Social Policy Indicators and Social Models

A growing body of literature confirms the existence of different social models, identified according to different combinations of policies and institutions. Knogler and Lankes aim to contribute to this literature by exploring characteristics of social policies in the enlarged European Union. The analysis is based on a set of social policy indicators with a focus on labour markets. By means of Principal Component Analysis they identify four major dimensions of social models. The dimensions are used as a basis for clustering countries into social models, which significantly differ from the commonly proposed regional classification of social models prior to enlargement.