2012/10/01 by J.C. Vrooman · 25 citations
Social Sciences · Health Professions · Mathematics · #Social Policy and Reform Studies #Employment and Welfare Studies #Intergenerational Family Dynamics and Caregiving #Typology #Sociology #Field (mathematics) #Principal (computer security) #Social security #Set (abstract data type) #Positive economics #Economic geography #Regional science #Economic system #Political science #Economics #Mathematics #Computer science #Law #Anthropology
paper · doi:10.1177/0020715212469512
published in International Journal of Comparative Sociology 53(5-6), 444-477 (SAGE Publishing)
openalex publication_date 2012/10/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
This article reassesses the link between the structural and cultural aspects of social security. Do Esping-Andersen’s ‘Three Worlds’ exist empirically if one considers a comprehensive set of formal institutions simultaneously? And if so, do such regimes coincide with coherent differences in people’s value orientations in this field, or informal cultures? In order to answer these questions, nonlinear principal components analysis was applied to a group of countries at the core of the original Esping-Andersen typology. Nonlinear PCA seems to be a promising tool for comparative research because the technique is able to handle discrete data and nonlinear relationships, and the number of variables can exceed the number of countries. The outcomes of the analyses suggest that the ‘Three Worlds’ of formal social security had a firm empirical basis in the 1990s, and that the typology remains largely valid today, albeit with some qualifications. Furthermore, three different informal ‘cultures of social security’ emerged, with country clusters quite similar to those of the structural regime typology.