Western welfare capitalism in good times and bad

The purpose of the book is to reassess the linkage between welfare state policy priorities and what welfare capitalist regimes actually achieve for citizens; that is welfare policy outcomes. In the Real Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (Goodin et al., 1999) we attempted an assessment of policy outcomes in Esping-Andersen's 'three worlds' over more than 20 years ago. This earlier work was limited to only three countries, the US, Germany and the Netherlands. In this book we used cross-sectional and longitudinal data for 17 countries over the period 2005-2019 to assess the welfare outcomes whereby the period was divided into three sub-periods: before the GFC-crisis (2005-2007), during GFC (2008-2013) and after GFC (20014-2019).  In addition we viewed policies trying to cope with COVID during the pandemic 2020-2021 and asked ourselves the question whether the assumed trade-off between public health and the economy with a view to outcomes actually exist. In addition, compared to the previous book, we now also viewed life satisfaction as a policy objective to account for a broader perspective on welfare than only GDP and related economic indicators by adding indicators of life satisfaction and subjective well-being.
The main question asked in the book is to what extent do the various regimes depart from their original path over time. We found no evidence of convergence to a more liberal model of welfare, regimes clearly deliver distinctive results in terns of economic growth, poverty, inequality, autonomy, economic security and life satisfaction. We still have multiple types of welfare capitalism, not just one.