Decent work and welfare states: two sides of the same coin?

Martin Seeleib-Kaiser, Leonid Shvyrev and Jakub Sowula

Chapter 46 in The Elgar Companion to Decent Work and the Sustainable Development Goals, 2025, pp 577-603 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This study investigates the nexus between decent work and welfare state design, examining the relationship between welfare regime affiliation and fulfilling the goals of the decent work agenda. Moreover, we study whether relatively better decent work performance results in relatively better poverty alleviation. Employing a hierarchical cluster analysis among 30 OECD countries, our analysis reveals a strong welfare regime logic behind performance on decent work agenda goals. Social democratic welfare states rank best, followed by countries of the other classical regimes. Countries belonging to the (former) clientelistic and corporatist welfare regimes perform considerably worse. Moreover, fulfilling the goals of the decent work agenda seems to be an important component of poverty alleviation, particularly where access to formal labour markets and social protection is limited. Simultaneously, our results suggest that focusing on decent work alone might not suffice to deal with the problem of growing poverty.

Keywords: Business and Management; Development Studies; Economics and Finance; Sociology and Social Policy; Sustainable Development Goals (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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