Collaborative Research: Comparative Welfare States - A Public-Use Archival Data Set

Duke University, Durham NC

Investigators

Abstract

Collaborative Research: Comparative Welfare States - A Public-Use Archival Dataset SES - 1059959 David Brady, Duke University SES - 1061007 Evelyne Huber and John D. Stephens, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Abstract This project will update, revise and expand the Comparative Welfare States (CWS) dataset. The CWS dataset was first constructed in the mid-1990s and is available for public use. It contains archival, quantitative information on the political economies of affluent democracies. The CWS data have been widely used in research on the politics and policies of advanced industrial democracies. Our project has two goals. First we will expand the dataset cross-sectionally (to include the southern European countries of Greece, Portugal and Spain) and temporally (adding and updating data from the late 1990s to 2009). Second, we will conduct analyses of the updated dataset that will contribute to comparative research on a range of social policies. To that end, our project examines cross-country variation (and changes over time) regarding health care, education, and child care policies. We examine the political conditions that facilitate the adoption and effective implementation of these specific social policies, as well as the consequences of "state retrenchment"(i.e., cutbacks in public expenditures and privatization of social services) on a variety of outcomes related to the provision of health care, education, and child care. Finally, we examine the degree to which these social policies are marked by "dualization," which refers to policies that maintain separate eligibility criteria for e.g., people with stable jobs and people with weak job histories. Our analyses use advanced statistical estimation techniques to answer these questions. Broader Impacts Our project will update and expand a key public use dataset, made available through the website of the Luxembourg Income Study. The updated CWS dataset, which has already had a substantial impact in sociology and political science around the world, will thus facilitate future research by a broad set of scholars and policy makers. Precisely because of its explicitly comparative-historical and -international scope, the data and our findings will contribute to and inform public debates about social policies. The project will also provide the infrastructure to train and collaborate with graduate students and should result in several coauthored presentations and articles.