Health Status and the Worlds of Welfare

One of the most substantial additions made by the ‘three worlds of welfare’ thesis to the welfare state modelling business is that comparisons should examine what welfare states actually do rather than how much they are afforded or which services they provide. This paper extends this basic principle by comparing the health outcomes (measured in terms of infant mortality rates) of welfare states and welfare state regimes. It examines whether there are significant differences in health status between the ‘three worlds of welfare’ and to what extent a relationship exists between health and decommodification. It concludes by reflecting upon the implications for the ‘three worlds of welfare’.

[1]  Anette Borchorst.  Welfare State Regimes, Women's Interests and the EC , 1994 .

[2]  M. Ferrera,et al.  The 'Southern Model' of Welfare in Social Europe , 1996 .

[3]  W. Korpi,et al.  The Paradox of Redistribution and Strategies of Equality: Welfare State Institutions, Inequality and Poverty in the Western Countries , 1998 .

[4]  M. Daly.  Comparing Welfare States: Towards a Gender Friendly Approach , 1994 .

[5]  Clare Bambra,et al.  The worlds of welfare: illusory and gender blind? , 2004, Social Policy and Society.

[6]  M. Kautto.  Investing in services in West European welfare states , 2002 .

[7]  Charles C. Ragin,et al.  The Comparative Political Economy of the Welfare State: A qualitative comparative analysis of pension systems , 1994 .

[8]  P. Abrahamson.  The Welfare Modelling Business , 1999 .

[9]  N. Pendleton.  Book Review: Inequalities in Health: The Black Report and the Health Divide , 1993 .

[10]  J. Lewis.  Gender and the Development of Welfare Regimes , 1992 .

[11]  Clare Bambra,et al.  Cash Versus Services: ‘Worlds of Welfare’ and the Decommodification of Cash Benefits and Health Care Services , 2005, Journal of Social Policy.

[12]  M. Shalev.  The privatization of social policy? : occupational welfare and the welfare state in America, Scandinavia and Japan , 1997 .

[13]  O. Kangas,et al.  The Comparative Political Economy of the Welfare State: The politics of social security: on regressions, qualitative comparisons, and cluster analysis , 1994 .

[14]  D. Vågerö,et al.  Socioeconomic inequalities in morbidity and mortality in western Europe , 1997, The Lancet.

[15]  C. Muntaner,et al.  The Importance of the Political and the Social in Explaining Mortality Differentials among the Countries of the OECD, 1950–1998 , 2003, International journal of health services : planning, administration, evaluation.

[16]  H. Fawcett,et al.  Social exclusion, social citizenship and de‐commodification: An evaluation of the adequacy of support for the unemployed in the European Union , 1997 .

[17]  A. Orloff,et al.  Gender and the Social Rights of Citizenship: The Comparative Analysis of Gender Relations and Welfare States , 1993 .

[18]  J. Hart.  Inequalities in Health, The Black Report , 1983 .

[19]  D. Coburn.  Beyond the income inequality hypothesis: class, neo-liberalism, and health inequalities. , 2004, Social science & medicine.

[20]  S. Montgomery,et al.  Education and debate , 1997 .

[21]  I. Howe.  Beyond the welfare state , 1982 .

[22]  C. Bambra.  Worlds of Welfare and the Health Care Discrepancy , 2005, Social Policy and Society.

[23]  W. Korpi.  Luxembourg Income Study Working Paper No. 224 Faces of Inequality: Gender, Class and Patterns of Inequalities in Different Types of Welfare States , 2022 .

[24]  I. Kawachi,et al.  Social capital, income inequality, and mortality. , 1997, American journal of public health.

[25]  J. Mackenbach,et al.  Socioeconomic inequalities in mortality among women and among men: an international study. , 1999, American journal of public health.

[26]  Stephan Leibfried,et al.  Towards a European welfare state , 2002 .

[27]  G. Esping‐Andersen,et al.  The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism , 1990 .

[28]  D. Sainsbury.  Gender, Policy Regimes, and Politics , 1999 .

[29]  C. Murray,et al.  A critical examination of summary measures of population health. , 2000, Bulletin of the World Health Organization.

[30]  D. Sainsbury.  Gendering welfare states , 1994 .

[31]  R. Goodin,et al.  The Real Worlds of Welfare Capitalism , 1999 .

[32]  F. Castles.  Families of nations : patterns of public policy in Western democracies , 1993 .

[33]  G. Therborn.  Welfare States and Capitalist Markets , 1987, Welfare Law.

[34]  C. Bambra.  Research Note: Decommodification and the worlds of welfare revisited , 2006 .

[35]  D. Raphael,et al.  The welfare state as a determinant of women's health: support for women's quality of life in Canada and four comparison nations. , 2004, Health policy.

[36]  E. Howell,et al.  International infant mortality rates: bias from reporting differences. , 1994, American journal of public health.

[37]  G. Kasza.  The Illusion of Welfare ‘Regimes’ , 2002, Journal of Social Policy.

[38]  R. Wilkinson.  Unhealthy Societies: The Afflictions of Inequality , 1996 .

[39]  C. Mathers,et al.  Infant mortality rate as an indicator of population health , 2003, Journal of epidemiology and community health.

[40]  G. Bonoli.  Classifying Welfare States: a Two-dimension Approach , 1997, Journal of Social Policy.