Social insecurity and the retreat from social democracy: occupational welfare in the long boom and financialization

The long bourn created the conditions which facilitated the expansion of occupational welfare. However, from the 1990s, financialization has involved the attenuation of this form of welfare with pressures to improve shareholder value restricting its score. Focusing on health insurance and occupational pensions in the UK and the USA this article seeks to explore the trajectory of occupational welfare iii both phases and the distinctive political responses to that trajectory as a social democratic politics has been displaced by a repositioned centre-left focused on a 'third way'.