ESPAnet 2025 Annual Conference
The ESPAnet 2025 annual conference explored welfare experiences in the stream “Welfare State Experiences”, chaired by Ben Grieger, Paulus Wagner, and Triin Lauri. The stream featured four presentations drawing on findings from Work Package 1 (WP1) of the project. These contributions shed light on how welfare states are experienced on the ground, both in terms of policy design and in the lived realities of those navigating benefit systems.
The presentations included:
- “How does it feel to claim welfare benefits in Hungary?” by Zs. Villányi and A. Győry.
- “Between Design and Delivery: Welfare State Experiences of Receiving Benefits in Estonia” by K. Pall, T. Lauri, and E. Rikmann.
- “Why do we need yet another theoretical framework on ‘welfare experiences’?” by T. Sundberg.
- “The Varied Emotional Lives of Welfare Experiences: Toward an Experience-Centred Comparative Approach through the Cases of the UK and Spanish Benefit Systems” by S. L. del Río and V. Paez-Izquierdo.
Together, these presentations offered comparative and theoretical perspectives on welfare experiences across different contexts, highlighting both the challenges and the possibilities of studying the welfare state through the lens of citizens’ lived realities.
The ESPAnet annual conference “The Welfare State in the 21st Century. On the Edge of a New Era or Back to Basics?”, brought together scholars to reflect on the transformations and challenges facing advanced welfare states today. In the 21st century, welfare systems are facing global short-term, intense and acute challenges leading to increased social and welfare polarization across Europe.
