Event

On July 20, Marius Busemeyer will be our guest at Fraunhofer ISI with his lecture "Consequences of digitalization for education systems and the welfare state: What is the citizen's view?"

The ISI lecture series bundles exciting topics from the Fraunhofer ISI portfolio and offers opportunities for discussion and exchange at regular intervals.

Abstract

Digitalization is likely to have a lasting impact on work, welfare, health, education, and the income distribution. It will radically transform not only social risks but also the means by which these are addressed. Much research has been done on the effects of digitalization on labor markets, but its impact on the welfare state and education remains less well understood. In this talk, I want to provide some theoretical perspectives on how and why digitalization affects both welfare state policies as well as the politics underlying it. I also present major findings from a number of recent studies conducted in my working group on the link between technological change and individual preferences on social and education policies. One central finding is that individuals who perceive themselves to be at high risk due to digitalization and automation primarily demand compensation from the welfare state and are less supportive of increasing investments in education and research, even though the latter is often recommended as public policy response from experts. This finding highlights the complexities of the new politics of tech change in the welfare state, which I will elaborate on in the talk.

About

Marius Busemeyer

Marius Busemeyer is a Professor of Political Science with a focus on Comparative Political Economy in the Department of Politics and Public Administration and also the Speaker for the Excellence Cluster "The Politics of Inequality" at the University of Konstanz. In addition, he is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Economic and Social Research (WSI, Düsseldorf). His research focuses on comparative political economy and the welfare state, education and social policy, theories of institutional change as well as public opinion and individual attitudes to the welfare state.