This chapter investigates whether and in what ways European governments departed from the austerity-dominated paradigm of welfare reform after 2014. It explores the direction of change and relative coherence between the functions of social protection, activation, and capacitation, in twelve European countries, in 2015–2019. Drawing on data from national legislation, social policy reform is tracked across the life-course arenas of family policies and work–care reconciliation, lifelong education, employment, and retirement, distinguishing between regressive/exclusionary and progressive/inclusive adaptations. Overall, we observe welfare expansion and recalibration towards more integrated social investment policy mixes, especially regarding lifelong education and gender-balanced activation. This includes countries which had pursued austerity up to 2014. Nevertheless, significant cross-country variation remains in the extent to which policies have been aligned, with some pursuing a ‘synergy-oriented’ approach and others more ambivalent reform trajectories. A minority of cases remained skewed towards transfer retrenchment and deregulatory labour market flexibilization.
