100 years of the Ministry of Social Affairs

06.11.2018

WIFO director Christoph Badelt gave a keynote speech on the occasion of the ceremony marking the 100th anniversary of the Ministry of Social Affairs.

WIFO director Christoph Badelt held one of the speeches on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Ministry of Social Affairs on 5 November. His task was to describe the challenges facing social policy in the future. Badelt focused on the need to base social policy debates more on empirical facts and evidence than on political prejudices.

For example, in the hotly debated issue of the "misuse" of social benefits, it is particularly im-portant to use empirical evidence to determine the actual extent of a problem. Otherwise, there is a danger of creating new social problems in the balancing act between hunting for social abuse and supporting disadvantaged population groups, in which people who find themselves in an acute emergency fall victim to cutbacks.

Badelt also drew attention to the fact that there are many social policy problems that can only be solved at an international level, particularly at EU level. These include, for example, the mi-gration of workers within the EU, which causes problems both in the host countries and in the countries of origin. The population will also generally not be able and willing to believe in the future of Europe if binding agreements are made only in fiscal policy, but social rights often do not go beyond well-meaning declarations.  

From a technical point of view, the WIFO director mentioned the demographic, technological and environmental challenges for modern social policy, but also the danger of an increasing segmentation of society in which groups are formed that are marked by a "friend-foe attitude". This polarisation could turn out to be the first step towards even violent conflicts, as foreign ex-amples would unfortunately show.
 

Link: https://www.sozialministerium.at/site/Service_Medien/News_Veranstaltungen/News/Festakt_100_Jahre_Sozialministerium_

Please contact

Dr. Margit Schratzenstaller-Altzinger, MA

Function: Senior Economist, Deputy of the Equal Opportunities Officer
WIFO director Christoph Badelt (© Federal Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs, Health and Consumer Protection)
WIFO director Christoph Badelt (© Federal Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs, Health and Consumer Protection)