The role of discourse in family policy reform: The case of Finland

Abstract

Since 2010 and the onset of the economic crisis, Finnish governments have pressed for structural reforms, including unpopular cuts to family benefits and services. This article analyses the government discourse used for legitimating some of these reforms: the cutbacks in child benefit and the restriction of full-time childcare. It also assesses whether this discourse bore the hallmarks of a neoliberal austerity discourse, which could suggest that the reforms were not just a matter of fiscal balancing but also a matter of neoliberal welfare state restructuring. We argue that the economic crisis was central in the powerful ‘communicative’ discourse used by the governments for legitimating unpopular cuts. Not only did it draw on ideas from an austerity discourse advocating financial sustainability, fiscal prudency and debt reduction, it was also impregnated with ideas from a neoliberal worldview questioning some of the main principles of the ‘Nordic’ family policy model.

Keywords

austerity discourse economic crisis family policy Finland neoliberalism Nordic model of welfare reform

Introduction: Background, objectives and methods

In the comparative welfare state literature, Finland has been considered a member of the Nordic family policy model (Bradshaw and Hatland, 2006; Korpi, 2000) characterised by relatively high female employment, family-friendly policies and gender equality (Forssén et al., 2008). Two of the most popular benefits in the Finnish family policy model are the universal child benefit for every child under 17 years (with a supplement for single parents) and the universal public childcare system, which provides childcare for every child under school age (which starts at seven). These have played a central role for the economic wellbeing of families and served as a cornerstone for the Finnish dual-earner model (Forssén et al., 2008).

However, since the international financial crisis, the economic foundations of this system have become increasingly undermined. Since 2010, Finnish governments have pressed for cost containment and structural reforms in order to combat economic decline, soaring public debt and falling employment rates. This has led to cutbacks in family policy, such as the cuts in child benefits (in 2012, 2014 and 2015) and the restriction of the universal right to public childcare (in 2015) – reforms that were highly unpopular among both the public and family policy experts (e.g. Pohjanpalo, 2015) and thus politically risky enterprises (Vis, 2010). Although these reforms were incremental and did not entail dramatic cuts in benefit levels, they can nevertheless be seen as principally important, since they not only challenged public opinion, but also eroded the idea of universal support for families and Finland’s position in the Nordic family policy model (Ahrendt et al., 2015).

The aim of this article is to analyse the discourse used by recent Finnish governments for legitimating the above-mentioned unpopular reforms in family policy.¹ Using the concepts of ‘communicative’ discourse (Schmidt, 2002), austerity (Blyth, 2013; Clarke and Newman, 2012) and neoliberalism (Harvey, 2005; Taylor, 2007) as starting points, we study the legitimating aspects of this discourse, but also to what extent it used ideas from what we call a neoliberal austerity worldview, which in turn could suggest that the reforms were not just a matter of fiscal balancing but a step towards a reconfiguration of Finnish family policy in a neoliberal fashion. The research questions are: a) what policy recommendations, arguments and ideas were used in this discourse? b) to what extent did this discourse relate to a neoliberal austerity worldview? c) how effective was this discourse in creating political and public consent for cutbacks in these above-mentioned welfare programmes?

To answer these questions, we used a triangulated methodological approach (Rothbauer, 2008) focussed on the analysis of discourse (cf. Schmidt, 2002: 170) that combines various data sources and methods in search of a richer and more nuanced picture of a phenomenon. In our case we use a qualitative content analysis for identifying policy recommendations, arguments and ideas, that is, legitimating aspects of political discourses, rather than discourse analysis in a strict postmodern or deconstructionist sense (Jorgensen and Phillips, 2002). For this end, we combined inductive and deductive qualitative content analysis (e.g. Hsieh and Shannon, 2005) of government and parliamentary documents with expert interviews and analyses of survey data on government support.² In short, in relation to the first research question, we inductively analysed government programmes and bills for policy recommendations, arguments and ideas, and for the second research question, we deductively analysed these arguments and ideas to establish to what extent these relate to a neoliberal worldview (see Tables 1 and 2). In relation to the third research question pertaining to the ‘effectiveness of the discourse’, that is, the level of consent (or opposition) that it created, we performed content analyses of minutiae (protocols) from debates in the Finnish parliament (the Eduskunta) and articles and editorials from the leading daily newspaper in Finland (Helsingin Sanomat).³ Furthermore we conducted five non-structured and qualitative interviews with leading family policy experts. The main idea here is that the efficiency of the governments’ austerity discourse is at least partly discernible from the degree of consent/opposition it causes among (competing) politicians and media.⁴ The coding of documental content was performed by two of the authors, and the coding process consisted of two stages: first, an initial reading was conducted to get a sense of the whole, whereupon the actual coding of the document commenced for each of the four cutbacks.⁵ The coding process was checked for accuracy and inter-reliability on regular occasions. The five expert interviews were conducted in the fall of 2014 with leading researchers and experts in Finnish family policy.

Table 1.

Different worldviews on social (and family) policy.*

	Keynesian worldview	Social investment worldview	Neoliberal austerity worldview
Key values and principles	Equality of outcome, full standardised employment (for men), decommodification	Equality of opportunity, individual responsibility, social inclusion, creation of quality jobs, capabilities approach	Equality of opportunity, individual responsibility, freedom of choice, competition, creation of any job at all
General ideas (key norms for public action)	Big state, central economic planning, extensive welfare state	Empowering state, investments in human capital, modernisation of the welfare state	Limited state intervention, self-regulating markets, deregulation, cutbacks in social transfers and benefits, tax cuts, budget constraint
Key policy ideas	Policies to support demand, income redistribution, development of social insurance schemes (income maintenance) and public service sectors (e.g. day care services), social protection	Human capital investments to increase competitiveness and create jobs, supporting labour market participation (of women) through early childhood education and day care services, education and life-long learning, active labour market policies, flexicurity, targeted benefits	Monetarist economic policies to fight inflation, deregulation of the labour market, targeted benefits to the poor, government debt reduction, privatisation of social and health services, workfare policies, fiscal balance, increase in the individual’s own responsibility, freedom of choice

The table is a modification of table 1.1 in the work of Morel et al (2012 pp 12–13).

Table 2.

Instructions for coding the neoliberal austerity discourse for research question b.

Key policy ideas (neoliberal austerity)	Description	Example (cognitive and normative idea)
Fiscal balance	Utterances of general desire for austerity measures, e.g. to balance and increase the public economy	Cognitive idea: limiting public spending safeguards economic growth
		‘Only a secure public economy … can guarantee a sustainable welfare’
		Normative idea: social protection needs to be activating
		‘Work is the best type of social security’
Cost containment	Utterances for cost containment, e.g. cutting child benefit and restricting the subjective right to public childcare in order to reduce public expenditure	Cognitive idea: austerity measures are a necessity and promote economic growth in the long run, austerity needed due to weakened competitiveness caused by economic globalisation
		‘[I]ndex-freezing child benefit … reduces the cost relating to child benefit in 2013 by 38 million euros’
		Normative idea: welfare services are somewhat more connected to employment situation (accentuation of selectivity alongside universalism), which also will spur parents to work
		‘The idea is to support the provider to [return to or enter] the labour market’
Targeting of benefit to those in need	Utterances for compensating poor people or targeting those in need, e.g. by raising the sole provider addition and income support	Cognitive idea: austerity measures a necessity but the poorest still need protection
		‘By making other benefits [for the poorest] index-linked bond … the poorest will maintain their purchasing power’
		Normative idea: although cutting benefits will increase the rate of child poverty, the government consider this equally unfair and the best of two bad options
		‘This cut … is also, from a child’s broader perspective, the most sustainable option [when it comes to cutting the child benefit]’
Increase in individual responsibility	Utterances relating to increasing the individual’s responsibility, e.g. by restricting the right to public childcare	Cognitive idea: economic sustainability, social expenditure to be scaled down in relation to economic resources, cost efficiency
		Normative idea: social security needs to be activating and spurring, accentuation of liberty, own responsibility and less [state] regulation, the state is to have a limited role, welfare services connected to employment
		‘People have freedom and responsibility to build their own, their family’s … lives’
Freedom of choice	Utterances relating to freedom of choice, e.g. when it comes to activating social security (in which child benefit is included)	Cognitive idea: greater flexibility for parents
		‘Possibilities for families with young children in combining work–life balance are supported [by the government]’
		Normative idea: accentuation of the responsibility and freedom of choice of the individual, the state has a (limited) supportive role
		‘Support is provided to all people of all ages, to enable them to take responsibility for their own state of health and lifestyles’
Privatisation of welfare services	Utterances for privatising welfare services, e.g. by raising financial support for parents who choose private childcare	Cognitive idea: public expenditure is too expensive
		‘[E]ven in normal economic times … the public finances are not enough’
		Normative idea: more financial support for those choosing private childcare
		‘A bigger amount will be paid [for those choosing private childcare]’

The article contributes to the literature on the discourse of welfare state reform (e.g. Hemerijck, 2013; Schmidt, 2002, 2008) and the power of neoliberal austerity ideas (Clarke and Newman, 2012; Farnsworth and Irving, 2015; Harvey, 2005), by showing how the economic crisis, and ideas from an austerity and neoliberal discourse, became intertwined in a powerful ‘communicative’ discourse that helped recent Finnish governments to legitimate unpopular cuts in family policy – even at the expense of the ‘Nordicness’ of the Finnish family policy model. In this respect Finland serves as an interesting case in comparison with, for example, Iceland where the financial crises did not lead to similar cutbacks in the welfare state (Stuckler and Basu, 2013). The rest of the article is structured as follows. Next, the theoretical framework is presented and in the following section we discuss the selected family policy reforms and the discourse underpinning them together with an assessment of their effect. In the final section, a number of conclusions are drawn and discussed.

Ideas, discourses and the power of austerity

There are many ways of explaining the emergence, design and change of family policy (e.g. Wennemo, 1994). The theoretical starting points for this article can be found in theories about how ideas influence policy (Béland and Cox, 2010; Blyth, 2013) and how they are linked to institutional discourses (Fischer, 2003; Schmidt, 2002, 2008). Put simply, one common assumption here is that ideas and the discourses carrying them matter in politics. Ideas exercise cognitive and normative influence on how the social world is constructed and they generate discourses on what needs to be done to change this world in ways that are conditioned by welfare-institutional configurations. Whereas cognitive ideas refer to logic and observation, telling us what the problem is and what the solutions to them are, normative ideas are attached to values and seek to legitimate policies, that is, telling us why something is important or why something needs to be done (Schmidt, 2008: 307).

Schmidt (2008: 306) distinguishes between three categories of ideas: specific policy ideas, general ideas and ‘world views’. While specific policy ideas offer a solution to a certain problem, the more general ideas and ‘world views’ entail larger ideational constructions on society, economics or politics, and they also offer some kind of normative justification for specific policy ideas. As an example: ‘privatisation’ can be seen as a specific policy idea, which in turn is related to a more general idea on ‘market efficiency’ in accordance with a neoliberal ‘world view’ (or ideology), which sees markets as self-regulating and state intervention as ineffective (Taylor, 2007).

Also, the term discourse can be defined in a multitude of ways. On a very general level, a distinction can be made between discourse as communicative interaction and discourse as a struggle for precedence of interpretation (cf. Jorgensen and Phillips, 2002). While the former notion focuses more squarely on how different actors communicate and for example use arguments to create legitimacy, the latter uses more subtle analyses of language shape thought, or how different discourses compete with each other (Jorgensen and Phillips, 2002). Schmidt (2002: 169) follows the former tradition in defining discourse as ‘whatever policy actors say to one another and to the public more generally in their efforts to construct and legitimate their policy programs’. In this article, discourse is defined in a similar vein by referring to what governments ‘say’ about the need to pursue cutbacks in family policy, that is, the argumentation and ideas they invoke to legitimate cutbacks. According to Schmidt (2008), this often takes place in communicative discourses. Such discourses are directed towards the public and explain a reform so the public may accept it, whereas coordinative discourses take place within the government and relate to technical aspects of how to carry out a specific reform. According to Schmidt (2002), these two discourses are both present in all policy making, but while the subjects of the discourses might be the same, the objectives and audiences are not.

A central notion in discursive institutionalism is that discourses are conditioned by institutional configurations and that communicative discourses are more prevalent in welfare states with more centralised power and less coordinated decision-making systems (Schmidt, 2002). This is also largely the case with Finland, where the decision-making process is rather centralised when it comes to tax-funded family benefits, such as the child benefits, and public childcare services, whereas parental leaves are regulated through tripartite negotiations between social partners (Lammi-Taskula and Takala, 2009).⁶ Furthermore, child benefits and childcare services are universal with a strong sense of ‘citizen rights’ (Lammi-Taskula and Salmi, 2013). Taken together, this means that governments are accountable to voters for possible cutbacks in tax-funded family benefits and childcare services, which accentuates the need to ‘avoid blame’ (Vis, 2010) through, for instance, powerful communicative discourses that obfuscate the responsibility for unpopular cutbacks (Schmidt, 2002). In this article we focus on one particular communicative discourse, the so-called austerity discourse, which puts ideas of fiscal parsimony, government debt reduction and cost containment at the front (Blyth, 2013; Clarke and Newman, 2012; Farnsworth and Irving, 2015). But we are also interested in how such a discourse may be related to neoliberal ideology (Harvey, 2005; Taylor, 2007).

According to Farnsworth and Irving (2015: 1) Europe has entered a ‘new age of austerity’, which is characterised not only by a stronger focus on fiscal balance and tighter budget control, but also by cuts in public social expenditure and debt at the same time as it praises tax reductions and a deregulation of labour markets. Although austerity is hard to pinpoint empirically both as a discourse and as a political phenomenon, the austerity discourse that surfaced after the international financial crises can be said to differ from earlier representations through its dominant position of being the ‘only alternative’ in debates on public policy and the welfare state (Blyth, 2013; Clarke and Newman, 2012; Farnsworth and Irving, 2015; O’Hara, 2014). According to Blyth (2013: 226), it is a ‘dangerous idea’, since it is not only self-defeating through its social costs and its incapacity to increase growth, but it is also ‘ideologically immune to facts and basic empirical refutation’.

The austerity discourse of today also seems to be highly influenced by neoliberal ideology (Harvey, 2005; Taylor, 2007), since it tends to view welfare state expansion, fiscal stimulus and government spending as ‘logical’ anathemas while at the same time advocating expenditure cuts, tax reductions, less state involvement and greater wage and wealth dispersion in a neoliberal fashion (Blyth, 2013; Clarke and Newman, 2012). It has also been used as a default strategy to respond to economic crises by cutting debt and public expenditures for the general population while simultaneously ‘protecting the power and advantages of capitalist elites’ (McBride, 2015: 68). This is why Clarke and Newman (2012) rightfully refer to this discourse as ‘alchemy’; i.e. as an ideologically driven ‘quick-fix’ in times of neoliberalism and globalisation. On the basis of this discussion it seems reasonable to view austerity discourses as a discursive offshoot, or as a ‘naturalised common-sense’ continuation, of the neoliberalism that ‘strangely did not die’ (Crouch, 2011). Table 1 thus highlights the key values, norms for public action as well as policy ideas of what we choose to call a neoliberal austerity worldview as compared to a Keynesian and a social investment worldview.

While the Keynesian worldview, focussing on demand-side social policy and far-reaching equality ambitions, can be seen as a blueprint for Finnish welfare state expansion until the 1990s, the social investment worldview with a stronger focus on activation, human capital investments and ‘flexicurity’ became more pronounced in family policies of the late 1990s and early 2000s (Anttonen and Sipilä, 2000). Although Finland has experienced times of austerity politics before, most notably in the 1990s, with massive cutbacks in income transfers to families, these phenomena have been rather short-lived. However, after the international financial crisis in 2008–09 the focus on austerity politics grew stronger in Finland and became one of the primary objectives of the conservative-left coalition led by Prime Minister Katainen (Nygård and Autto, 2014; Ahrendt et al., 2015). One of the main goals of this coalition was to achieve financial sustainability through structural reforms, containment of public expenditure and debt reduction (Nygård and Autto, 2014), which not only proved hard to achieve but also caused protests and strikes (e.g. Reuters, 2015). This does not mean, however, that Keynesian or social investment ideas have been replaced altogether. Instead, it suggests that the competition between these worldviews and neoliberal ideas has become fiercer and that the recent economic crisis has opened up ideological renegotiations of the welfare state. As shown in Table 1, some of the key values of this worldview relate to individual responsibility, freedom and equality of opportunity, whereas the general ideas relate to a limited state with a preoccupation with fiscal constraint and free and self-regulated markets. According to this view, family policy still plays a role, but not necessarily in a universal or an encompassing sense, since its main precedence concerns poverty reduction (Morel et al., 2012) rather than securing the economic wellbeing or equality of families with children. This is the context in which recent governments in Finland, starting with the Katainen government in 2011, have set out to pursue unpopular reforms.

Findings

The results show that all three governments (Katainen, Stubb and Sipilä) employed elements from an austerity discourse in order to pursue unpopular cutbacks in child benefits (2012, 2014 and 2015) and in the subjective right to childcare (2015). This can be seen, for instance, through the strong position that policy ideas proposing cost containment and debt control have had in the governments’ discourses and how they trumped old-style social policy ambitions. Moreover, this discourse has been successful, since the governments have succeeded in achieving unpopular cuts without any dramatic costs in electoral support⁷ and despite criticism from both the opposition and policy experts. Below we examine the discourse used by the Katainen, Stubb and Sipilä governments, and how it was received by opposition MPs, amongst family policy experts and in the media.

The cutbacks in child benefits

In accordance with the Nordic model of welfare, the main objectives of Finnish family policy have been to redistribute income between families with and without children (Hiilamo, 2002). The popular child benefit, which became universal in the late 1940s, has worked as an efficient measure in economically compensating families with children. Regardless of its popularity, in 2012, PM Katainen’s government presented a temporary index freezing of the child benefit for three years with effect from 2013 (government bill, 116/2012). This measure was mainly motivated by economic arguments, according to which cutting public expenditures, the child benefits included, is a necessity to restore financial sustainability and prevent government debt in times of sluggish growth. This exemplifies a specific policy idea, but also a more normative general idea in line with a neoliberal austerity worldview outlined in Table 1, as it signifies supremacy of fiscal prudence and debt control over principles of social welfare and equality, and depicts expenditure cuts as a way of ‘saving’ the welfare state.

In addition, arguments of diminution and compensation were frequently used to legitimate the cutback. Not only was the overall economic importance of the child benefit downplayed, which suggests the impact of the reform on families to be minimal (government bill, 116/2012: 4), but vulnerable groups, such as single parents, were to be compensated by a raise in the single-parent supplement to child benefits. Legally speaking the cutback was seen as posing no problem since ‘according to the constitution, the social security can to some extent be lowered in accordance with the economic resources’ of the country (116/2012: 4).

A closer inspection of the ideational logic behind the government austerity discourse suggests a mixture of so-called cognitive and normative ideas (Schmidt, 2008). Whereas cognitive elements can be traced to the attempt to invoke a ‘common-sense’ notion of the need to stabilise the public economy, the normative elements are represented by the expectation that austerity measures will ‘generate economic stability’ and ‘balance state finances in the long run’ (116/2012: 4). In other words, there is a belief that cuts in the short run yield financial stability and growth in the long run, which chimes with a neoliberal austerity discourse. However, the ambition to safeguard the economic wellbeing of vulnerable families suggests that the government also, to some extent, sought to uphold old-style Keynesian and social investment traditions of social equality.

This is also largely true for the governments of PM Stubb and PM Sipilä. Also in the programmes of these two governments the economic situation and the rising level of public debt served as the foundation for and justification of structural reforms and cutbacks in social policies and services. In 2014, PM Stubb’s government launched a number of reforms aimed at curtailing public expenditure and making the social security system more activating (government programme, 2014). Among other things, an 8.1% cutback in the child benefit was proposed (government bill, 165/2014). The argument behind this cutback was mainly that of economic necessity; in times of economic hardship, the state has no other alternative than to renegotiate its social policy commitments and even cut back on child benefits – regardless of their importance and popularity.

The idea of adjusting public consumption to shrinking resources served as a powerful framing of unpopular reforms, and it became even more powerful when backed up by a context of a ‘weak global economy’ (especially in the eurozone) and ‘the restructuring of the Finnish industry’ (government bill, 165/2014: 4). The cutback was also underpinned by arguments of compensation: the single-parent supplement was to be retained and a child tax credit to be introduced for the poorest families (165/2014: 4–6). Normatively speaking, the cutback was informed by ideas of an allegedly positive outcome of cost containment on growth. Accordingly, austerity measures were needed to recover from the recession, even at a price of higher child poverty rates. Although the cutback increases child poverty in the short run, it is still considered the best alternative in the long run, as it improves the financial sustainability of the social security system thus helping to preserve the welfare state. According to Blyth (2013) the narrative of future gains from cost containments is typical for a neoliberal austerity worldview; its strength emanates from the idea that such measures will boost investors’ expectations and thus ‘produce expansion by cutting’ social expenditure (Blyth, 2013: 212). Furthermore, the cutback was considered as just, as it is ‘equally big’ and affects families in a similar way (government bill, 165/2014: 4).

In 2015, PM Sipilä continued to pursue cutbacks by proposing cancellation of the child benefit indexation system with effect from January 2016 (government bill, 70/2015). As with earlier cutbacks, this reform was legitimated mainly through economic arguments; public expenditure must be adjusted in relation to economic resources, even if this means cutbacks (Supplement to government programme, 2015: 8). Cognitive ideas referring to economic sustainability, frugality and modesty were used (e.g. ‘We [Finns] do not live on borrowed money’, Supplement to government programme, 2015: 5), but there were also references to historical experiences of hardship (the winter war, previous crises etc.) and personal sacrifice (solidarity) suggesting that ‘Finns understand that in the middle of the crisis, difficult decisions have to be made’ (Supplement to government programme, 2015: 7). Also, normative ideas referring to neoliberal values of ‘liberty’, ‘own responsibility’ and ‘less [state] regulation’ nurtured the argument behind the reforms (Supplement to government programme, 2015: 5). Accordingly, the balance between the state and the individual needs to be renegotiated by giving individuals more responsibility and cutting state regulation – something that fits in with the neoliberal ideology behind the austerity discourse (cf. Taylor, 2007).

How, then, were the above-mentioned cutbacks in child benefits received by other politicians, family policy experts and the media, that is, how ‘effective’ was the governments’ austerity discourse in creating consent in terms of the cutbacks in child benefits? Although we cannot in fact measure this ‘effect’, the analysis suggests that the (neoliberal) austerity discourse was quite powerful. All three cutbacks were discussed with varying intensity in the Eduskunta; in particular the 2014 cutback in the child benefit level caused a lengthy and heated debate (PTK 89/2014) resulting in mixed reactions, creating both consent and opposition. Whereas politicians from government parties agreed with the government on most of the cutbacks, the politicians from opposition parties generally jibbed at the proposals. When it came to the 2012 indexation freezing of the child benefit (HE 116/2012), politicians from the opposition suggested that cutting this benefit ‘undermines the importance of the child benefit’ and that it will ‘decrease the income of families already on a small income’ (Hänninen, Left, PTK 89/2014). The opposition also pointed out that a cut will increase child poverty and diminish consumption, which in turn undermines growth.

Also, the 2014 cutback in the child benefit level (HE 165/2014) led to both consent and opposition in the parliament, and that this reform was controversial is traceable from the large number of speakers (altogether 108 as compared to 8 in 2012). As in 2012, MPs from government parties largely argued and voted for the cut, while politicians from the opposition parties argued and voted against the proposal. The government MPs emphasised that ‘cutting the child benefit feels bad’ but that refraining from cuts will lead to ‘all the welfare services [being] at stake’ (Wallinheimo, KOK, PTK 89/2014). The opposition MPs suggested that this was ‘more than anything an ideological choice’ (Niikko, TF, PTK 89/2014), as ‘these kinds of inhumane decisions ruin the welfare state’ (Mäntylä, TF, PTK 115/2014) and that ‘the IMF have shown that the Euro crisis has been dealt with in the wrong ways by pursuing austerity measures’ (Modig, LEFT, PTK 89/2014). Furthermore, the opposition MPs argued that such a cutback jeopardises wellbeing among families (Mäkipää, FP, PTK 89/2014) and that families with children have been hit disproportionally hard in the government’s cost containment scheme (Juvonen, TF, PTK 115/2014). The opposition MPs also said that there are other and more just ways of containing social expenditure (Rantakangas, CEN, 89/2014 vp) and that the future prospect of the child is undermined by the cutback (Juvonen, TF, PTK 115/2014). A similar division was visible in 2015 when the indexation of the child benefit was abolished (HE 70/2015), but this time the cutback also caused some critique within the government’s own ranks, even if the government MPs eventually voted unanimously in favour of the cutback. The number of speeches in the Eduskunta was also smaller than in 2014 (49). Some government MPs tried to obfuscate the effect of the reform by arguing that an abolishment of the indexation is not ‘a direct cut’ (Saarikko, CEN, PTK 53/2015) and that the motive for the reform is purely economic and ‘definitely not ideological’ (Zyskowicz, KOK, PTK 53/2015). Among opposition MPs, on the other hand, the cutback was largely seen as ideological – as one step in a long-term process of scaling down state responsibility for families (e.g. Pekonen, LEFT, PTK 53/2015). Furthermore, the opposition suggested that the cutback ‘will increase child poverty’ (Salonen, SDP, PTK 53/2015), and that the government is not following a predictable (family policy) line (Andersson, LEFT, PTK 77/2015).

If the parliamentary debate showed both consent and opposition, this was not the case with the family policy experts interviewed for this article. Among the family policy experts, there was an unequivocal opposition to all three reforms, which became evident not only in the interviews, but also in the media, as some of the experts used the media to express their opposition to the wider public. All the experts pointed out that austerity measures and increasing unemployment rates have made families suffer economically and some thought that this would have negative long-term effects on family wellbeing. Some of the experts argued that Finland has taken a U-turn towards a scarcer family policy, away from universalism, and that ill-being amongst families will increase despite any compensatory benefits such as the child tax credit (which does not help the poorest families with no income). One expert also suggested that the cutbacks in family policy were not an immediate effect of the economic crisis, but rather an effect of ideological choices made by recent right-wing governments starting with the right-left coalition led by PM Katainen. Furthermore, this expert highlighted that PM Stubb did indeed suggest that everyone, including families with children, has to participate in the cutbacks, suggesting the idea of austerity concerns everyone in society.

In relation to the experts, the reactions to the cutbacks in the child benefits in editorials of the leading Finnish newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat (HS), were more modest although a growing criticism became detectable in 2014. At first, there were no explicit comments on the cutbacks in the child benefits, but in 2014, the tone changed and disappointment over the irresolution of the government and inconsistency in its family policy-making was expressed (HS 29 March 2014). The government was criticised for going behind the backs of the people, as the government knew that this cutback would affect poor families negatively (HS 7 April 2016 and HS 9 April 2016). Furthermore, the introduction of the child tax credit, which was intended to compensate for the cutbacks, was criticised since it was seen to benefit only families with employed parent(s), but not the poorest of families (HS 6 October 2014).

The restriction of the subjective right to childcare

Finland has been known for its universal public childcare system and its subjective right to childcare, which gives parents the right to public childcare for all children under seven. The principle of universalism was introduced already in the 1970s, but it became instituted as a ‘subjective right’ only in the 1990s (Forssén et al., 2008; Hiilamo, 2002), and this right has played an important role in creating social equality among children and in minimising class division (cf. Välimäki, 1999). In May 2015, the childcare legislation was even updated by strengthening the ideas of early education, early learning, childhood pedagogy and child wellbeing (HE 341/2014). At the same time, however, the economic crisis changed the political climate in Finland and made the government prone to reform and pursuit of cost containment in family policy. This is why the newly enacted law on early childhood education and care (ECEC) was changed once again in December 2015 (government bill, 80/2015) leading to a restriction of the right to full-day ECEC for children without both parents in full-time work, education, or on family leave to 20 hours per week. Although this reform did not entail any changes in fees or income testing, it constituted an important break with the previous principle to provide all children under seven, regardless of their parents’ labour market status, a right to full-day childcare.

The arguments and ideas used for legitimating this restriction were relatively the same as in the case of child benefits. Not only was this restriction constructed as an economic necessity, but it was also seen as a way of activating parents by using the option of receiving full-day childcare as a ‘carrot’ for employment. As with the cutbacks in child benefits, the restriction of childcare created consent within the government’s own ranks, while the opposition MPs and the experts, as well as the media to some extent, opposed the reform. Already in 2011, in the government programme of PM Katainen, there was a general creed for austerity measures in public welfare services, as well as a recommendation of higher flexibility in public childcare. This was motivated by economic arguments, suggesting that an adjustment of the public economy is necessary ‘for the future of the welfare services’ (government programme, 2011: 7). Sustainability was used as a cognitive idea suggesting that cost containments are both inevitable and natural: ‘only a sustainable public economy […] can guarantee a sustainable welfare’ (government programme, 2011: 10). The idea that economic necessity surpasses the principle of social welfare is an example of a normative idea that helped legitimate the cutbacks. Another example is the accentuation of employment: ‘the family’s income should first and foremost be received through employment’, which is also ‘the best form of social security’ (government programme, 2011: 6). There was, in other words, a building-up of arguments for structural reforms and cost containment already in the 2011 government programme, but the actual proposition to restrict public childcare was presented in 2013 (structural-policy programme, 2013: 9) with effect from August 2016. Mostly economic arguments and cognitive ideas were employed to legitimate this restriction. Accordingly, structural reforms are necessary to close the ‘sustainability gap’ and to ease the pressure that demographic change has put on the public sector (structural-policy programme, 2013: 1). In addition, the idea that improved productivity and effectiveness of public services leads to higher financial sustainability was central (structural-policy programme, 2013: 3). Meanwhile, a normative idea underpinning the restriction was that welfare services ought to be connected to one’s employment situation, or ‘restricted due to social circumstances’ (structural-policy programme, 2013: 9), which can be interpreted as a quest for higher selectivity and a stronger accentuation of employment-based social rights instead of universalism.

In 2015, PM Sipilä’s government programme proposed a restriction of the full-day childcare to 20 hours per week if one parent stays at home due to family leave or unemployment. The main argument was economic; the childcare system costs too much and needs to be downscaled for the state to be able to balance its economy, but also other arguments were used. One built on the idea of compensation, according to which the private (child) care allowance is raised to facilitate private care for those children who cannot receive full-day public childcare. Another related to pluralism and targeting, i.e., the restriction still makes it possible for municipalities to provide full-day childcare if they want to, and they are obliged to do so if it is seen as necessary due to the child’s social or developmental needs (government programme, 2015). Again, the cognitive idea of creating economic sustainability was central: ‘the public finances [being] in equilibrium’ is the prime objective, even if this means cutbacks to popular welfare services (government programme, 2015: 5). This idea was supported by the claim that the public will understand ‘why cutbacks need to be pursued’ (government programme, 2015: 7). According to PM Sipilä, cutbacks help to preserve the welfare state, whereas further expansive policies would endanger it and ‘send the bill for today’s wellbeing to further generations’ (YLE, 2015).

This bill also created both consent and opposition in parliament. MPs from the government parties (CEN, KOK, TF) supported the reform and argued that the restriction is an economic necessity, ‘a regrettable saving’, but that it is not really a question of a cutback, since all children are ‘still guaranteed 20 hours of early childhood education and care per week’ (Grahn-Laasonen, KOK, PTK 61/2015). Furthermore ‘municipalities can still choose to offer full-day childcare’ if they want and if they find it necessary from the child’s perspective (Grahn-Laasonen, KOK, PTK 61/2015). Another argument was that the restriction is supported by the ‘majority of the public’ (Puumala, CEN, PTK 61/2015) and that the restriction will be compensated ‘by other government investments’ (Grahn-Laasonen, KOK, PTK 61/2015), although no specific investment was mentioned. The opposition MPs largely opposed the reform, by suggesting, for instance, that it undermines ‘the quality of ECEC services’ (Anderson, LEFT, PTK 61/2015), increases social inequality and stigmatisation among children ‘by dividing them into groups depending on the labour market position of the parents’ (Arhinmäki, LEFT, PTK 61/2015), and is a poor investment, as ‘every 1 euro spent on quality childcare gives 7 euros back to the society’ (Uotila, LEFT, PTK 61/2015). Furthermore, some opposition MPs argued that parents working part-time were not being taken enough into consideration (Östman, CHDEM, PTK 61/2015), and that the restriction is ideologically motivated as a conservative attack on public welfare services (Rinne, SDP, PTK 61/2016). Other MPs supported the reform by highlighting the responsibility of parents ‘to care for their children at home’ (Räsänen, CHDEM, PTK 77/2015).

Whereas the reactions in parliament were mixed, the interviewed family policy experts all opposed a restriction on the right to public childcare. One expert suggested the reform is infringing upon ‘the freedom of choice for families’ when it comes to caring for a child at home or letting the child participate in full-time childcare, which has been one of the cornerstones of Finnish family policy. It was also highlighted that the restriction will have a negative impact on the parental employment rate, since unemployed parents will find it more difficult to look for jobs or to accept job offers as their children do not have the right to full-time childcare. In this way, the government was said to be undermining its own goals, especially regarding female employment but also in terms of reducing the gaps between rich and poor families.

Also in editorials of the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat there was opposition to the restriction of the subjective right to full-time public childcare, suggesting that this will increase inequality among children and create geographical differences, as richer municipalities, such as in the Helsinki area, will stand an economically better chance to offer full-time childcare (HS 26 November 2015). It was also highlighted that the basic goal of the new childcare legislation (for a discussion, see Lundkvist et al., 2017), to provide qualitative early education and care, will not be met due to the restriction (HS 1 February 2014; HS 31 August 2014). Furthermore, the government was criticised for its reluctance to listen to the experts in the field, who predicted that the restriction will have negative consequences on equality, learning and child wellbeing (HS 24 June 2015) and it was pointed out that the priorities of the government have shifted since the last recession in the 1990s. Back then, the government was very keen on making public childcare available for all children under seven, regardless of the employment situation of their parents, in order to promote wellbeing, equality and economic growth. Today this is no longer the case, as politicians seem willing to sacrifice full-day childcare for the sake of financial sustainability (HS 2 April 2014).

Conclusions and discussion

This article examined the discourse used by Finnish governments for legitimating unpopular reforms in family policy since 2010, namely cutbacks in the child benefit and in public childcare. The aim was to describe the arguments and ideas used in this ‘communicative’ discourse (Schmidt, 2002) to determine whether this discourse contained elements linked to a neoliberal austerity worldview, and to discuss how ‘effective’ this austerity discourse was for legitimating the reforms. Based on the findings, a number of conclusions can be drawn.

First, in the discourse on pursuing the reforms the governments mostly used economic, activating and compensating arguments. The governments were convinced that Finland no longer can afford its (Nordic) universal family policy – therefore cutbacks in this policy field are the only alternative, regardless of the consequences, such as increasing child poverty rates and stronger social division. Ideas about social protection being spurring and more activating became evident, especially in the case of restricting the subjective right to childcare. By pursuing this reform, the Sipilä government disregarded the important role ECEC plays in creating social equality among children and in minimising class division (cf. Välimäki, 1999). Not only does this indicate that Finnish family policy is moving towards a more ‘hybrid’ direction, but it also suggests an ideological turn towards a leaner model of welfare, where work is the primary source of welfare, welfare services are more conditional, and income transfers become more targeted. Still, this does not necessarily imply an ideological turn to a ‘neoliberal’ model, since austerity measures can be considered economical necessities in times of acute crisis. To what extent all this actually represents an infringement of the principle of universalism and the Nordic family policy model is still hard to say, but at least the principle of selectivity has become stronger (cf. Ahrendt et al., 2015). Moreover, the government discourse was also influenced by traditional Keynesian and social investment principles, such as social equality, which became visible – for example – in the decision to leave single parents’ child benefit supplements uncut.

Second, on the basis of the conclusion above, it is clear that the government discourse used for legitimating the cutbacks contained elements from a neoliberal austerity worldview (see Table 1). Although austerity measures are not novel in the history of the Finnish welfare state and most European countries employed such measures to recover from the international financial crisis, it is striking how powerful this discourse became in the Finnish case after 2011 and how it trumped everything, including central Nordic family policy principles. The main arguments underpinning the governments’ austerity discourse were based on cognitive ideas of economic necessity and there being ‘no alternative’ to the cutbacks (cf. Schmidt, 2008; Blyth, 2013). Interestingly, the Finnish general government gross debt as a percentage of GDP at the time of the cutbacks varied between 48.5% and 63.6% (Eurostat, n.d.), which is by no means alarmingly high in international comparison. Still, these ‘no alternative’ arguments were given precedence, suggesting there were more profound, and ideological, interests at stake. Other cognitive ideas referred to how cost containment actually saves the welfare state and generates financial stability and growth in the long run, and how important it is that we all make ‘personal sacrifices’, although how this benefits families with children in the long run remains unsaid. Interestingly, the government repeatedly used arguments based on future growth and financial sustainability, although the literature on austerity politics (e.g. Blyth, 2013; O’Hara, 2014) agrees that austerity measures do not favour growth.

Third, although we cannot measure the ‘effectiveness’ of the governments’ ‘communicative’ discourse in creating political and public consent for the reforms, it seems plausible that this discourse was rather effective, especially in the way it created consent within the governments’ own ranks. Another way in which it can be seen as effective, is that it managed to frame the discussion about cutbacks in a way that was rather consistent and was based on elements of austerity discourse. Although the cutbacks were met with hard criticism not only from opposition MPs, family policy experts and partly the media, but also from experts in child welfare from the Mannerheim League for Child Welfare (Mannerheimin lastesuojeluliitto) (ÅU, 2014; HBL, 2015), the government succeeded in carrying them out. Although this need not necessarily be a problem for a united majority coalition in a Finnish parliamentary context with few veto rights, it is still problematic since unpopular reforms can punish the politicians in terms of future electoral losses (Vis, 2010). From a glance at the development of voter support for the three parties in the incumbent government, it seems as if the discourse on cutbacks has been partly successful also from the public’s point of view. Since pursuing the examined unpopular reforms, the two main parties, the Centre Party and the Conservative Kokoomus, have only suffered minor losses, while the Finns Party has lost about eight percentage points (from 17% to 9%) of its voter support since the general election of 2015 (YLE, 2016).

It seems plausible, then, to conclude that although the economic crisis was the central driver behind the cutbacks made in Finnish family policies since 2011, the communicative discourse behind the cuts was fuelled by ideas from a neoliberal austerity discourse. In the face of the crisis, the governments chose to cut back on popular welfare programmes aimed at protecting families with children. The governments pursued these highly unpopular reforms in spite of objections from other MPs, family policy experts and the media, and even in spite of the political risk it implied. What the long-term effects of these cutbacks will be is still too early to say, but they will likely have a negative effect on child poverty and undermine the level of social equality in the Finnish model of welfare.

Footnotes

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes

Author biographies

Josefine Nyby is a PhD student in social policy at Åbo Akademi University in Vaasa, Finland. Her research concerns Finnish family policy, the political discourse in this policy field, and how the Finnish family policy system has been reformed since 2010.

Mikael Nygård is Professor of social policy at the Åbo Akademi University in Vaasa, Finland. His research interests range from studies of civic participation among various groups to comparative and national analyses of welfare state reform. These research fields include a number of national and international research projects and books, book chapters and journal articles. His most recent publications include articles in Social Indicators Research and the European Journal of Disability Research.

Janne Autto is Lecturer in sociology at the University of Lapland in Rovaniemi, Finland, from which he received his PhD in 2012. His main research interests are political struggles over the welfare state and citizens’ social rights and responsibilities in the context of governmental aspirations and resistance to them.

Mikko Kuisma is a research fellow in comparative public policy, University of Tübingen, Germany. His research interests lie in the comparative politics of European welfare states, with a specific focus on welfare reform discourses in the Nordic countries; ideational analysis within new institutionalism; and populist radical right parties. His work has been published in various edited collections and journals, such as Critical Policy Studies, Public Administration and Contemporary Politics. He is the author of a forthcoming book entitled The Social Construction of Welfare: Citizenship and Nordic Welfare Capitalism in an Age of Globalization (to be published by Edward Elgar).

Sonja Blum is a Researcher and Lecturer, Institute of Political Science at the FernUniversität Hagen, Germany and Visiting Assistant Professor at the KU Leuven Public Governance Institute. Her research interests include public policy analysis, welfare states, family policy, policy learning and the science–policy interface.

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