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The first part re‐examines the three worlds’ typology of welfare capitalism: the liberal welfare regime, the social democratic welfare regime, and the conservative welfare regime. A summary overview of the three regime characteristics is provided. The second part looks at the historical and comparative robustness of regime typologies, and examines whether a three‐way typology adequately exhausts the variance of the different regimes found in different countries. Three cases are identified that call for an additional fourth ‘world’; these are the Antipodes, the Mediterranean, and Japan.

Assuming the validity of these three claims, a total of six models is reached for 19–20 nations. These three cases are examined under the headings The Antipodean Fourth World, The Mediterranean Fourth World, and The East Asian Fourth World (Japan possibly with Korea and Taiwan). This second section of the chapter also looks at families and welfare regimes.

This chapter deals with the two liberal regime countries — the US and the UK — and how the defining properties of the liberal welfare regime, such as heavy reliance on means tested benefits and market solutions, have influenced immigrants' social rights. The chapter begins with the USA, which has been regarded as the prototype of the liberal welfare regime, and then moves to the UK. For each country, the basic features of social provision, the nature of the incorporation regime, and the broad contours of immigration are discussed. Then formal inclusion of immigrants in social provision, the impact of retrenchment, welfare state restructuring, and changes in the incorporation regime on immigrants' social rights are examined. The chapter concludes with a comparison of the two countries' welfare regimes and incorporation regimes, emphasizing how similarities and differences affect immigrants' social rights.

The British pension system with a meagre basic pension in the Beveridge tradition and coexisting private pensions that have increasingly been transformed from defined-benefit (DB) to defined-contribution (DC) pensions has generally been viewed as consistent with the liberal welfare and production regime types. While this classification is appropriate for some elements, from the 1950s onwards a strong statist side was expressed through the role of the state as employer and as regulator, with important consequences for the scale of state provision and the coverage and governance of occupational provision. The dynamics set in place by these arrangements lie behind recent pension reforms. These serve to enhance the hybrid pension system, moving it in a clearly more social democratic direction. However, the financial crisis and the change of government in 2010 mean that this movement might now be halted even before it had really begun.

The Conclusion makes the case for a living wage welfare state, building on the analysis, evidence, and argument of the previous chapters. It distinguishes a minimal reform strategy based on narrow improvements in the wage floor from a broader reform program aimed at building living wage foundations that are realistic and suitable to the structures, power resources, and institutions of liberal welfare states. In doing so, it makes a distinction between conservative-liberal, social-liberal, and living wages models for transforming liberal welfare and employment structures to reduce inequalities and improve working class lives. At the same time, the book strongly endorses a greater role for social scientists in debates and research about low wage workers and encourages social policy analysts to re-engage with the emerging situation in overextended and liberalised labour markets.

The impacts of welfare policies and political choices are explored in this chapter. Comprehensive and generous welfare systems that encompass housing, health and other social services, as well as income supports, provide important buffers that lessen the likelihood that people will experience homelessness. The evidence from social democratic welfare regimes such as Denmark is that those who do experience homelessness despite such developed welfare systems tend to have a higher rate of psychosocial difficulties compared to the general population, and this is also likely to be the case in Finland. It was traditionally the case in Ireland, but has become less so in recent years.

This chapter presents a historical knowledge of the framing of the care crisis theoretically. The ‘care crisis’ is a concept that was 'born in the USA' in a liberal welfare regime with a rampant neoliberalising more than two decades ago. This framing of the care crisis does not travel easily to other regimes such as the social-democratic welfare regimes, where it silences important aspects of care, such as professional care and issues of good care. Ultimately, the Anglo-American understanding of the care crisis has become hegemonic, that is, performing a kind of discursive imperialism. The chapter argues that researchers need to reflect upon their ‘scientific backpack’, their framing of the care crisis, and rethink the concept to fit the context, as well as recover lost insights from the early theorising of the care crisis.

This chapter talks about the trend towards compulsory work-for-benefit policies in the UK. It also focuses on the development of these policies by an ideologically social-democratic government operating within a ‘liberal’ welfare regime. The chapter takes a look at the New Deal programmes, which are comprised of three policy strands. It describes the structure of the New Deal for Young People, and points to some of the normative underpinnings of the strategy of the New Labour government towards ‘workless’ people. It also considers supply-side solutions to unemployment and paid work as a desirable goal for all and as a solution to poverty.