The Worlds of Global Welfare

• In Event: 4432 - Welfare State Origin and Expansion

Abstract

This paper contributes to the welfare regimes literature, by illustrating that there are three overarching global “Worlds of Welfare.” The expanding “Three Worlds” literature has suffered from a number of drawbacks: (i) It is radically slanted towards OECD countries, (ii) a few globalist studies does not compare OECD and non-OECD countries, focusing only on geographical/cultural clusters and (iii) the globalist literature does not use welfare policy variables but development variables. All these have undermined the possibility of reaching a global theory of the welfare state. To address these challenges, we introduce a novel dataset that contains welfare policy variables which represent the most important decommodification components such as pensions, unemployment schemes, sickness benefits and healthcare. Additionally, we utilize social assistance as a crucial fifth component of decommodification. We conducted a cluster analysis on 52 countries from the Global North and South, with values circa 2013. Our analysis reveals three global welfare regimes: emerging markets-Mediterranean-Post-Communist: Social security benefits are above average while social assistance benefits are below. These countries are developing extensive social assistance programs but still based on already developed social security systems. European Regime: Both social security and social assistance benefits are above average. These countries have extensive social security and assistance systems. Less developed emerging markets and other: These countries have lower-than-average social security and social assistance benefits. But they still perform moderately well in terms of social assistance benefits.

Authors

• Erdem Yoruk, Koc University

• Ibrahim Oker, University of Minnesota