ABSTRACT
This chapter gives an overview of the development of welfare state spending in the EU in the period 1995–2015 from a comparative quantitative perspective. The chapter focuses on two classic research questions in the comparative welfare state literature: First, we examine whether the investigation period was a period of welfare state retrenchment in the EU. Second, we analyse whether there was convergence among European welfare states in that period. According to Eurostat’s cross-country data on social protection expenditures, there was no retrenchment but even an increase of per capita social spending in the EU member states since the mid-1990s. Moreover, there was no convergence in the sense that member states became more similar with respect to welfare state spending. These statistical results are discussed in light of the methodological limitations of such quantitative comparative analyses of welfare state change.
