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For perspectives on globalization to do justice to its many facets, they must be informed by an understanding of modern societies as simultaneously complex, contingent, and contradictory – as modern capitalist societies. As is becoming ever more apparent, such an understanding of modern societies is the necessary precondition for identifying the defining features of globalization. Yet, for the most part, the history of the social sciences did not produce research agendas, theories, and methods designed to grasp complexity, contingency, and contradiction as core dimensions of modern social life that continually reinforce each other. The social sciences did not evolve as ongoing efforts to grasp the gravity each dimension exerts on concrete forms of political, economic, and cultural life, and how the force of each depends on the constant exchange of energy with the other two. To the extent that scrutinizing the impact of globalization on the future – find possible futures – of human civilization is the primary challenge for social scientists to confront today, the current condition presents a unique, and perhaps most unusual opportunity to conceive anew the promise of each and all the social sciences, as elucidating how the complex, contingent, and contradictory nature of modern societies, in the name of advancing social justice, has engendered a regime of managing “social problems.”

The family is one of the foundations of society; its significance for societal redistribution in modern societies, though, remains particularly unclear. A major reason for this is that theoretical approaches to societal redistribution have not adequately included family either in social philosophy or in welfare state theory. As a consequence, also empirical analyses of differences and developments in societal redistribution have not included family or only in as far as family is affected by other redistributive principles. This paper contributes to filling this theoretical gap.

This paper theorises family as a redistributive principle. With reference to the major theoretical concepts of redistribution, it identifies the relevant dimensions of family in societal redistribution and develops a typology of its inclusion in societal redistribution.

Approaches to redistribution are shaped by distinct concepts of equal or unequal exchange, the relevant actors they identify and by different understandings of the economy. These distinctions are central to understanding the position of family in societal redistribution. With reference to the major theoretical concepts of redistribution, this paper identifies the relevant dimensions of family in societal redistribution and develops a typology of its inclusion in societal redistribution. Further investigations might draw on this typology and detect the theoretical foundations of its conceptualisations and its similarities to and deviations from the developed types.

This paper provides a theoretical groundwork for theoretical and empirical investigations of societal redistribution and for better comprehending its international variation. It aims to initiate a fundamental rethinking of the usual understanding of societal redistribution that widely ignores family as a redistributive principle of its own.

The expansion of social welfare in advanced capitalist countries following the Second World War has been phenomenal. Concomitant to this is the mushrooming of comparative social research devoted to the analysis of welfare states. The central question in comparative policy discourse has been the search for the determinants of social welfare development. There is no consensus over the structural determinants for welfare efforts. However, the literature on comparative social policy has identified a significant number of variables which spur social policy development: industrialization, urbanization, modernization, working‐class mobilization, union strength, state and its particular structure, open economy, diffusion, military spending, and national ideology (Wilensky & Lebeaux, 1965; Wilensky, 1975; Uusitalo, 1984; Wilensky, 1985; Flora, 1987; O'Conner, 1988; Esping‐Andersen, 1990; Pierson, 1991; Wong & Daley, 1991; Janoski & Hicks, 1994).

Political analyses of the East Asian welfare state development often stress the importance of the power resource model, in which vibrant coalitions between the leftist party, interest groups, civil society and working-class unions have become driving factors in producing generous welfare outcomes. Challenging such analyses, this article discusses the convergence of the political attitude between political actors who are increasingly homogeneous (supportive) when it comes to the universal welfare state notion by focussing on childcare in South Korea.

By using desk review of the peer-reviewed literature and reports, this article investigates the causation for why political parties with different political ideologies were keen on extending childcare programs and its outcome in addressing the existing demographic problems in Korea.

Although the collective movement, especially in the 1990s and 2000s, had given important contributions to the early development of childcare in South Korea, more breakthroughs in childcare features were precisely and rapidly developed after politicians from different spectrums of political affiliations converged in their supportive attitude of the universal welfare. The driving factors of political convergence itself are not merely due to electoral competition or political activism; furthermore, it can be linked to the increased global institution involvement in domestic policy with extensive permeability, which, have ruined domestic policy development maintained for ideological reasoning and bring in more popular policy setting.

This article contributes to the growing literature on the political aspect of East Asian social policy studies, which goes beyond the traditional power resource analysis and makes a novel contribution to the childcare policy studies.

Since the 1960s, the health system has seen the professionalisation of a new occupation, carer of the elderly. The form and result of this process differs between countries according to their welfare systems. In this paper, the differences will be analysed in a comparison between two countries, Germany and Sweden, the representatives of two prototypical welfare systems. Sweden is renowned for its state‐oriented universal welfare system, whereas Germany is considered to be an example of a conservative, family‐oriented system. The process of professionalisation and its consequences for the carer and the care receivers will be looked at from the perspective of gender and social inequality. On a theoretical basis, this paper includes gendered and mainstream welfare state approaches and thus combines issues of gender and social inequality, as well as theories in the area of professionalisation. Empirically, the development of the new occupation is examined in two phases. In the first step, it looks at the time‐period between the 60s and 80s, when the stateoriented vs. family‐oriented principles of care for the elderly were established. The 90s brought about change in both countries. In Germany, with the introduction of the Long‐term Care Insurance, a new mode of care has developed, shared between informal family care, and public or private providers. In Sweden, budget restrictions in the 90s in this area led to a reorganisation, restructuring and reduction of the role of the welfare state. The consequences of the different processes in both countries will be discussed from the perspective of the predominantly female employees and the receivers of care. The results reveal a complex interaction between patterns of gender and social inequality and welfare state policies for the carers and care receivers.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the role of church in relation to state in providing support for needy.

The analysis takes place in a Nordic welfare state context between two recessions in the early 1990s and late 2000s. The welfare state regime hypothesis suggests that the kind of traditional assistance the church lends to the poor would die out in the course of “socio‐democratic” welfare state development, a statement analogous with the secularization hypothesis.

With data on the volume of poverty alleviation activities of the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church it is shown that after decades of marginalization, the role of the church's poverty alleviation became more pronounced after the recession in the early 1990s and continued to do so throughout the economic collapse of 2008.

The results give ground to challenge the conventional clear cut conception of the universal Nordic welfare state model.

European welfare state research has focused on the links between religious values, religious cleavages and the shaping of the welfare state but has mostly ignored the role of faith‐based institutions in improving welfare. The current economic crisis may provide religious institutions a window of opportunity to expand their poverty alleviation activities.

This paper takes an ideal type of different welfare regimes as a starting point. It investigates with survey data people's experiences and expectations towards the welfare state and its functioning against various social risks. The paper discusses questions like, are there differences in perceptions between welfare regimes? And what is the role of the welfare state regime in explaining those differences?

This research article is based on OECD survey data and classical welfare state classifications. The analysis of welfare regimes provides both a theoretical and methodological structure for study. The study-applied analysis of variance (one-way ANOVA) to test a hypothesis that regimes matter analyses more nuanced aspects of current and prospects to the near future welfare state provision.

This examination suggests that welfare regimes still matter even though the differences in averages were not as immense as expected. Perceptions in different welfare regimes also have priorities related to the willingness to pay more taxes in order to receive better access to services and financial support if needed. In Nordic countries, the acute priority based on survey data is investment in education and re-training. In Continental Europe, more financial support is needed for pensions. Overall, respondents representing emerging Eastern European and Mediterranean welfare regimes think that welfare provision should be financed more compared to other welfare regime respondents. Health is a universal and unifying issue, particularly in ageing welfare states, and brings health as a traditional and central question again.

Respondents' perceptions work as people's voice and assessments are used to gain a contemporary understanding of welfare and about welfare state functioning.

There is a growing body of comparative research examining country differences in job satisfaction and its determinants. However, existing research cannot explain similarities in job satisfaction levels across very different countries, nor can it explain the differences between seemingly similar countries. Moreover, there has been no significant research conducted to date that has examined the country-level contextual conditions that are poised to impact worker satisfaction and its determinants. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

In this research, the author address this existing gap in the academic literature on job satisfaction by using non-panel longitudinal data from the International Social Survey Program (Work Orientations I, II, and III: 1989, 1997, and 2005) to examine cross-national differences in job satisfaction and its determinants. The author compare and combine previous international political economy theoretical work and hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to examine global macro-level variables and their impact on worker satisfaction cross-nationally.

Study results demonstrate that both intrinsic and extrinsic work characteristics strongly impact worker job satisfaction. Furthermore, country by country regression and HLM results suggest that there are important country differences in both the perceived importance of various work characteristics and workers’ self-report experiences with both intrinsic and extrinsic work characteristics.

To get a clearer picture in the HLM analysis as to the full impact of these various country-contextual impacts on differences in perceived job characteristics and worker satisfaction, future research needs to examine a greater number and wider variety of countries, while exploring other theoretically relevant country-level variables that may help to explore country-level differences from these various cross-national theoretical frameworks. Additionally, a more diverse and greater number of participating countries would also potentially help in achieving levels of significance in the level-2 covariates in the HLM models.

Due to the fact the worker job satisfaction impacts firm performance and various measures of worker well-being, firms (regardless of economic sector or private/public status) need to be cognizant of these differences and unique challenges and work to tailor management philosophy and policy to create a unique work atmosphere that will benefit the interests of both the employer and the employee, as well as society at large.

While the nature of work has changed dramatically in the post-war era in response to economic shifts and an increasingly global economy, particularly over the past two decades, this paper examines the previously unexamined country-level contextual and global macro-historical variables driving differences in work quality and perceived worker satisfaction.

The purpose of this paper is to deal with an issue of female labour inactivity in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, more specifically women in the 16‐65 age category who are long‐term inactive in the formal labour market due to family responsibilities. This group currently represents one‐third of the female population of working age in the country.

The core of the analysis lies in examining the main socio‐demographic characteristics of family carers. First, the paper provides descriptive analysis of socio‐demographic background of women who are inactive in the labour market. Second it examines the influence of selected socio‐demographic characteristics on the woman's choice not to participate in the labour market due to family care. In the conclusions, based on the outcomes of the conducted analysis and information on the existing welfare setting in the country, the paper suggests policies which should facilitate greater participation of these women in the labour market.

Referring to the presented theory and to the findings, it can be concluded that Luxembourg is a country with a conservative orientation where women, especially those with lower education, who are married, multiple‐mothers, older than 35 years, Luxembourg nationals, and who are living in households receiving higher social benefits, choose to withdraw from the labour market due to family responsibilities.

Given the lack of more detailed information concerning labour market inactivity of Luxembourgish women and their labour market potential, the fact that the female labour inactivity in the country has never been examined in light of the theory of welfare states’ regimes, and the pressing Lisbon employment strategy targets, this paper represents the first in depth empirical attempt to describe and explain the phenomenon of female labour market inactivity in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and provides evidence based policy suggestions which could promote women's labour market participation. The outcomes of the cross‐sectional approach applied in this paper could serve as a base for further more sophisticated analyses of the issue of female inactivity due to family care in Luxembourg. It would be particularly interesting to focus on longitudinal analysis of transistions in and out labour market inactivity and analyze the main socio‐demographic determinants of these transitions.

Much has been said about institutional change and the forms it can take, whether it is abrupt or incremental, path breaking or path dependent. This strand of research is highly relevant in times of welfare institutional reforms and changes. A puzzle, however, remains, and it concerns the empirical phenomena that there might be institutional inertia despite seeming change. One reason for this remaining puzzle is, as argued here, that the ongoing theoretical reflections have a certain blind spot: “institutional constellations” and their characteristics. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to analyse the “layering” of a welfare institution which results in an institutional constellation.

Such newly established institutional constellations, though they look roughly similar and are formed of comparable ingredients, can differ profoundly between themselves. This could be due to the fact that the characteristics of institutions depend on the regulating principles (the “spirit”) implemented in them. To validate this hypothesis, the author analyses in depth the institutional layering in two traditionally different social protection systems: the Dutch and the German pension systems.

In both cases, as the author shows, the traditional regulating principles are also implemented in the newly established institutional constellation, so that in the end pension systems do not change but differ as they did before.

The empirical phenomenon of institutional inertia despite seeming change has not yet been explicitly addressed. This is the case since the ongoing theoretical reflections have a certain blind spot: “institutional constellations” and their characteristics which are the focus of this paper.