Varieties and drivers of social welfare in sub-Saharan Africa: A critical assessment of current research

Abstract

How can we conceptually grasp social policies on the macro level in sub-Saharan Africa? Decommodification and defamilialisation, two key concepts of Esping-Andersen’s seminal typology, are not very helpful to distinguish welfare regimes in sub-Saharan Africa. Moreover, typologies that have been developed for the Global South hardly consider social stratification. In conclusion, there is no typology including African states that covers all relevant dimensions of welfare and includes education, agricultural, and housing policies. There is also more need for compara-tive research on the drivers of social policies and especially policies that are more likely to reduce inequality.

Keywords

• regimes of social welfare
• sub-Saharan Africa
• politics of social policy
• typologies