The Dynamics of Welfare Markets: Private Pensions and Domestic/Care Services in Europe

"This is an important, innovative, intelligent book about how welfare markets are made and remade in the EU. Integrating insights from sociological theories of markets and marketization, the book’s analytical framework emphasizes the actions of non-state actors – consumers, employers, firms and workers – in welfare market dynamics. This framework, together with the book’s methodologically diverse and empirically rich case studies, offers a strong foundation and clear agenda for future research on welfare marketization, wherever it happens." — Gabrielle Meagher, Macquarie University, Australia
This volume represents the beginning of a 'cross pollination' of different social scientific disciplines, bridging the boundaries between national and disciplinary epistemic communities in the worlds of European welfare markets. It maps the common ground and uncovers new research directions for the future study of actors, policies and institutions shaping the growth and dynamics of European welfare markets.


The book defines welfare markets as politically shaped, regulated and state supported markets that provide social goods and services through the competitive activities of non-state actors. The chapters focus on what happens after states have initiated welfare markets, with equal weight given to the analysis of the agency of state actors and non-state actors in the contraction, stabilisation, and disruption of welfare markets. By focusing the analysis on two cases of welfare markets, private pensions and home-based domestic/care work, the contributions explore and compare the dynamics of different types of markets.



The research will be of use to sociologists and scholars of social policy interested in the social dimension of welfare markets, political scientists and political economists, as well as diverse epistemic communities across the social sciences.