Social Policy in the Age of Digitalization and Aging. How New Opportunities Create New Inequalities
The established theoretical tradition considers social policy as an interaction between the state, the economy and NCOs/NGOs, i.e. the 3 sectors of society. At the same time, the active population was considered to be permanently employed working men. Criticism of this tradition immediately highlighted its failure to take into account women's participation in the labor market, on the one hand, and their economic contribution through the "home economics", on the other. Thus, the approach to SP through the economy/society of work (according to Weber) needed to be complemented by the economy/society of care (the Catholic subsidiarity principle). The noticeable increase in women's participation in the labor market contributed to the expansion of the service sector to replace domestic service with hired labor in the service sector. Thus, the welfare state became a "service welfare state".
Step by step, it turned out that developed social obligations limit the investment opportunities of the social economy, and, moreover, greatly increase the cost of labor. This led to a constant influx of migrants to jobs in developed European countries, since employers had no social insurance obligations towards them. Further development of digitalization of public administration is complicated by the elderly people’s uneven proficiency in important skills of communication with government services, banks, etc., despite the fact that the number of digital services is growing and they are becoming more convenient.
The research was supported by a grant from the Russian Science Foundation № 24-78-10118 (https://rscf.ru/project/24-78-10118/).