TY - JOUR
T1 - Worlds of Welfare Capitalism and Wellbeing: A Multilevel Analysis
AU - Deeming, C
AU - Hayes, DA
PY - 2012/10
Y1 - 2012/10
N2 - Social scientists in the comparative policy tradition have long argued that welfare systems in modern capitalist societies can be broken down into ideal types. The idea of different worlds of welfare capitalism has an enduring appeal and growing practical policy relevance as governments seek to enhance population wellbeing. In this paper we explore the worlds of welfare theory from the perspective of happiness. Drawing on data from the World Values Survey, we examine how welfare regimes may contribute to wellbeing and we consider the significance of our findings for the development of social policy. By using multilevel models it is possible to separate out effects due to observed and unobserved, as well as both individual level and country level, welfare state characteristics and we can make inferences to the distribution of social wellbeing across welfare typologies. We find that people living in liberal and conservative countries are, after controlling for individual and country level explanatory variables, at least twice as likely to be unhappy as those living in social-democracies. The observed differences between the worlds of welfare were found to be highly statistically significant.
AB - Social scientists in the comparative policy tradition have long argued that welfare systems in modern capitalist societies can be broken down into ideal types. The idea of different worlds of welfare capitalism has an enduring appeal and growing practical policy relevance as governments seek to enhance population wellbeing. In this paper we explore the worlds of welfare theory from the perspective of happiness. Drawing on data from the World Values Survey, we examine how welfare regimes may contribute to wellbeing and we consider the significance of our findings for the development of social policy. By using multilevel models it is possible to separate out effects due to observed and unobserved, as well as both individual level and country level, welfare state characteristics and we can make inferences to the distribution of social wellbeing across welfare typologies. We find that people living in liberal and conservative countries are, after controlling for individual and country level explanatory variables, at least twice as likely to be unhappy as those living in social-democracies. The observed differences between the worlds of welfare were found to be highly statistically significant.
U2 - 10.1017/S0047279412000499
DO - 10.1017/S0047279412000499
M3 - Article (Academic Journal)
SN - 0047-2794
VL - 41
SP - 811
EP - 829
JO - Journal of Social Policy
JF - Journal of Social Policy
IS - 4
ER -