Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/250004 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Series/Report no.: 
JRC Working Papers Series on Labour, Education and Technology No. 2022/01
Publisher: 
European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), Seville
Abstract: 
This article attempts to identify social investment strategies across EU countries and explain their evolution over the period 2004-18, by using cluster analysis on expenditure and coverage variables and qualitative analysis on selected policy areas to contextualize the results. It finds that strategies have diversified over time in a progressively complex way. After the financial crisis, three main social investment strategies emerge in Europe. They do not overlap with canonical welfare state models, nor have a clear-cut geographical connotation. The strategies are distinct because of their different levels of overall expenditure on social investment but, over time, also by their different life-course orientations. Significant variation within the clusters, in terms of both expenditure and design of social investment policies, indicates that fully-fledged strategies have not yet formed in well-defined groups of countries.
Subjects: 
Sara Baiocco
Cinzia Alcidi
Francesco Corti
Mattia Di Salvo
Social investment
cluster analysis
welfare state
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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