Measuring welfare state change

The lack of comparable data on welfare states has historically been a challenge, but much progress has been made since 2000. Indeed, the bonanza of data and the emergence of new functions based on 25 years of reform has dramatically raised the bar for how we should conceptualize and measure the welfare state. Conventional indicators of social expenditure and benefit generosity for industrial workers are of diminishing value as welfare states are assessed on how they manage new social risks. This calls for multiple measures that can assess both qualitative and quantitative change. These are relevant to the social problems of societies in the context of ageing populations, privatization, marginalization, and growing inequalities. Fortunately, appropriate measures can be applied to the growing pool of cross-national data encompassing institutional information, surveys, and administrative data.