Recent Social Insurance Development in Modern Welfare States*

Pressures from global market forces along with austerity and retrenchment have generated predictions of converging welfare state institutions. Th e purpose of this paper is to examine the development of social insurance programs among 18 of the economically most advanced democracies during 1980–2000. Have social insurance rights converged and have changes been of such a character that we can discern converging trends of social insurance models? Th e results indicate conver-gence in the replacement rates, coverage and employer financing of social insur-ance benefits up to 1980, after which these signs of convergence tend to disappear or transform into divergence. Rather than countries becoming reclassified, changes implemented in social insurance rights appear to have strengthened the distinctive characteristics of social insurance models identified