Labour and Citizenship: The Development of Welfare State Regimes

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper is concerned with the political determinants of the significantly different rates of welfare expenditure which characterise advanced capitalist countries. The research concentrates on the connections between the organization and mobilization of a key political actor pursing social wage benefits – the labour movement – and different levels across nations of welfare provision, including expenditure on health, social security consumption expenditure and social security transfers. The paper uses disaggregated, pooled time series data on welfare provision in 15 OECD countries, 1974–1988, to test the association between more comprehensive welfare state regimes and state structures that facilitate the intervention of organized labour movements in the policy process.