COVID-19 and policies for care homes in the first wave of the pandemic in European welfare states: Too little, too late?

This article examines COVID-19 and residential care for older people during the first wave of the pandemic in 2020, comparing a range of countries - Denmark, England, Germany, Italy and Spain - to identify the policy approaches taken to the virus in care homes and set these in institutional and policy context. Pandemic policies towards care homes are compared in terms of lockdown, testing and the supply of personal protective equipment. The comparative analysis shows a clear cross-national clustering: Denmark and Germany group together by virtue of the proactive approach adopted, whereas England, Italy and Spain had major weaknesses resulting in delayed and generally inadequate responses. The article goes on to show that these outcomes and country clustering are embedded in particular long-term care (LTC) policy systems. The factors that we highlight as especially important in differentiating the countries are the resourcing of the sector, the regulation of LTC and care homes, and the degree of vertical (and to a lesser extent horizontal) coordination in the sector and between it and the health sector.

The Impact of COVID-19 on Nursing Homes in Italy: The Case of Lombardy.

Italy was the first western country strongly hit by the COVID-19 outbreak. This Perspective focuses on the large number of deaths that occurred in nursing homes during the first wave of the pandemic, and the weak capacity of public policy to provide them with adequate protection. The analysis focuses on the case of the Lombardy Region, where the mortality rate due to COVID-19 in nursing homes was the highest in Europe. In the search for possible causes, we investigate the situation of such facilities before the pandemic. Two aspects are analyzed: their institutional embeddedness and recent trends in their management. We conclude by arguing that the negative impact of COVID-19 stems from the poor development of long-term care policy and from the marginality of residential institutions within the healthcare system.

New Measures of Economic Insecurity Reveal its Expansion Into EU Middle Classes and Welfare States.

Economic instability, social changes, and new social policies place economic insecurity high on the scholarly and political agenda. We contribute to these debates by proposing a new multidimensional, intertemporal measure of economic insecurity that accounts for both its multiplicity and its dynamism. First, we develop three theory-driven, multidimensional measures of economic insecurity. Principal Components Analysis validates the measure. Second, we develop a dynamic approach to insecurity, using longitudinal data and a newly revised headcount method. Third, we then use our new measures to analyze the distribution of insecurity in Europe. Our analysis shows that insecurity is widespread across Europe, even in low-inequality, encompassing welfare states. Moreover, it extends across income groups and occupational classes, reaching into the middle classes.