Work · Sociology & Social Theory
The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism
Compares eighteen rich democracies by how far social rights free people from the market and how social policy shapes stratification, and groups them into liberal, conservative and social-democratic regimes formed by different historical class coalitions.
Introduction
Esping-Andersen published “The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism” in 1990 with Polity Press in Cambridge and Princeton University Press. The introduction announces that, inspired by Karl Polanyi, social rights will be judged by their capacity for “de-commodification”. Chapter 2 traces the commodification of labour power with reference to Marx and Polanyi and builds an index of de-commodification from pensions, sickness and unemployment insurance around 1980; chapter 3 treats the welfare state as a system of stratification. Later chapters examine how the regimes shape labour markets and postindustrial employment, with Sweden, Germany and the United States as main cases. The book became a standard reference of social policy research and started a long debate on the number of welfare regimes and on their gender bias.
Connections
Builds on
- The Great Transformation1944 · Karl Polanyi
Taken up in
- The Incomplete Revolution: Adapting to Women’s New Roles2009 · Gøsta Esping-Andersen
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