Thirty years of theThree Worlds of Welfare Capitalism: A review of reviews

Abstract

In the thirty or so years since the publication of Gosta Esping-Andersen's 'Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism' a number of rival welfare state typologies have emerged. This article has two broad aims. First, we review the reviews of welfare state typologies, pointing to issues of often unclear case selection, and a wide range of concepts, variables and methods, resulting in a variety of worlds of welfare and their constituent nations. We show that there is a great variety in the welfare modelling business at two different levels. Reviews vary significantly in terms of the number and composition of included studies, which has made it difficult to sum up the 'state of the art'. Individual studies included in the reviews also vary significantly in terms of issues such as aims, concepts, variables and methods. Second, we produce a new review, which adds value as it is based on a clearer search strategy, and includes more recent material that was not available in earlier reviews. This finds that there is a great variety in terms of process (concepts, variables, methods, number of countries)) and findings (the number and composition of 'worlds'). We argue that the country classification seems to show less consensus that previous reviews, with fewer 'pure' nations (ie agreement between studies). We suggest that, in order to provide a clear point of engagement, future reviews need to pay more attention to a clear and explicit search strategy, including issues such as inclusion criteria.

Classifications of health care systems: Do existing typologies reflect the particularities of the Global South?

“…Even though systematic literature reviews are more frequent in the field of public health (e.g. epidemiology) than in social policy, using a rigorous means of identifying relevant typological scholarship (a) allows the identification of leading publications; (b) allows replication; and (c) provides a good overview of case selection, concepts, variables and methods (Powell et al, 2020). The method, however, is not without limitations.…”

Taking subnational and regional welfare states seriously: Insights from the Quebec case

“…An abundant literature has criticized and built on Esping-Andersen’s (1990) three-world typology (e.g. Bonoli, 1997; Powell et al, 2020; Scruggs and Allan, 2006). We argue that subnational welfare state regimes have been largely ignored within this comparative literature.…”

“…Most scholars have followed Esping-Andersen’s (1990) lead and overlooked subnational welfare states. For instance, the 21 reviews included in a ‘review of reviews’ (Powell et al, 2020) focus exclusively on the national level. If central/federal governments set the main parameters of welfare state regimes for comparative scholars, then subnational governments are irrelevant and even literally invisible (Ciccia and Javornik, 2019; Greer et al, 2015).…”

Editorial: managing health and social care after covid: what works and who decides?

“…Many typologies have been developed to categorize different approaches to managing health and social care (Powell, Yörük, and Bargu 2020). The most famous typology, introduced by Gosta Esping-Andersen (1990) in Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, distinguished three different regimes.…”