Welfare State Transformations and Inequality in Oecd Countries

This book analyzes how recent welfare state transformations across advanced democracies have shaped social and economic disparities. The authors observe a trend from a compensatory paradigm towards supply oriented social policy, and investigate how this phenomenon is linked to distributional outcomes. How- and how much- have changes in core social policy fields alleviated or strengthened different dimensions of inequality? The authors argue that while the market has been the major cause of increasing net inequalities, the trend towards supply orientation in most social policy fields has further contributed to social inequality. The authors work from sociological and political science perspectives, examining all of the main branches of the welfare state, from health, education and tax policy, to labour market, pension and migration policy. This edited volume will appeal to students and scholars across the Social Sciences, and to social policy practitioners and policy-makers. 

Melike Wulfgramm is Assistant Professor at the Centre for Welfare State Research, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark.

Tonia Bieber is Senior Researcher at the Kolleg-Forschergruppe ‘Transformative Power of Europe’ of the Otto-Suhr-Institute, Free University of Berlin, Germany.

Stephan Leibfried is Research Professor for Public Policy at the University of Bremen, Germany.