Social Welfare Regimes

Social welfare refers to the various forms of social service provision provided by a state for the benefit of its citizens. Social welfare regimes usually refer to an institutional combination of market, state, and family forms concerned with the generation of specific welfare outcomes. Social welfare regimes—and the complex forms these take at any specific time—differ greatly from country to country and are subject to historical change. Add in the complex nature of each individual regime at any given historical moment, and the task of offering a concise yet detailed explanation of welfare regimes becomes even more difficult. To this end, this entry uses short typologies to portray some general trends. Whilst the use of typologies can lack nuance, they can allow one to gain ...