THE NORDIC MODEL AND THE EUROPEAN WELFARE STATES

The national welfare state systems of the European countries are usually grouped and studied in four different social policy models: Anglo-Saxon, Continental, Mediterranean and Nordic. Economic analysis sponsored by the European Commission, suggest that the Nordic model with high spending on social security and high taxes, little job protection but high employment security has been as successful as the Continental model at both providing welfare & preventing poverty with relatively less burden on public spending, but what has worked for miniature Nordic states is not expected to easily work for much larger and far less homogeneous cultures and societies in the rest of the Europe.