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Research Note: Decommodification and the worlds of welfare revisitedUniversity of Durham, UK, clare.bambra{at}durham.ac.uk This paper critically examines the theoretical, empirical and methodological limitations of Esping-Andersens Three Worlds of Welfare decommodification index. It highlights an, to date, overlooked error in Esping-Andersens original calculations that led to the incorrect positioning of three borderline countries (Japan, the UK and Ireland) and resulted in the empirically erroneous composition of the Three Worlds of Welfare. Updated decommodification data from 1998/99 are used to explore the influential role of variable weighting in the creation of the three worlds typology. Finally, the paper revisits the decommodification index to examine how the relationships between the countries have changed since 1980. The paper concludes by questioning the extent to which the Three Worlds of Welfare still exist, and indeed, at least in empirical terms, the extent to which they ever did.
Key Words: Esping-Andersen decommodification methodology regimes
Journal of European Social Policy, Vol. 16, No. 1,
73-80 (2006) This article has been cited by other articles:
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