ABSTRACT
In market economies, a person's work is the main determinant of income and life chances. Remuneration is tied to the marketability of one's skills. The non-wage package among employees is also marked by inequality. It is in the statutory social services that treatment is supposedly equal, consistent and determined along need and citizenship criteria (Marshall 1950, Titmuss [1958] 1969). In the past, the potential role of employers as an instrument of social policy was neglected. Since the oil crisis in the mid-1970s, the bias of state welfarism has been recognized (Higgins 1986). The 1980s saw counter trends in the form of neo-conservatism and corporatism (Mishra 1990). Many realized that welfare provided in the work place, such as in Japan, was an integral part of the social wage and a genuine alternative to state services (Rose 1986, Esping-Andersen 1990). Nowadays, pluralist arrangements for welfare, contributed by providers such as the state, employers, local communities and kin, are accepted in advanced welfare states (Pinker 1991a).
