Professor Bernhard Ebbinghaus

Professor Bernhard Ebbinghaus
Professor of Social Policy
Head of Department
44(0)1865 270328
bernhard.ebbinghaus@spi.ox.ac.uk

Dr Bernhard Ebbinghaus is Professor of Social Policy at the Department of Social Policy and Intervention and Senior Research Fellow, Green Templeton College at University of Oxford. In addition, he is currently Associate Member of Nuffield College, University of Oxford, as well as visting Mercator Fellow at the Collaborative Research Centre (SFB 884) Political Economy of Reform and MZES External Fellow, University of Mannheim. Since October 2017 Professor Ebbinghaus has been Head of Department of Social Policy and Intervention.

Previously, he was Professor of Sociology at the University of Mannheim, Germany (2004-2016). At Mannheim, he served as Director of the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES), Co-director of the Graduate School of Economic and Social Sciences (GESS) and Board Member of the Collaborative Research Centre (SFB 884) “Political Economy of Reform”. Professor Ebbinghaus co-directs the SFB-project on “Welfare State Reforms from Below: Linking Individual Attitudes and Organized Interests in Europe”, and the DFG Project on “Crisis Corporatism or Corporatism in Crisis” at MZES. 

Professor Ebbinghaus holds a PhD in social and political sciences (1993) from the European University Institute, Florence, Italy and was awarded a Habilitation in sociology (2003) from the University of Cologne, Germany. He was Lecturer (1992-1996) at University of Mannheim and Senior Researcher (1997-2003) at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne. He has been a visiting scholar at Harvard University and Hertie School of Governance Berlin; and guest professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Jena, and University of Luxembourg.

You can contact Professor Ebbinghaus' PA on 01865 280321 or by email.

Research

Professor Ebbinghaus’s research focuses on advanced welfare states in Europe and overseas facing reform pressures due to ongoing globalization, demographic ageing and socio-economic changes. Current projects analyse cross-national differences in welfare state regimes; their capacities to reform social policies and institutional changes; the effects of social policies on individuals, households and society; and changing attitudes of citizens towards social policies and the reform positions of organized interests. For more information see ebbinghaus.blog/research/

Current projects
Publications

  • Accumulation or Absorption? Changing Disparities of Household Non-employment in Europe During the Great Recession

    2020
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    Journal article
    |
    Socio-Economic Review
    This comparative study analyses the impact of the Great Recession on household non-employment across Europe since 2008. We use the EU-SILC (2007 to 2014) for a shift-share analysis that de-composes annual variations in household non-employment in 30 European countries. Investigating whether job-loss is absorbed or accumulated by households, we break down non-employment vari-ations to changes in individual non-employment, household compositions, and polarization. We find that jobless households increased since 2008, especially in crisis countries. There is no evi-dence for widespread absorption of individual non-employment in families or multi-person house-holds. Instead, household dynamics and unequal distribution of non-employment leads to further risk accumulation within households during the crisis. Paradoxically, this pattern occurs in those crisis countries known for their traditional household structures and less accommodating welfare systems which have relied thus far on families to absorb employment risks. The impact of the crisis has aggravated household disparities in joblessness.
    employment, Europe

  • Poverty in Old Age

    2019
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    c-report
    |
    LIS Working Paper Series
    While the financial sustainability of pension systems has been high on reform agendas, the adequacy of retirement incomes has only recently come into focus. This chapter analyses old-age poverty from a comparative and longitudinal perspective using repeated waves of cross-sectional micro-level income data from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS). We focus on high-income OECD countries that experienced demographic ageing and substantial pension reforms since the mid-1980s, and analyse old age poverty in terms of relative income positions and purchasing capacity. Overall, there has been a secular trend towards a decline in old age poverty, which has converged towards the poverty rates observed in the working age population. However, since ongoing pension reforms in several countries have reduced public benefits, fostered prefunded savings, augmented the retirement age, and strengthened the link between contribution histories and old-age incomes, we identify population subgroups that have difficulties in gaining sufficient pension credits or savings into individual pension plans during their working lives to escape poverty in old age, including women, migrants, and those with lower education. We also present examples of poverty trends across synthetic cohorts in old age. Overall, we observe that more recent cohorts are better protected against poverty in old age compared to cohorts that were born longer ago.
    Poverty, Old age

  • Pension reforms and old age inequalities in Europe: From old to new social risks?

    2019
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    Conference paper

  • Multipillarisation remodelled: the role of interest organizations in British and German pension reforms

    2019
    |
    Journal article
    |
    Journal of European Public Policy

  • Privatisierung und Vermarktlichung der Altersvorsorge: Eingetrübte Aussichten des deutschen Mehrsäulenmodells

    2018
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    Journal article
    |
    WSI-Mitteilungen

  • Conclusion: The Influence from Below—How Organized Interests and Public Attitudes Shape Welfare State Reforms in Europe

    2018
    |
    Chapter
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    Welfare State Reforms Seen from Below

  • Institutionalismus, historischer

    2018
    |
    Chapter
    |
    Europasoziologie

  • Welfare State Reforms Seen from Below

    2018
    |
    Book

  • Making Deservingness of the Unemployed Conditional: Changes in Public Support for the Conditionality of Unemployment Benefits

    2017
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    Chapter
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    The Social Legitimacy of Targeted Welfare:Attitudes to Welfare Deservingness

  • Paid Work Beyond Pension Age: Comparative Perspectives

    2017
    |
    Journal article
    |
    JOURNAL OF SOCIAL POLICY

  • The role of trade unions in pension policymaking and private pension governance in Europe

    2017
    |
    Chapter
    |
    The New Pension Mix in Europe: Recent Reforms, Their Distributional Effects and Political Dynamics

  • Class, union, or party allegiance? Comparing pension reform preferences in Britain and Germany

    2017
    |
    Chapter
    |
    Welfare State Reforms Seen from Below: Comparing Public Attitudes and Organized Interests in Britain and Germany
    © The Author(s) 2018. This chapter explores to what degree public opinion, particularly specific social groups including social classes, retirees, members of trade unions, and supporters of political parties, defend the status quo or are willing to support reforms. It distinguishes two major dimensions of pension-specific attitudes, retrenchment and redistribution. Using data from the 2008 European Social Survey, the study compares two countries with different pension systems, organized interests, and party systems: Britain and Germany. Our results show pronounced cross-national differences in attitudes towards the redistributive character of the pensions system but less variation with regard to retrenchment of pension benefits. Political affiliations show also more variation than social classes, indicating that ideological alignment is more pronounced than social class.

  • Introduction: Analysing organized interests and public opinion towards welfare reforms

    2017
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    Chapter
    |
    Welfare State Reforms Seen from Below: Comparing Public Attitudes and Organized Interests in Britain and Germany
    © The Author(s) 2018. The status quo defence of organized interests and the reform unwillingness of public opinion are seen as the main reasons why welfare states persist. Building upon these two perspectives, this introduction develops an analytical approach to systematically study the role of organized interests and public opinion in the political economy of welfare state reform. It covers three important social policy areas (pension, healthcare, and labour market policies) and briefly maps the main institutional differences between our two country cases, Britain and Germany. Finally, it discusses the method mix applied in the nine empirical studies collected in this volume: ranging from qualitative to quantitative, from interview to text analysis, from cross-sectional micro-level data to survey experiments using online panels.

  • The popularity of pension and unemployment policies revisited: The erosion of public support in Britain and Germany

    2017
    |
    Chapter
    |
    Welfare State Reforms Seen from Below: Comparing Public Attitudes and Organized Interests in Britain and Germany
    © The Author(s) 2018. This chapter provides a comparative analysis of the long-term development of public attitudes towards pension and unemployment policies in Great Britain and Germany (1985-2013). The British and German welfare states are still rather popular. Public support for government responsibility for the elderly is stronger than for the unemployed. Moreover, a trade-off in expenditure preferences favours spending on pensions over spending on unemployment benefits. Claims toward an increased polarization between generations, union/non-union members and left/right supporters seem overblown. Welfare reforms have not led to a counter-reaction but the continued reform pressures have led to a partial erosion of public welfare state support.

  • Demographic Ageing and Pension Reforms in Europe: Problems of Economic, Social and Political Sustainability

    2015
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    Journal article
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    Kolner Zeitschrift fur Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie
    © 2015, Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden. Ageing is one of the long-term challenges for old age security in Europe, in particular for the intergenerational contract of pay-as-you go public pensions. The comparative macro-sociological analysis maps the demographic trends, political constraints, and social policy reform dynamics across Europe. Due to demographic ageing all European societies face long-term sustainability problems of their pension systems. Despite many reforms, European welfare states differ in the timing of retirement and the extent of pay-as-you-go public pensions. The comparison of ten European welfare states reveals the cross-national variations in reducing early retirement and in partially shifting to prefunded pensions. In addition to financial sustainability, the contribution also discusses other sustainability issues, particularly social inequality and political feasibility, which must be overcome in addition to the demographic challenge.
    • More

Download full Publication List (PDF)

 

Supervision

Professor Ebbinghaus is particularly interested in supervising Master and DPhil students who intend to study any of the following research themes:

  • comparison of welfare state regimes in Europe and beyond
  • reform processes of and institutional change in welfare states
  • survey analysis of public attitudes on welfare state reform issues
  • the role of organized interests (such as unions, employers) in social policy reforms
  • employment systems and labour market policies, e.g. un/non-employment
  • minimum income and social inclusion policies to fight poverty
  • transitions from work to retirement, retirement age policies, and active ageing
  • institutional changes of the public-private pension mix and its governance
  • the impact of employment flexibilization and non-employment over the life-course
  • the impact of home ownership and housing policies

For more information see ebbinghaus.blog/research/dissertations/

Current students
News
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Bernhard Ebbinghaus' Publication List (PDF)