Seeks to use disaggregated measures of social expenditure derived from the OECD Social Expenditure Database (SOCX) to measure the extent of recent change in the structure of social provision and to identify types and trajectories of welfare state development. The account shows that change in welfare spending priorities in OECD countries has been much more modest than is commonly thought. It also demonstrates that disaggregated expenditure measures can be used to generate a typology of provision that closely mirrors Esping–Andersen’s three regimes model, but in a way that permits more precise measurement of regime change over time.
Keywords: downsizing, families of nations, measuring expenditure change, poverty alleviation, retrenchment, social expenditure change, social security, state services, structural transformation, welfare regimes,