Sociology I / The Crisis of the Welfare State
Practice question · Select all that apply

Which criticisms of Esping-Andersen’s three-regime typology are widely accepted?

Hints
  1. Three of these identify something the typology omits; one misunderstands what an ideal type is for.
  2. Esping-Andersen accepted much of the feminist criticism in later work.
Show the answer
  • B. Southern European countries fit none of the three well, combining generous pensions with thin services and heavy family reliance
  • C. De-familialisation is a necessary additional dimension for assessing women’s independence
  • D. De-commodification presupposes prior labour-market participation and so says little about unpaid carers
Why

The first three are substantive additions and the author conceded much of them. The fourth misreads the instrument: a regime type is a yardstick built to make deviation visible, so imperfect fit is the expected result rather than a refutation. That is the same point Weber made about ideal types.

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