Forms of welfare capitalism and education-based participatory inequality

Carsten Q. Schneider*, Kristin Makszin

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract (may include machine translation)

Scholars studying democracy are just beginning to investigate the specifically political consequences of rising socio-economic inequalities. This paper analyses whether the degree of political inequality between social groups is shaped by features of the welfare capitalist system. Specifically, we hypothesize that more labour protection and social support decrease participatory inequality via more evenly distributed resources and engagement between high-and low educated citizens. Our regression analyses combining micro-and macro-level data from 37 capitalist democracies over the past 20 years provide evidence that some protective and supportive elements of welfare capitalism reduce education-based participatory inequality. Our fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis identifies three functionally equivalent types of welfare capitalism that all producelow participatory inequality via increased protection, support or both. Finally,we empirically demonstrate that the mechanisms behind this link are, indeed, a more equal distribution of resources and engagement across low-and high educated citizens.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbermwu010
Pages (from-to)437-462
Number of pages26
JournalSocio-Economic Review
Volume12
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 2014

Keywords

  • Capitalism
  • Comparative politics
  • Democracy
  • Democratic
  • Inequality
  • Labour market institutions
  • QCA

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