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February 28, 2006

More of the Same? The Position of the Four Largest Canadian Provinces in the World of Welfare Regimes

Following the seminal work of Gøsta Esping-Andersen, many studies have identified a variety of welfare regimes in advanced Western societies. Analyzing a set of quantitative indicators, using hierarchical cluster analysis, we have confirmed, in earlier work (Saint-Arnaud and Bernard, 2003), the existence of four regimes, the three originally proposed by Esping-Andersen – socialdemocratic, liberal, and conservative – to which one must add, as many authors have pointed out, a fourth regime, distinct from the latter, called familialistic. We examine here, using the same methodological approach, the situation of the four largest Canadian provinces – Quebec, Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia – in the middle of the 1990s. Does their belonging to the same country make them similar to each other and close to the average profile of Canada, a liberal country, or, on the contrary, do they display notable divergences, stemming from economic, political and cultural differences which would translate into their social policies, largely under provincial control in the Canadian federation? The results indicate modest, albeit significant, variations: Alberta somewhat resembles the “ultra-liberal” United States, while Quebec leans in the direction of Europe, and to some extent, of social-democracy.

Posted by Gary Holden at February 28, 2006 7:46 PM