The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism is a book on political theory written by Danish sociologist Gøsta Esping-Andersen, published in 1990.

[1][2][3] The work occupies seminal status in the comparative analysis of the welfare states of Western Europe and other advanced capitalist economies.

[9] The three types are: Since its publication the typology has been widely used in academic research and theory,[10] and has generated much debate on the subject of the nature of the welfare state.

[12] In the book Esping-Andersen criticized earlier theoretical models of the welfare state as "inadequate", arguing that their analysis relied too heavily upon the misleading comparison of aggregate welfare state expenditure,[13] and also argued that public expenditure should no longer be a measure of comparison and that we should seek to replace it with other measures.

[17] Other scholars, including Maurizio Ferrera, have argued that the model does not apply entirely to Southern European countries such as Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece.