Significance of variations between income transfers and social care services development

Abstract

This paper examines cross-national variations in two major welfare state policies: income transfers and social care services. In comparative social policy research it has been recently acknowledged that policy development of income transfers differs from that of social care services. However, there has been little discussion of how to explain such variations. In this paper, it is argued that explaining such a between-policy variation requires an investigation of competing causal forces within and between economy, socio-demography, politics and institutions. Using qualitative comparative analysis, this paper scrutinizes between-policy variations among 11 countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in terms of social spending level. The results suggest that the causal combination of demographic ageing and local fiscal autonomy determines the between-policy variations.