[Contains insights that help explain diferwences between naitons inquality
of social determinants of health...ncludes all the nations]

Current Sociology, Vol. 51, No. 5, 499-527 (2003)
© 2003 International Sociological Association

Convergence or Resilience? A Hierarchical Cluster Analysis of the Welfare
Regimes in Advanced Countries
Sébastien Saint-Arnaud
University of Toronto

Paul Bernard

Université de Montreal, [log in to unmask]

Following the seminal work of Esping-Andersen, many studies have identified
a variety of welfare regimes in Western Europe and North America. This
study examines a set of quantitative social indicators, using hierarchical
cluster analysis, in order to identify such regimes, which display specific
arrangements between markets, the state and families in the production and
distribution of the resources required for the well-being of people.
Indeed, these empirical analyses reveal the existence of the three regimes
originally identified by Esping-Andersen - social-democratic, liberal, and
conservative - to which one must add, as many authors had pointed out, a
fourth, distinct from the latter, the Latin regime. These results pertain
whether one turns to data from the 1980s or the 1990s. The data also reveal
strong and durable relations of presumably mutual causality between the
configuration of social programmes in the various societies under analysis,
the social situations which largely result from these social programmes
and, lastly, the level of civic participation which leads (or not) people
to collective mobilization, which in turn shapes social programmes. The
authors' comparative analysis allows them to identify Canada's place in the
worlds of welfare capitalism.


Key Words: civic participation • hierarchical cluster analysis •
international comparisons • social indicators • welfare regimes