"When the government promotes the neoliberal narrative, those who are against it are too poor to rebel, they don't have any visibility, they don't have any strength, and then it's very difficult to oppose it." The main reason that fully supports neoliberal ideology is that neoliberal ideology actually reduces expenditures in the budget and leads to the fact that our expenditures can go to something else - for the army, for the police and the like, while reducing expenditures for those who need it help and support"
At the session Assembly of Serbia it was adopted at the end of November budget for 2025 without the presence of the opposition. The sum allocated for the Ministry of Labour, Employment, Veterans and Social Affairs is about 17,1 billion higher than last year and amounts to 226,6 billion dinars. Of that money, about 125,8 billion was allocated for the rights of users in the field of family and child protection, and 465 million for supporting associations in the field of family and child protection. So, a total of almost 126,3 billion dinars. What do these increases and allocations in the budget mean?
Professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences, Dr. Natalija Perišić, in an interview for "Vreme", for starters, emphasizes that in the part where the budget was increased, and intended for the protection of families with children - which is extremely justified and important in Serbia - it can be read that The government continues to insist on implementing a pro-natal policy, simply to improve birth and fertility rates. However, as he points out, the evidence, both theoretical and empirical, shows that monetary incentives alone are not enough to improve the birth rate.
"WEATHER" How does the state deal with birth policy??
NATALIJA PERISIC: The story related to the birth rate is extremely important, but it seems to me that the Government does not pay enough attention to something else, which is the harmonization of family and professional obligations. Because it is not important for a country to have more children, but to enable parents, especially mothers, to coordinate their obligations. In that segment, the financial assistance program is not effective. Namely, there is clear evidence from world practice that says that the harmonization of professional and family obligations is most influenced by flexible forms of employment for mothers, those that will enable women with small children to work part-time, but for earnings and in safe conditions. Another factor that has a positive effect on this, apart from flexible employment, is the development or increase in the availability, quality and ultimately the financial affordability of institutions for day care of children aged up to three or up to five years.
Taking care of children from the so-called vulnerable or marginalized groups is particularly problematic, which brings us to another important matter regarding the budget and birth policy in Serbia - as many as one quarter of our children live in poverty. And the Government fails to conceive effective measures to fight against it.
We all know how repeated cycles of deprivation are and how important it is that children are not poor, because afterwards it is very difficult to get out of that vicious circle.
The natality policy, which includes financial incentives, as it was conceived in our country, actually limits those financial incentives to the first four children born, that is, there are no financial incentives for the fifth and every subsequent child born. And by leaving out children who are the fifth or sixth born, which is most often the case in Roma families, we are, in fact, leaving out the poorest ones.
Mayor Aleksandar Šapić recently stated that it did not exist "more social" city government in the last few decades from now. It is not rare when the government mentions increasing pensions and other incentives. How does it all work for you??
According to the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia, the state is responsible for ensuring the financial security of pensioners. Then, Serbia is a country of social justice, which decision-makers must adhere to. And I think that in reality the situation is completely different. We have a very wrong discourse here - the elderly are seen as a burden, as those who ask to be helped. And let's keep forgetting that, when it comes to pensioners, our system is designed so that no one is given a pension. There are countries where the basis for acquiring the right to a pension is citizenship, and everyone who reaches a certain age has that right, regardless of whether they have ever worked. In Serbia, everyone who has a pension has earned that right. They worked for at least 15 years of their lives, they paid contributions, so the pension is not a gift, it is earned.
That is why there is no question that they are a population that lives at someone else's expense. On the other hand, the average pension is only half of the average salary. Among other things, the reason for this is that in 2008 the Government abolished a provision in the then Law on Pension and Disability Insurance, which stipulated that the average pension must not fall below 60 percent of the average salary. Since then, average pensions have fallen by literally one percentage point every year regardless of increases, regardless of that helicopter money that sure comes in handy every now and then. If we talk about earning, they earn even today by performing a very large part of the so-called informal care, which includes taking care of their older partner, female partner, taking care of grandchildren, children and the like.
We simply have this conceptual problem in society, which means only employment by work. As work, we value only when someone is employed and receives a salary, and we do not value unpaid work at home, nor care, which costs a lot for families, first of all women, and on the other hand, reduces the expenses that the state has for its citizens. Simply, if you take care of your partner who is old and that partner does not get the right to financial social assistance and help in the house because you are there, you have helped the state and reduced its costs.
How to make pensioners aware of it - that no one gives them money, but that they earned it themselves?
There is something called "ageism", and that is when we treat other people unfairly based only on their years of life and "auto-ageism", self-stigmatization, self-discrimination... I think that this discourse is so imposed on pensioners that they are getting something and that it is not deserved, that they themselves began to believe that, even though it was something they earned, that someone gave it to them. In addition, when they retire, they cannot exercise their right to a pension for a very long time. Namely, it literally takes half a year until they receive any pension. All that comes later, but you live without any income for six months.
Beneficiaries of financial social assistance also have a period when they do not receive this assistance. Namely, they receive help for nine months, and then it is considered that those who are able to work for three months can do some seasonal work. Should that policy be reformed and in what direction??
Limiting the period of exercising the right to social assistance within one year applies only to able-bodied users and this is a distortion of the system. This concept of activation - a neoliberal concept that was introduced in the USA in 1996 and consisted of gradually withdrawing the right of able-bodied users of cash social assistance - has been partially implemented in our country. However, it is very problematic that this policy transfer did not take into account the contextual preconditions. Namely, when that reform was introduced in the USA, the unemployment rate was four percent. An unemployment rate of four percent means that only those who will not work really do not have a job. In Serbia, when that concept was introduced, the unemployment rate was higher than 20 percent. Now she is shorter. But, at the moment, the problem is something else - things that are happening in the background, namely, today you don't have such a high unemployment rate, but inactivity. You're unemployed if you don't have a job and you're not actively looking for one, but if you don't have a job and you're completely discouraged, because you've been looking for one for years and haven't been able to find it or you're not able to, you have a small child to take care of, old parents, then you go to inactive population, not the unemployed.
It's a big game of our government - when they show us how low the unemployment rate is, but they don't tell us what the inactivity rate is. In 2004, the right for working-age beneficiaries of cash social assistance was limited to nine months, and the remaining three months were required to be activated. However, according to the Law from 2004, it was not possible to activate them, because the regulation was not enough, but it was necessary to pass a by-law. It was adopted only in 2012. Then the non-governmental sector rebelled and said that this is not activation, nor voluntary work, but forced, and that is against the Serbian Constitution. Then they referred it to the Constitutional Court, and in October 2022 the Constitutional Court determined that it was an unconstitutional provision, as some provisions of the Law on Social Protection were repealed in the meantime, so it is not in accordance with it. For exactly 20 years, we have had working-age social assistance beneficiaries who are not entitled to it for three months of the year, and no one knows what to do with them during those three months.
You mentioned the neoliberal narrative. Where did he come from and what is the essence of the problem regarding him?
The neoliberal narrative has flooded the planet and Serbia is no exception. It implies that everyone is responsible for themselves, and I think it is very important that it is easy to understand, and people like simple explanations. However, the explanation here is not at all simple. I believe that people do not have choices as they are presented to have them, that the game in society is extremely unfair even though it is said to be fair. When the government promotes the neoliberal narrative, those who are against it are too poor to rebel, they don't have any visibility, they don't have any strength and then it is very difficult to oppose it. The main reason that fully supports neoliberal ideology is that neoliberal ideology actually reduces expenditures in the budget and leads to the fact that our expenditures can go to something else - for the army, for the police and the like, while reducing expenditures for those who need it help and support.
What do you think?, what is the current state of our social and economic rights?
Social policy as such arose essentially as a result of the struggle of labor movements for their rights. Without labor movements, without workers, without labor legislation, there is no social policy. In Serbia today, you don't have workers or you have workers who are fighting for a bare existence and who can't organize themselves, who no longer trust unions, who are completely powerless. In other words: you have no social policy. The basis of social policy has disappeared. Interests have changed, so have the groups affected by social policy; not only on workers, but also on women, on people with disabilities, on migrants... But the question is whether these groups can now create, cultivate solidarity within themselves in order to act homogeneously enough, to be able to influence the government to exercise their rights. Women have become a powerful group, disabled people too, there are those who advocate the rights of migrants, but we don't have the impression that things have changed much. Women are still underemployed, with an existing gender gap in earnings. They still do most of the informal economy, they take care of family members. I don't have the impression that they manage to realize their rights, that is, if they manage to fight for some change at the level of the law, that law is difficult to implement and very quickly begins to be reconsidered. Like the implementation of the Gender Sensitive Language Act because, as some say, it violates traditional values. And I think that traditional values are violated much more when a man kills a woman and when he commits violence than gender-sensitive language. What Branko Miljković would say: "Kill me with too strong a word".
Which country is a good example in the world when it comes to social policy?
These are countries that are social democratic, that have a strong understanding that the so-called social contract needs to be such that people take care of each other. These are Scandinavian countries and, unfortunately, recipes that cannot work here. But I think that some things adapted to our context can work with us, which can be taken from their context and adapted according to our needs. For example, volunteering is one way of creating intergenerational connection or solidarity. It really doesn't cost you anything to encourage volunteering in society and to encourage young people to do things for their elderly fellow citizens. It is necessary to work on developing social cohesion in Serbia and on valuing each individual. In the last case, it is also one of the mottos, goals of sustainable development - we will not leave anyone out, we will not leave anyone aside, all people should be included in the benefits of our development. If we are already talking about how high our gross social product is and how we are an economic tiger and how well we are developing, then no one should be left out of the consequences of our development.
Less than two days of blockade - that's how long it took to see how weak and powerless the public media service is, both from the outside and from the inside. At the moment of writing this text, it is the eighth day of the blockade, and the sixth that RTS is not broadcasting its program. They also seem to be facing a strike inside the house. And the essence of blocking RTS is not in what it publishes, but in what it keeps silent
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The rector of the University of Belgrade, Vladan Đokić, has been the target of top state officials and regime tabloids for months, who label him as an insidious instigator of student protests, an opportunist, "the face of evil" and "the leader of the criminal octopus." How and why a rector became "state enemy number one"
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The brutal beating of students and citizens in Novi Sad shows that the regime is not only ready to take revenge - it is actually carrying it out
If in reality the principle of balance is violated - the way the incompetent regime violated the relationship between the concrete elements at the Novi Sad Railway Station - reality will behave like a canopy: it will fail to obey
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