Abstract
Raţ takes up the task of unfolding how the workings of social policies put forth pathways of (re)commodification and adverse inclusion that reinforce participation in productive work without relieving it from precariousness and insecurity. While neoliberal policies across the globe typically feature this dynamic, the situation of Roma workers residing in severely deprived and marginalized areas is illustrative for Eastern Europe, given the historical persistence of societal divisions even under self-declared communist rule and their rapid deepening after the political regime change in 1989. The author shows how the relation between social policies and social inequalities can become particularly twisted when the disadvantaged disproportionately belong to a heavily prejudiced ethnic minority, such as the Roma.
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Notes
- 1.
The Opinion of the European Commission on the Membership Request of Romania, Accessed June 5, 2011. http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/archives/pdf/dwn/opinions/romania/ro-op_en.pdf
- 2.
“We consider to be poor those individuals, families, and groups whose resources (material, cultural and social) are so limited as to exclude them from a minimum acceptable way of life in the member state in which they live” (85/8/EEC: Council Decision of 19 December 1984 on specific Community action to combat poverty).
- 3.
The first National Action Plan to Combat Poverty and Promote Social Inclusion was adopted by governmental decision No. 829/31.07.2002, and it explicitly mentions compliance with the EU recommendations following Lisbon 2000. The strategy lists the Roma minority among the vulnerable categories at risk of poverty and social exclusion, along with persons with disabilities and children in remote rural areas.
- 4.
The Strategy of the Romanian Government for Improving the Situation of the Roma. 2001. Bucharest: Ministry of Public Information.
- 5.
The European Platform for Roma Inclusion. Accessed May 25, 2016. http://ec.europa.eu/justice/discrimination/roma/roma-platform/index_en.htm
- 6.
Law 65/1995 on means-tested social assistance benefits.
- 7.
Law 416/2001 on the Guaranteed Minimum Income.
- 8.
At the time of writing (May 2017), the government issued new legislation that combines the three main forms of social assistance benefits (GMI, family allowance, and heating subsidy) into one benefit. Conditionings on “activation” remained in place.
- 9.
All families receiving GMI should assign a family member to undertake community work depending on the amount of the benefit, but not more than 72 hours per week. Persons caring for children below the age of seven or ill and frail family members had been exempted from this rule (Law 416/2001).
- 10.
Law 277/2010 on the means-tested allowance for needy families with children reformed earlier legistation on this provision introduced by governmental executive order O.U.G. 105/2003.
- 11.
Law 92/2011 on Social Assistance.
- 12.
The new social-liberal coalition government hijacked the parliamentary debate on the emergency ordinance OUG 124/2012 designed by the former democratic-liberal government in order to considerably alter its text to transform it into the new Law 166/2012, which stated explicitly that the amount of the means-tested family allowance (Law 277/2010) should be imputed from GMI. This allowed the acceleration of an otherwise lengthy process of issuing a novel emergency ordinance and waiting for it to be endorsed as a law by Parliament. These changes occurred in the last quarter of 2012, shortly after we completed our fieldwork.
- 13.
OUG 25/2015 allowed cumulating earnings from day-labour (Law 52/2011) with social assistance benefits granted under the GMI scheme.
- 14.
See the platform of the Basic Income European Network, founded in 1986, Accessed October 1, 2016. http://basicincome.org/research/basic-income-studies/
- 15.
The threshold of being at risk of poverty and social exclusion, set at 60% of the median household income per equivalent adult, OECD-2 equivalence scale (Eurostat 2016).
- 16.
The pilot project was carried out by the Ovidiu Ro foundation, mainly in rural areas, with the co-financing from the 2014 European Economic Area grant from Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein. The text of the law refers to the success of this programme (Law 248/2015). See the Ovidiu Ro Foundation, Accessed September 1, 2016. http://www.ovid.ro/en/our-work/programul-fcg/
- 17.
Heating allowance is regulated by the government’s executive order O.U.G. 70/2011.
- 18.
The first regulation on means-tested allowance for needy families with children consisted of the governmental executive order O.U.G. 105/2003. From the very beginning, it granted higher amounts for de facto single-parent families.
- 19.
The birth grant was introduced by the very same law (416/2001) as the GMI programme.
- 20.
The initial version of the new fiscal code was introduced by Law 571/2003. Subsequent modifications maintained the limit of four dependent persons for computing tax reliefs for low-income employees.
- 21.
Paid child care leave was introduced by Law 120/1997, and it limited the benefit for the first three children.
- 22.
“The essence of the welfare state is government-protected minimum standards of income, nutrition, health and safety, education, and housing assured to every citizen as a social right, and not as charity” (Wilenski 1964: XII).
- 23.
Local welfare offices ought to report and comply to regular audits of the county-level Agency for Welfare Payments and Social Inspection, established in 2008 under the Ministry of Labour.
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Raț, C. (2019). Social Citizenship at the Margins. In: Vincze, E., Petrovici, N., Raț, C., Picker, G. (eds) Racialized Labour in Romania. Neighborhoods, Communities, and Urban Marginality. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76273-9_4
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