ABSTRACT

The world of today is particularly exposed to new developments, locally and globally. The problems of the 20th century have not been solved yet, for example gender and ethnic discrimination and particularly, through the workings of dual welfare state systems (see Sainsbury, 1993, 1999; Dixon and Scheurell, 1994; Hobson, 1994; Pascall, 2008). Already there are new challenges unraveling the economic and social fabric of developed welfare state systems, such as long-term massive unemployment, ever-increasing poverty and social exclusion, lack of societal fertility and now massive waves of immigration across continents.