ABSTRACT
REGIMES What qualitative characteristics distinguish welfare states in general and the regime in Christian democratic nations in particular? What is the range and scope of social rights that lie behind the amount of money spent on welfare? To what extent can an individual or a family expect to preserve a level of income close to the level of or independent of the market wage in case of old age, sickness, accident or unemployment? The theoretically most satisfactory focus would be on income replacement schemes for unemployment, sickness, disability and old age. One can operationalise a measure for the quality of these schemes by looking at the average net (after tax) replacement rates of the schemes for unemployment, disability, sickness (average over the first 26 weeks, after waiting days) and old age, weighted by the appropriate coverage ratios. Table 6.1 gives the rank orders of welfare states in 1960 and 1980 according to this indicator as well as the average replacement and coverage ratios.
