The Development Of European Social Welfare System Under The Background Of Financial Crisis And Its Enlightenment To China

In1945, the British Labor government approved the Beveridge’s report social security and related services and conducted a comprehensive social welfare reform. To1948, the British built a modern social welfare system and became the first "welfare state" in the world, since then, the other European countries have also built "welfare states" consecutively, thus, the development of European social welfare system has entered a new phase. The success of "Welfare state" Europe has brought European countries a long period of rapid economic development after the Second World War, during this period, democratic socialist welfare ideology prevailed, the representative of the theory Keynes emphasized state intervention in the economy, that is, through the implementation of inflation and expanding fiscal spending to stimulate social investment and consumption demand, so as to increase employment and to overcome the economic crisis. However, with the emergence of capitalist economic crisis in1970s and1980s,"welfare state" has encountered unprecedented difficulties, including the decrease of its revenues or even deficit, high unemployment rate, increasing aging population. The crisis in1970s and1980s made liberalism debut, neo-liberal emphasis on individual freedom and go against state intervention, they thought the government took control of personal freedom through welfare provision, which caters to the reform policies of many European countries. As the crisis subsides, European "welfare state" has entered a relatively stable period of development. However, since the beginning of the1990s, with the Soviet Union breakdown, Eastern Europe reform, the acceleration of the globalization process, as well as scientific and technological revolution and the advent of knowledge economy, European "welfare state" once again got in trouble, the "third way" thinking arose in this background, and aimed to find a balance between the traditional state intervention and the neo-liberalism and built "middle" value system, leading a suitable road for social development. In the21st century, the global financial crisis triggered by the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis, once again made the European welfare state in crisis and its welfare system problems also emerged during this crisis.The research on the problems of the European welfare system of the welfare state exposed in the crisis and its solution will have positive influence on the development of China’s social security system which is still at the initial stage.