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Measuring Welfare State Performance: Three or Two Worlds of Welfare Capitalism?

Author

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  • Cok Vrooman
  • Paul de Beer
  • Jean Marie Wildeboer Schut

Abstract

This paper examines the well-known classification of welfare regimes by Esping- Andersen (1990). First, the institutional characteristics of eleven welfare states are examined by means of a principal components analysis. This analysis confirms the existence of three types of welfare state, viz. the liberal welfare state (USA, Australia, United Kingdom and Canada), the social-democratic welfare state (Sweden, Denmark, Norway) and the corporatist welfare state (Germany, Belgium, France). The Netherlands, however, turns out to be a hybrid kind of welfare state, somewhere in between the social democratic and the corporatist welfare states. Next, we examine whether these three types of welfare state correspond to a threefold classification in terms of the traditional protective functions of the welfare state. By using LIS-data from the first half of the 1990s we compare eleven welfare states with respect to the degree of income leveling by the social security and tax system, the rate of inequality of disposable household incomes, the level of social welfare (interpreted as a combination of income level and income equality) and the poverty rate. We find that there is indeed a clear dividing line between the liberal welfare states on the one hand and the social-democratic and corporatist welfare states on the other. The liberal welfare states perform consistently worse on the indicators for income leveling, income (in)equality and poverty, but not with respect to the level of social welfare. There is however no consistent difference in performance between the social-democratic countries and the corporatist countries. There rather seems to be a combined group of continental European countries, existing of both social-democratic and corporatist welfare states and the hybrid Netherlands, that achieve roughly comparable results in terms of income protection by using quite different institutions. Hence, although there are indeed three types of welfare state as far as institutional arrangements are concerned, it is better to discern only two types of welfare state with respect to income (re)distribution, social welfare en poverty.

Suggested Citation

  • Cok Vrooman & Paul de Beer & Jean Marie Wildeboer Schut, 2001. "Measuring Welfare State Performance: Three or Two Worlds of Welfare Capitalism?," LIS Working papers 276, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    • Handle: RePEc:lis:liswps:276
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Cecilia Garcia-Penalosa & Eve Caroli & Philippe Aghion, 1999. "Inequality and Economic Growth: The Perspective of the New Growth Theories," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(4), pages 1615-1660, December.
    2. repec:dau:papers:123456789/10091 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Esping-Andersen, Gosta, 1999. "Social Foundations of Postindustrial Economies," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198742005.
    4. Atkinson, Anthony B., 1970. "On the measurement of inequality," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 244-263, September.
    5. A. B. Atkinson, 1999. "The Economic Consequences of Rolling Back the Welfare State," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262011719, April.
    6. repec:bla:revinw:v:34:y:1988:i:2:p:115-42 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Perotti, Roberto, 1996. "Growth, Income Distribution, and Democracy: What the Data Say," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 149-187, June.
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    Cited by:

    1. Cok Vrooman, 2009. "Poverty and Institutional Regimes A Generalised Budget Approach in 11 Countries," LIS Working papers 518, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    2. Robin Samuel & Andreas Hadjar, 2016. "How Welfare-State Regimes Shape Subjective Well-Being Across Europe," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 129(2), pages 565-587, November.
    3. Bjarne Jansson & Jahangir Khan, 2006. "Redistributive Outcome of Sickness Insurance - An Empirical Study of Social Insurance Institutions," LIS Working papers 442, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    4. Hans-Jürgen Burchardt & Nico Weinmann, 2012. "Social Inequality and Social Policy outside the OECD: A New Research Perspective on Latin America," ICDD Working Papers 5, University of Kassel, Fachbereich Gesellschaftswissenschaften (Social Sciences), Internatioanl Center for Development and Decent Work (ICDD).

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