ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the merits of an ideal-typical welfare regime framework for comparative research on employment policies, a policy area that has been at the forefront of paradigm-changing welfare reforms over the twenty first century. It focuses on Esping-Andersen’s welfare regime typology, the analytical skeleton of which can be transposed into a set of ideal types that can not only be applied to welfare states and lower-level administrative entities, but also to specific policy areas such as employment policy. After showing that four ‘old’ worlds of employment policy can be ideal-typically distinguished, the chapter addresses the advent of new welfare and its impact on the employment policy orientation of different welfare regimes. It then illustrates how welfare regime ideal types can serve as a “tool of discovery” in original research on understudied aspects of new employment policy such as employer services provided by the Public Employment Service.
