Welfare state boosts national psyche, claims London-Warwick report

A strong welfare state delivers “substantial psychological gains” to the population, a joint study by City, University of London, and the University of Warwick has found.

The study, the first of its kind, was conducted by Dr Lucía Macchia, a Lecturer in Psychology at City, University of London, and Andrew Oswald, a Professor of Economics and Behavioural Science at the University of Warwick.

Published in March, it used data from 280,000 randomly sampled citizens across fourteen European nations, including the United Kingdom, collected between 2005 and 2022.

This information was used to calculate a level of ‘national worry’ for every nation, based on the responses of those sampled.

It determined that approximately 40% of citizens in Western Europe now report high levels of worry, an increase of almost 10% over the last decade.

We have found that something foundational, and currently not understood, appears to be going wrong within Western society

Dr Lucía Macchia, City, University of London

Crucially, the paper noted that increases in national worry seem most likely to occur when nations cut their social spending.

It highlighted in particular worry trends for the United Kingdom, which experienced the fastest growth in worry levels from 2010 to 2019.

The period coincides with the programme of austerity implemented by the Coalition government from 2010 onwards, which saw substantial cuts to social spending.

The paper pointed out that the United Kingdom has experienced the most substantial decline in social spending across all European nations examined in the study, and suggested that this had contributed towards the national worry increase.

However, the study further observed that more broadly there had been a “gradual secular rise in national worry” across the board.

Though this trend was exacerbated by major international events, including the Covid-19 pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the recent conflict in Gaza, the paper concluded that researchers could not conclude what was responsible for the underlying annual increase.

Dr Lucía Macchia said that the phenomenon documented in the paper was “perplexing and troubling” when considering that Western European nations “were some of the most prosperous and safest [societies] in history”.

She added: “We have found that something foundational, and currently not understood, appears to be going wrong within Western society.”

The welfare state appears to have remarkable psychological value – including for those who do not use it – in a way that I suspect is not completely understood

Professor Andrew Oswald, University of Warwick

Both Dr Macchia and Oswald also noted that the paper seems to support the beliefs of William Beveridge, a British Liberal economist and politician, whose 1942 Beveridge Report was instrumental in the formation of the welfare state.

Professor Oswald concluded that government social spending serves as “a protective mental buffer against worry”.

He said: “The welfare state appears to have remarkable psychological value – including for those who do not use it – in a way that I suspect is not completely understood, although I am prepared to bet that William Beveridge understood it.”