the 2000s. Centre-right parties were not capable of – or interested in – transforming the existing legacies of the authoritarian family policy into a modern conservative family policy when in power. The PSOE, the left-wing party, was not capable of introducing– or not motivated enough to do so – a progressive family policy, for example one more focused on childcare, when in office. Moreover, the PSOE was not particularly interested in keeping or updating the remaining tools of the child benefit policy inherited from the Franco era, as the ‘power-resource’ theory would predict for left parties to limit policy retrenchment (Korpi and Palme, 2003).
The actual effect of political parties in the retrenchment of the welfare state remains, however, a contested issue. It has been argued that the party politics of the retrenchment phase can be able to dismantle some social policies more easily (Ross, 2000). Conversely, Huber and Stephens (2001, 2011) have shown that while partisan politics is a crucial factor determining the development of expenditure of the welfare state, they are equally important in accounting for variation in government’s responses to crisis. Quantitative findings further support the relevance of traditional partisanship in the era of welfare state reform in advanced industrialized countries (Allan and Scruggs, 2004). In all, while the debate on the relevance of political parties is far from settled, it has been argued that ‘theories about political conflict over the welfare state may have to be recast in more complex ways’ (Starke, 2006: 109). Similarly, when analysing the adaptation of welfare states to new and changing constellations of risks, Hacker (2004) finds that while important affinities between the old and the new politics of the welfare state are still valid, the key difference has to do with the hidden and less visible ways in which current struggles take place.
The different possible explanations for the persistent abandonment of child benefit policy, at least at first sight, fail to fully clarify the reasons underlying the Spanish episode. The explanatory puzzle we confront requires a specific research design to enhance our understanding of the dissolution of this social policy issue. The study thus goes beyond these explanations – rather than focusing on policy outcomes, it disentangles the policy process over more than three decades: it identifies the actors involved in child policy disputes, delineates the existing institutions and examines the stability of their preferences and strategies. After confirming the central role of political parties in such policy disputes, it looks into the power configuration within political parties to understand some key reasons underlying the difficulties in renewing and enhancing this policy issue.
This study intends hence to contribute to the literature on the role of political parties and political conflict over the readjustments of the welfare state by looking into intra-political dynamics to account for variations in the evolution of welfare provisions, as for child benefit policy in Spain. 7 We do not take political parties as monolithic entities, but as places in which policy ideas and interests are articulated, and which may give way to different power configurations and policy confrontations. Moreover, these configurations may be revised and change over time (Kitschelt, 1994; Panebianco, 1988). Thus, we assume that party leaders, in taking decisions on redistributive policies, will be concerned about internal party fractions and supporting groups, whose pressure in turn may lead to non-decisions within the political party, or to adjust redistributive gains to the evolving interest of their major constituencies (Mulé, 2001). Therefore, rather than looking into coalitions in the social sphere, as a functionalist perspective would suggest, our explanatory focus lies in how intra-party divisions are delineated and how these have transformed over time. Then, we delve into the difficulties for decision-making within political parties when discussing particular redistributive policies – because of the salience of the specific views of their constituencies – that may also end in a persistent non-decision situation. Taking as a departure point the ‘power-resources’ perspective on the role of political parties for the welfare state, we elaborate some particular dimensions related to intra-party decision-making. The Spanish child benefit case allows a sort of natural experiment to examine and develop some theoretical interpretations integrating the interaction between political parties, institutions and crowding-out effects (for example, pensions). While under control, time effects do not appear to be relevant, as far as the policy area existed earlier, and could have been updated, as the Portuguese case demonstrates (Bianculli et al., 2012).
Building on Hacker (2004), our case study attempts to unveil a series of more subtle and less visible blocking mechanisms, active since the democratic transition in Spain, which, in turn, had an impact on the country’s long-term evolution of child policies. Our argument is that divergent positions within major political parties regarding the objectives and scope of child benefits led to an intra-blockage dynamic that restricted the agenda of debate, and in turn, prevented collective decisions on the issue altogether and impeded redistributive measures in this policy area. Several factors identified across the institutional and functionalist perspectives, though not being crucial, probably also contributed to the continuous postponement of decisions, as we will discuss in the following sections. Overall, this turned out to be a very stable configuration, which persisted until the early years of the 21st century, more than two decades later.
Our analysis is mainly concerned with national policies in Spain during the democratic period (1975–2010). However, during these years Spain moved from centralization to the gradual development of federal arrangements to the extent that today regional governments (Comunidades Autónomas, CCAA) are responsible for the implementation of most social policies. In fact, various contributions have referred to the proactive role the regions have taken in extending child provisions at the sub-national level since the late 1990s (Evers et al., 2005; Guillén et al., 2003). Unfortunately, we cannot account extensively for sub-national regulations as these go beyond the data collected, which are mainly of a national nature, and the scope of this paper. Still, our analysis considers whether political actors at the national level led a coordinated process of arena shifting in this policy field during the decentralization process in Spain.
The vanishing of child benefit policy in democratic Spain
Instruments and institutions
Viewed within the Mediterranean cluster, Spain appears to be a special case as having the smallest percentage of GDP dedicated to cash benefits for families during all the period 1980–2007 (see Table 1). Nevertheless, family benefits in kind show a slightly different pattern as these figures experienced a significant increase during the 2000s to the extent that Spain surpassed Greece and Portugal spending in kind (mainly childcare). Before the 2000s, however, Spanish benefits in kind were almost non-existent (see Table 2). What is interesting is that, during the 1980s, benefit levels decreased by almost 50 percent in Spain, and only recovered their 1980-level in 2005. Even though Spain was not the only country where spending on child cash benefits was reduced during the 1980s, the difference is much more pronounced and consistent than for Italy, for example, which shows an important reduction. In Portugal, spending was much more stable while its level remained similar to that seen in Italy and Greece since the 1990s. Nevertheless, spending in all these countries remains significantly below OECD average.
Therefore, the strong decline in family cash benefits in Spain since the 1970s and the particular deviant situation at the end of the 1980s cannot be explained as policy transfer across geographically close countries, or by reference to the prevailing comparable social and economic conditions of the Southern European model. This does not contradict the fact that during the 2000s, support for families increased in real terms in Spain. According to the OECD, Spanish public spending on family benefits in cash, services and tax measures in 2007 was about 1.47 percent of GDP, a figure closer to Portugal or Italy, but about half that of other countries, namely, Germany and the Netherlands, and almost one-third of the French percentage. 8 In other words, we observe some recovery in Spain during the 2000s, reaching average levels within the Mediterranean cluster. Still, this increase does not deny the existence of a relevant gap in child benefits for more than two decades, and the unstable nature of the policy area when it started to grow during the 2000s.
In Spain, child benefits initially relied mainly on social security contributions by workers, and these contributions were used as a redistributive tool within the system, although in a diminishing way. Beyond contributions to social security, the use of policy instruments for child benefits remained very limited during the late 1970s and 1980s. Only the introduction of tax deductions starting in 1979, which were adjusted on a yearly basis thereafter, represented the emergence of a new policy instrument. In the early 1990s, instruments based on means-tested benefits became dominant in this regulatory space. While these remained in place during the 2000s, new types of instruments were then introduced: benefits in kind (public childcare) and allowances for newborn children. Leave policies had very low priority and remained underdeveloped in Spain during almost all the period considered in our study. Whereas maternity leave was extended from the 14 weeks established just after democratic transition to 16 weeks in 1989 to adjust domestic regulations to European standards, only in 2007 did fathers receive an individual and non-transferable entitlement and a two-week parental leave. Until then, fathers had only enjoyed 2 days of birth leave. 9
Based on the referred dataset on child benefits regulations for the period 1976–2005, Figures 1–3 depict the use of these different instruments over time in Spain, while comparing them against the Portuguese case. It is worth highlighting the large difference in the regulation of universal child allowances – taken as the payment of a certain amount of money by the state, irrespective of means. While we identified only three regulatory measures based on this instrument in Spain during the 30-year period analysed, we found 33 measures for the same period in Portugal. The comparison with Portugal allows us to observe that other policy instruments – namely, means-tested benefits and birth allowances – were introduced much earlier than in Spain. Starting in the early 1980s, Portugal rapidly managed to use a combination of these three instruments for its child benefit policy – universal allowances, means-tested benefits and birth allowances. In contrast, Spain was then starting to dismantle universal allowances based on social security contributions, and merely introducing an instrument based on family tax deductions. However, in contrast to Portugal, the appearance of means-tested instruments in Spain took over a decade – they were not established until the 1990s – while the establishment of a system of bonus (one-off grants) demanded more than two decades. Childcare support was introduced in an uncoordinated manner at the sub-national level in the early 2000s, followed by central government level a few years later.
Number of regulations concerning universal child allowances in Spain (ES) and Portugal (PT).
Number of regulations concerning means-tested benefits in Spain (ES) and Portugal (PT).
Number of regulations concerning bonuses for families having and bringing up a child in Spain (ES) and Portugal (PT).
During all the period considered, the institutional setting of child benefits in Spain was marked by the absence of solid policy-makers in the public sphere that could have stood in defence of their own objectives, budgets and incomes. Actually, the institutionalization of family policies within administrative bodies remained very low in Spain during the transition period and the years after. No major public organization specializing in child benefits was inherited from the Francoist regime. During the late 1970s, only the Ministry of Culture took some responsibility for issues concerning the family and childhood, which were dealt with in a designated unit within a General Directorate (Subdirección General de la Familia). Within the Ministry of Culture until 1985, this unit provided general information and acted to some extent as a mobilizing force attempting to reform child benefits and promote more attention to family policies through the drafting of various legislative initiatives. For many years thereafter, no public body focused on supporting child welfare or population growth. The management of family allowances remained allocated by the social security administration associated with a different ministry not related to this unit.
From an institutional perspective, it is worth highlighting the establishment of the Ministry of Social Affairs by the socialist government in July 1988. Though being responsible for many of the components of social policy, this ministry did not establish any unit for family policy or child benefit policy. However, it created a General Directorate for Social Action that assumed most of the residual tasks related to family and child policy, among other activities. In 1996, when the PP came to power, the Ministry of Social Affairs was downgraded to a Secretary within a new Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs. The general directorate, established in 1988, was retained under this Secretary, though renamed as General Directorate for Social Action, Family and Childhood. This unit did not suffer any other transformations during the PP administration. After gaining office in 2004, the socialist government created a General Directorate devoted only to family and child affairs. Yet, some institutional instability persisted as family and child affairs travelled across three different Ministries during the Zapatero administration (2004–2011).
Political parties and social interests
As previously stated, we are searching for a nuanced explanation of the vanishing of child benefits, based on a detailed account of party positions and their internal cleavages. Party positions on child benefits showed a complex picture in Spain during democratic transition. In the first place, there was a dividing line between the governing centre-right alliance (UCD) and the conservative party (People’s Alliance, AP, and after 1986, PP) on the one hand and left wing parties on the other. The UCD government’s electoral programmes referred to the family as a social institution and claimed a protective role for the state. They also affirmed their commitment to updating and reforming family allowances by resorting to both social security funds and fiscal resources in their 1979 and 1982 manifestos. While in the late 1970s the socialist party remained silent on the family and focused on individuals’ and in particular, women’s rights, the PSOE party manifesto in 1982 referred to the allowance system claiming the revision and updating of benefits, and eventually focused on childcare services and education. Finally, in 1979 and 1982, the conservative party, AP, rhetorically committed itself to developing a more general family policy that would integrate multiple instruments, and insisted on the need to reform and adjust family allowances. While consensus among parties was clear since the beginning as to the need to reform and update the existing child benefits system, discrepancies quickly emerged when the extent of the reform came under discussion, in particular when the new proposals were more complex and involved the broader concept of family policy.
Internal policy discrepancies on the child benefits issue were strong within major political parties. Moreover, these divergences were especially evident when ruling. The ruling party during the transition, UCD, was composed of a number of political groupings with different centrist ideologies, where Christian-democrat factions were more in favour of establishing a large family policy. 10 Although these sectors and their representatives in the executive and the parliament continued to promote a more comprehensive establishment of an updated family policy in Spain, the support they obtained within the whole government was rather weak. 11 Clearly, other factions within the party had different preferences given the budgetary implications of upgrading child benefits, and the crowded and tumultuous political agenda at that moment (Bianculli et al., 2012).
In addition, well-organized pressure groups amongst the electorate and strong conservative think tanks capable of articulating a renewed discourse in favour of a new framework for family policies were absent in the transition years and during most of the period examined. Backing for a new family policy from social actors was rather scarce and limited to claims put forward only by a small number of conservative, pro-natalist associations such as the National Federation of Large Families (Federación Española de Familias Numerosas, FEFN). Whereas these associations mainly acted as a lobby group demanding an increase of family transfers for special cases, no broader based social organizations mobilized for this cause. In other words, the interest-group structure of family and child policies in Spain during the transition did not lead to the creation of strong policy-takers interested in the maintenance and expansion of these policy benefits. Moreover, the Catholic Church was not particularly involved in promoting a family protection law, given its confrontation with the government over other issues, namely, the divorce law passed by Parliament in 1980.
Bearing high resemblance to the situation during the UCD government, since 1982 the PSOE faced a similar structural pattern: within the party, there were no relevant policy-takers capable of providing support to a child benefits reform, or more generally, to the establishment of a renewed family policy in Spain. The reservation on parts of the left-wing party to engage in a debate on the distribution of the costs of children can partly be attributed to the internal conflicts and different groups’ preferences within the socialist party. Although it was a new government consisting of a distinct party and representing a different ideology compared with the UCD governments, inter-ministerial tensions also emerged. Opponents to child benefit policy underscored budgetary constraints and defended other priorities. 12 In this context, voices within the PSOE began to argue that family benefits did not constitute a social right and that, as advocated by the centre-right opposition parties, should be centred on low-income families only (Carlos, 2000: 59). Thus, non-decisions in this area continued during most of the decade.
The feminists present in the political institutions were a very small and hardly influential minority in the 1970s and 1980s, and did not mobilize to improve child benefits. Femocrats advocated women’s individual rights and showed reluctance to raise issues regarding specific instruments designed as family policies, which were seen as supportive of traditional elements of the Spanish society. Feminists rejected any form of family policy (León, 2007; Meil, 1994) and sought to prevent any possible advancement. As a former Minister of Social Affairs, Matilde Fernández, reports, feminists ‘wanted to act politically on behalf of women alone, and not in the name of women as part of their families’ (cited in Valiente, 1996: 108).
Spanish family organizations, which were the most obvious civil society advocates of economic protection of the family during the 1980s, generally had a rather traditional orientation linked to the discourse of conservative and centrist parties and to the Catholic Church. Their influence on Socialist policy-makers was marginal because of their local and regional organizational basis and their poor articulation at the national level (Iglesias de Ussel, 1994, cited in Valiente 1996). Even if the Catholic Church advocated the need to develop social policies centred on the family, it still had to face many active fronts. Its main attention was focused on an internal reform process rendering it more independent from the State. Furthermore, the Spanish Church strongly mobilized against the introduction of abortion rights in the country (1985), which led to a serious confrontation with the Socialist party.
During the 1980s and despite claims made in specific moments, child allowances were not a major issue for trade unions either. The social partners, counting few women amongst their members (Jordana, 1996) and representatives (Mendoza Vázquez, 1998), appear to have had little interest in public measures that either directly or indirectly would have facilitated the incorporation of women in the labour market. Although reconcilability of work and private life was a major issue for female trade unionists, the topic was raised only occasionally in unions’ congresses and communiqués. A study carried out among women affiliated with the largest union, Comisiones Obreras (CCOO), confirms that they themselves perceived their influence to be extremely limited (Mendoza Vázquez, 1998: 93–5) and their interests subsumed under the agenda of the marginalized alongside ‘the old, children, and disabled’, as admitted by one trade union representative. 13 Moreover, trade unions contributed to the final trimming of universal child benefits in Spain (Carlos, 2000: 85; Iglesias de Ussel and Meil, 2001: 113). In 1989, unions negotiated the child benefits reform with the government – providing thus more legitimacy to the policy change – in the context of multiple reforms negotiated after a successful general strike in November 1988, which also included a reform of the labour legislation and their involvement in active labour market policies (Jordana, 1992).
In its 1996 party manifesto, the PP called for the urgent establishment of an efficient policy to support the family in Spain, which was then the lowest of the EU countries. Moreover, when the PP came to power, conservative social movements gained more influence. However, their political demands focused on special benefits for large families given that the FEFN was the best-organized interest group in the policy area. Other conservative groups having a more general perspective, as in the case of the Family Forum (Foro de la Familia) or Family Action (Acción Familiar), were created at the turn of the century and their influence on policy-making was still quite weak then. During those years, the Catalan nationalist party federation, Convergencia i Unió (CiU), which had a strong Catholic fraction and held some links with family advocacy groups, also supported the PP government. CiU clearly expressed their preference for a more active family policy, while exerting some pressure on the government to expand benefits for large families. 14
However, despite these influences, and the centre-right government’s intention of modernizing and reframing family policy as a fundamental area (León, 2011), in practice main transformations and new initiatives remained circumscribed to fiscal exemptions on daycare, education and health expenses. 15 Yet again, internal party discrepancies on policy priorities appeared to play a role in the situation: these appeared as special interests within the party, competing for scarce resources for other priorities. 16
However, 4 years later, in 2000, an important policy shift emerged, at least at the conceptual level, and all political parties included various initiatives to address the lack of child benefits and family support in their manifestos, suggesting a more general interest. Apart from the elaboration of a new law for large families to replace the one dating from 1971, the PP’s proposals included tax protection measures and the implementation of a large national plan for the creation of nursery schools to be coordinated with the CCAA. In a similar vein, the PSOE manifesto also incorporated the creation of a wide network of nursery schools together with a 4-week parental leave for fathers and the extension of maternity allowance. In this context, we can relate these initiatives to the emergence of a public debate on the need to launch a new family policy in Spain since 2000 (Salido and Moreno, 2009). Multiple contributions by intellectuals and academics in the media demanded the establishment of a new policy in this area. 17 Consequently, 2 years later, while in opposition, the socialist party proposed a plan to expand child benefits, which the PP considered financially unfeasible. 18 Thus, after having received scarce attention in the party manifestos, and more broadly, within the Spanish political discourse during many years, family and child policy issues started to gain momentum in the political discourse in the early 2000s (Salido, 2011).
In 2004, the socialist party gained power again. While recognizing the challenges brought about by low fertility rates, in its 2004 party manifesto the PSOE emphasized again the creation of a vast network of nursery schools for children aged 0–3 years and the promotion of family-friendly labour market policies such as flexible working hours, special parenthood permits, and extended maternity and paternity leaves, among others. However, despite such policy aims, family issues did not come to the forefront of the political agenda at the beginning of the socialist rule. The PP attempted unsuccessfully to introduce a comprehensive family law in parliament – a law the party had not been able to pass during the 8 years in government. 19 Within the left, some divisions emerged again, as to whether child benefits should be prioritized. Now, and contrary to the party dynamics of the 1980s, trade unionists supported new childcare and child benefit policies and even backed some of the initiatives led by Zapatero to strengthen women’s employability and work –family conciliation. 20 However, based on existing budget constraints and different priorities, other left parties were not so enthusiastic about this new agenda. 21
It is relevant to note in this context that the presence of women in parliaments has been growing in Spain since the re-establishment of democracy in 1977. However, women’s presence until the 1990s was very limited, at about 5 percent in the Chamber of Deputies, the most relevant chamber at national level. The rate begin to increase only during the 1990s, moving from 13 percent in the early 1990s to 22 percent at the end of the decade, and rising to 36 percent for most the 2000s. All regional parliaments show a similar tendency as women’s involvement has steadily grown since the 1990s (Fernández et al., 2003; Jerez and Delgado, 2011). Undoubtedly, this important increase in women’s participation in Parliament had some impact on child benefit policy. The absence of women during the 1980s probably facilitated the lack of interest in child policy – even if the Parliament claimed for a policy reform in the area on several occasions. Conversely, the relevant presence of women during the 2000s contributed to the more intense debates and policy involvement regarding child benefits. There is quantitative cross-country evidence of this connection in the comparative literature (Bonoli and Reber, 2010) and the Spanish case shows a similar logic over time. While this is contextual evidence about the influence of women in politics, it is still not clear how this influence is transmitted into the decision-making. Furthermore, it does not necessarily explain the vanishing of the child benefit policy in the 1980s, nor the weakness of the new policies introduced in the 2000s, and which were curtailed few years after their introduction.
Discussion and conclusions
Our main argument in this paper is that the disarticulation of family policies in Spain was related to the difficulties of political parties to agree on their internal preferences as to what kind of child benefit policy – if any – should be developed in Spain after Franco. This was a problem particularly resilient to resolution when parties, either the conservative PP or the socialist PSOE, were in government. We also argue that such disarticulation was not a case of plain path-dependence due to the legacies of Franco’s regime or to prevalent familialism existing in Spain, as much of the literature contends. Our paper differs from previous studies on this topic, which, based on cultural arguments, explain the absence of family policy in democratic Spain as being caused by its authoritarian flavour. On the contrary, we argue that this flavour was in fact a consequence of this policy not being reformed after democratic restoration. Thus, to allow a clearer distinction between causes and consequences, we suggest that other reasons underlay this non-reform process. These refer to the marginal role of women in Spanish politics (both in parliamentary and trade union arenas) during the 1980s and the crowding-out effects on public budget as expenditures in pensions, and social policy more generally, increased (including unemployment insurance and healthcare) since the late 1970s. Another factor could have been the better-institutionalized power existing in other social policies, as in the case of education or social services, which were already underway at the beginning of the democratic transition and during the years that followed. However, even if these various factors contributed to the stickiness of the situation and its persistence over time (reducing the cost of inaction), none involved a triggering mechanism in the way that the party politics variable does.
Based on our empirical data, we contend that the key to understanding the deactivation of the Spanish child benefit policies in the aftermath of the return to democracy and thereafter lies in unpacking the black box of the policy process during more than three decades, and under the rule of both left- and right-wing parties. Our crucial contention is that political parties are not monolithic entities and that intra-political dynamics are fundamental to explaining the evolution of this policy field in Spain. Internal divisions and conflicting preferences on child benefit policy across different party fractions and supporting groups impeded political parties from assuming clear and stable positions regarding this policy area, and from realizing them when in office. These intra-party dynamics appear as a fundamental mechanism to explain the long-term (non-)evolution of this policy field in Spain. As sites where policy ideas and preferences are articulated, the UCD, the PSOE and the PP party organizations had to face intra-party policy confrontations as different party groups and sectors held opposing preferences and strategies as to which child policy model should be promoted. Consequently, during the 1980s and 1990s, child benefits were squeezed out of the political agenda.
It is not until the early 2000s that a more profound debate and diagnosis of the ‘child benefits issue’ gained relevance again and re-acquired significance. By then, the issue was largely debated in the public sphere, but also within political parties. Internal cleavages on the issue within the major political parties had undergone a moderate attenuation during the 2000s, also showing some shifts in preferences. Within the left-wing camp this is shown by the preferences and strategies developed by trade unions that now acknowledged the need to establish reasonable family benefits. On the right wing, support for childcare services expanded, particularly at the regional level, whereas traditional Catholic sectors placed less emphasis on a comprehensive family approach to the child benefit policy. Some contextual factors contributed to the emergence of child policy in the public debate. On the one hand, Spanish economic growth during the 2000s contributed to the reduction of crowding-out effects (also the Social Security accumulated surpluses) while social spending had already expanded extensively in previous decades. On the other hand, the number of women in politics rose significantly, gaining thus further influence and capability to place new topics on the political agenda.
As far as political and social actors adopted positions more prone to introduce child benefit policies, these changes had an impact on the policy-making process during the 2000s. These transformations allowed then for an expansion of child benefit policies in Spain, though the policy field failed to stabilize. On the contrary, it became very fragmented and fragile. It is our argument that such fragility was also related to the persistent lack of broad consensus within each major party as to child benefit policy, in particular, in terms of the instruments that should be safeguarded and expanded (but not about the salience of the policy field, which already was widely accepted). Building on the idea of Huber and Stephens (2001, 2011), that the way in which the welfare state is constructed largely determines its dismantling, we argue that the particular ways in which policy dismantling occurs has an impact on later efforts and attempts to restore and further develop this policy domain.
From a theoretical perspective, our case study on child benefits in Spain has revealed that conflicting preferences and persistent within-party divisions allowed passivity, which in turn hindered the development of the policy field for several decades. Hence, when analysing different trajectories of policy disarticulation, rather than taking party political ideologies as givens and homogenous, analyses may benefit from a more nuanced approach to the examination of the internal configuration of preferences and strategies. Moreover, constitutive political differences among similar countries may have stronger capacity to explain disarticulation by non-decision than ideological differences among parties. Certainly, this opens new avenues for research regarding the role of party politics in the development (and contraction) of the Welfare State, especially in a time when dismantling social policy measures appears to be haunting Europe and most of the industrialized world.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The authors appreciate the useful comments of the editors of the Journal of European Social Policy and three anonymous reviewers. All authors have contributed equally to this paper.
Funding
Research for this article was funded by a grant from the Seventh Framework Program in the context of the project CONSENSUS (Grant Agreement Number 217239).