Home>Social Policy Challenges in OECD Countries: Recapping Monika Queisser’s Masterclass
02.11.2023
Social Policy Challenges in OECD Countries: Recapping Monika Queisser’s Masterclass
How does the OECD help member states solve their social policy challenges? On Wednesday the 18th of October, Monika Queisser, Senior Counselor and Head of Social Policy at the OECD, gave Sciences Po’s Social Policy and Social Innovation students an insight into her department’s work.
In a two-hour masterclass, she discussed social inequalities and family policy - topics that the students had chosen themselves beforehand. All throughout the event, students took the opportunity to ask questions. Not only about the presentations, but also about the OECD’s impact in general and Ms Queisser’s experiences leading the social policy department at the organization.
How can countries address life-course and intersectional inequalities?
Inequality has generally been on the rise but it has stabilized post the Great Financial Crisis. The OECD’s focus on regulatory reforms is a potential solution to reducing poverty where ‘taking from the rich and giving to poor’ is not the sole focus of these reforms. Rather, the OECD gives importance to ‘efficient redistribution’.
For example, policy packages that tackle high inequality through fostering women’s economic life can lead to an increase in overall household income, investment in children’s education, and social safety nets. After all, inequality is not just about income but also about accumulated wealth, which provides access to better opportunities, can be invested, and has potential for greater growth.
The presentation also focused on demographic shifts and their effects on economic and social development. With a special focus on Japan, Germany and Spain, the presentation highlighted how faster ageing in OECD countries affects real estate prices, labor force participation and shifts in consumer composition.
Ageing is not an equal process and ‘Inequality at a given age is higher today than in the past in most OECD countries.’ OECD’s policy recommendation to deal with unequal ageing are ‘life-course policy packages’. These include three pillars: coping with inequalities at older ages, mitigating deep-rooted inequalities, and preventing inequalities before they fuse together.
To financially support the elderly population, many countries want to increase female labor market participation. However, gender equalities on the labor market persist. Especially among top earners there are large pay gaps, with Korea at almost 30%. The OECD’s data also shows that Gender gaps in pensions evidently exist but are decreasing. There also is a gender gap in ‘hours worked’, although the size of it varies drastically between OECD countries.
To address LGBTQ+ inclusion, the OECD performed a randomized controlled trial among students named SOS Homophobie. The project proved that it could be possible to improve awareness LGBTQ+ inclusion through open discussions. Discussions will help to widen student’s knowledge on discourses of varied genders, although the OECD reported greater LGBTQ+ acceptance in girls than boys.
Demographics and gender equality: trends in family policy
Increasing female employment has coincided with decreasing fertility rates. While women have become more highly educated and more widely employed, family policy has failed to adequately keep pace with this shift. This means that women still often have to choose between having children or maintaining a full-time career.
In an effort to alleviate the burden of this choice, OECD countries have pursued various family policy objectives that aim to promote parent choice in finding a work/family balance, enhance gender equity, and reduce family poverty.
Many OECD countries have focused on policies for father’s leave to promote the sharing of caring responsibilities and more evenly distribute the career effects that women often bare alone for taking time off of work to raise a child. As of 2022, the average duration of paid leave benefits in the OECD was one year. Yet, despite accounting for 50% of the parental leave users, fathers still use only a small portion of available leave, meaning the brunt of the burden still falls on women.
Fertility rates show no indication of returning to the replacement level of 2.1 per woman any time soon, so many OECD countries will be forced to reevaluate their family policy structures in the near future.
