This book seeks to develop a fresh comparative analysis of welfare-state performance by examining how expenditure on social programmes varies across age cohorts and how these differences have arisen. Breaking with the tri-partite divisions offered by Esping-Andersen (Reference Esping-Andersen1990), the book distinguishes welfare states based primarily on universal systems of social protection (that tend to be comparatively youth-oriented) from those rooted firmly in occupational provision, which offer more to older people – and mixed systems where earlier occupational schemes were modified when citizen-based welfare was introduced after World War II. A sensitive analysis of OECD expenditure data offers the bedrock for these divisions; the explanation for the observed variance asserts the significance of political processes and the importance of earlier choices in shaping eventual outcomes. Two key historical periods are identified: the early 20th century, when countries chose universal or occupational schemes, and the post-World War II era when some countries in the occupational group changed tack and supplemented existing welfare with citizen-based programmes. Rejecting both the power resources model (welfare develops where organised labour movements are strong) and the ‘greedy generation’ model (the interests of the baby boomers have determined welfare distribution), the author argues that divergence is explained by the strategies of national politicians and the nature of competition for popular support. Particularistic politics encouraged politicians to sustain clientelist systems of social support that sustained public support and preserved occupationalist welfare to the benefit of older people. Where clientelism was not politically prevalent, universalist welfare strategies prevailed. More detailed case studies of Italy and The Netherlands sustain the analysis.

Fashioning new models to explain welfare-state development has been an academic preoccupation since the 1950s, although the shelf-life of many attempts has been short and this book is unlikely to break the pattern. The analysis seeks to unite quantitative assessment, as used by Esping-Andersen, with qualitative appraisals of historical precedent, drawing on theories of path dependency. At several points the train comes off the rails. First, the case studies: Italy represents a ‘pure’ occupationalist welfare system oriented towards older people, The Netherlands a mixed scheme with more balanced redistribution across the age range. However, to generalise from the politics of one country to that of a whole group to which it belongs is to invite disaster. Clientelism and its consequences might explain Italian welfare, but competition for support will not explain post-war development in Spain or Greece (both in the same group) or Portugal (grouped with The Netherlands) – all countries subject to dictatorial regimes for part of the post-war period. We cannot take democratic politics for granted. Secondly, the evidence used is based on public social expenditure: as I have argued elsewhere (Whiteside Reference Whiteside2006), this is a weak proxy for welfare policy, particularly for pensions. It may suit the author to portray Dutch occupational pensions as belonging to the private sector, but the European Court of Justice would not agree with her – and nor, in all probability, would many Dutch employers who are compelled by law to contribute to them. Since the war, pension policy in The Netherlands has been shaped around these occupational funds and, if their distributional effects were included in the analysis, the distinctions drawn between The Netherlands and Italy would probably be wiped out.

In historical terms, the book makes for uncomfortable reading: there are too many misassumptions and inaccuracies. It reproduces the familiar (and totally wrong) view that the British Beveridgean welfare state is citizenship-based (UK state-pension rights are based on the contributory record of self or spouse, as any divorced British woman knows to her cost). The author also overlooks early local schemes of social assistance for the poor (covering most of Protestant Europe before 1914): a common error when only schemes funded by national taxation are embraced by the statistics. The (thankfully few) attempts to address the pre-1914 situation are disastrous. Using 1910 as a base date, the author proclaims that the British poor laws were early evidence of the citizen-based welfare that subsequently characterised the whole country. This is contrasted with German occupational social insurance cover at the same date (p. 60). The reader is left wondering whether 1910, the year before the introduction of working-class social insurance in the UK was chosen through simple ignorance or covert design – and whether the author has even heard of the German poor law. Arguably this would matter less if the author were not so keen to point up the value of historical perspectives. Just do not let your students near it is my advice.