During the last 30 years, all European Union member states have reformed their pension
systems. In view of ongoing and intensifying population aging, efforts have aimed at …

In this review, we portray findings and conceptualizations of selected empirical studies on
policy convergence and related concepts. The article reveals that there is no homogenous …

The world's richer democracies all provide such public benefits as pensions and health care,
but why are some far more generous than others? And why, in the face of globalization and …

This article examines the trends in family policies in 22 industrialized countries since 1970.
Based on time-series of indicators of cash benefits and support for working parents, it …

This important sequel to Nordic Social Policy (Routledge 1999) compares welfare state
development over the last twenty years in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden with that …

With the growing challenges of economic globalization and national welfare state
retrenchment, the development and future of EU social policy has become increasingly …

Existing studies have found only limited empirical evidence of welfare state convergence.
Moreover, although there are good theoretical reasons both for and against welfare state …

2 Introduction problems. Furthermore, they argue that a stronger EU role in social policy
would increase the legitimacy of EU integration by preventing electorates from increasingly …

This article presents the main distinctive characteristics of the Nordic welfare states. These
include, for example, full employment, high degree of equality, a high level of taxes and a …

Convergence of social protection objectives and policies in Member States is an explicit
objective of the EU. Earlier research has shown that there has indeed been a tendency of …