Policy Change in the Canadian Welfare State: Comparing the Canada Pension Plan and Unemployment Insurance

Daniel Béland and John Myles

Social and Economic Dimensions of an Aging Population Research Papers from McMaster University

Abstract: Focusing on Canada, this paper explores the politics of social policy retrenchment and restructuring in two policy areas: old-age pensions, especially the Canada Pension Plan (CPP), and Employment Insurance (EI) [formerly Unemployment Insurance (UI)]. Drawing on historical institutionalism and the literature on ideas and policy change, the paper explains key differences between these two policy areas. The analysis shows that institutional factors like federalism explain some of the differences between the policy areas and programs at stake. Yet, to complement this analysis, the paper also highlights the political consequences of changing ideas and assumptions among policy-makers, which vary strongly from one program to another. In other words, ideational and institutional factors combined to produce distinct patterns of policy change. Overall, the paper suggests that scholars can draw a clear analytical line between ideational and institutional factors before combining them to explain specific episodes of policy change. From a methodological standpoint, the paper also demonstrates the added value of systematic comparisons between distinct policy areas located within the same country.

Keywords: Ideas; institutions; unemployment; pensions; Canada (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H53 H55 L38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2008-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ias
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