Central and Eastern European Countries

This chapter discusses welfare state developments in eleven countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) that have joined the European Union since 2004. It addresses historical, socioeconomic, and political contexts, with reference to theoretical questions involving typologies, clustering, and patterns of convergence in social policies. It analyses diversity in welfare provision that we can observe not only within the region, but also in Europe as a whole. It also explores different social policy programmes and benefits, contrasting international and domestic influences that have become relevant especially since the Great Recession of 2008. These influences include continuing pressures of EU integration and countervailing domestic trends of rising nationalism, populism, and Euro-scepticism within CEE states, especially in Hungary and Poland. The chapter discusses four main areas of CEE welfare from 2008 until 2020: family policy, health care, employment and labour markets, and social security (pensions) and social assistance. It illustrates region-wide and subregional trends and commonalities, as well as divergence across individual welfare states. At least in Poland and Hungary, conservative, family-orientated ideas that are often promoted as an ‘antidote’ to more liberal European norms seem to have driven policy reforms more than any other factor. Nationalist and populist leaders have expanded many welfare programmes, but their rhetoric could not hide the high levels of inequality in income, health, housing, and many other areas that persist and have not been adequately addressed by social policy in CEE states.