Implications of Welfare States on Human Development

Abstract

In the paper, we compared the classification of welfare states by Gosta Esping-Andersen(liberal, corporatist, social democrat) and country ranking according to the Human DevelopmentIndex (HDI). The country occupying the first position, according to the level of human capital development,is Norway, belonging to the social-democratic welfare states. We also found a good result for theliberal welfare states: Australia (position 2), Switzerland (3rd position). But in the category ofcorporatist states we only find Germany (position 5). In the case of Romania, HDI is 0.802, which allows it to be included in the group of "very highhuman development". Due to the process of developing a state of welfare, we can not fit ourcountry into a single model. Characteristics are taken from each model, especially from the"social-democrat" (poverty prevention through redistribution) and from the "corporatist"(insurance system that maintains differentiations according to status and social class).

Keywords

• welfare state
• HDI
• human development