Weathering the storm : convergence, divergence and the robustness of the 'Worlds of welfare'.

Abstract

Esping-Andersen's 'three worlds of welfare' typology has been the subject of an intensive and unrelenting academic debate for the past decade. This debate has been fairly extensive in its, overwhelmingly negative, evaluation but it has ignored what is arguably the most important aspect of the assessment of the typology: its robustness and validity over time. This paper provides such an assessment by presenting an updated version of Esping-Andersen's decommodification index. It compares the new index with Esping-Andersen's original and uses it to judge both the continuing validity of the 'three worlds of welfare' and broader theories that have been circulated about the convergence of welfare states.