The Real Worlds of Welfare Capitalism

This book traces how individuals fare over time in each of the three principal types of welfare state.

The Real Worlds of Welfare Capitalism traces how individuals fare over time in each of the three principal types of welfare state. Through a unique analysis of panel data from Germany, the Netherlands and the US, tracking individuals' socio-economic fate over fully ten years, Goodin, Headey, Muffels and Dirven explore issues of economic growth and efficiency, of poverty and inequality, of social integration and social autonomy. It is common to talk of the inevitability of tradeoffs between these goals. However, in this book the authors contend that the social democratic welfare regime, represented here by the Netherlands, equals or exceeds the performance of the corporatist German regime and the liberal US regime across all these social and economic objectives. They thus argue that, whatever one's priorities, the social democratic welfare regime is uniquely well-suited to realizing them.

Preface; Acknowledgments; 1. Introduction; Part I. Setting the Scene: 2. Reasons for welfare; 3. Alternative institutional designs; 4. National embodiments; 5. Background expectations; 6. Testing the theories with panels; Part II. One Standard of Success: External Moral Criteria: 7. Promoting efficiency; 8. Reducing poverty; 9. Promoting equality; 10. Promoting integration; 11. Promoting stability; 12. Promoting autonomy; Part III. Another Standard of Success: Internal Institutional Criteria: 13. The United States as a liberal welfare regime; 14. The Netherlands as a social democratic welfare regime; 15. Germany as a corporatist welfare regime; 16. Conclusions; Appendix tables; References; Index.

This book traces how individuals have fared over ten years in each of the three principal types of welfare state. The authors argue that the social democratic welfare regime of the Netherlands outperforms the corporatist German regime and the liberal US regime on a range of measures.