ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the major state welfare institutions that have developed in advanced industrial countries. It is important to remember that the public policy systems were institutionalized under similar economic conditions (specifically, advanced industrialization), but they took different forms that were shaped by their distinctive cultural and demographic histories. That is, state structures have developed in concert with the market and family systems of their countries, have assumed different forms, and have contributed to cross-national diversity in life course patterning and aged inequality. Then the institutional pathways that produce variability and inequality in the life course will be compared across the United States, Germany, and Sweden. However, historical and comparative research on the welfare state since these original efforts has uncovered the heterogeneity of welfare systems that have developed in different industrialized societies. The liberal model is the least decommodified and comes closest to the earliest formulations of the welfare state as residualist.
