For roughly two decades now, commentators from different political camps have pronounced the welfare state to be in crisis. Journalistic commentators, primarily those with a neo-liberal bent, claim that it is too expensive, no longer affordable under conditions of slower economic growth, and that it needs to be greatly cut back in order to stimulate economic growth. Political commentators on the left and academics worry that expenditures are misallocated and privilege some groups at the expense of others, and they argue that the welfare state needs to be thoroughly restructured (Esping-Andersen 1999, 2002; Pierson 2001c). The debate about restructuring is to a large extent framed in terms of the ‘old’ versus the ‘new’ welfare state, or welfare states designed to deal with old as against new social risks.