REDISTRIBUTIVE POLICIES OF EU MEMBER COUNTRIES IN THE CONTEXT OF WELFARE REGIMES

This paper aims to use cluster analysis to monitor changes in the social regimes of EU countries in the context of their economic situation. In the first step, the paper provides an overview of theoretical studies and categorizes countries into individual social regimes based on available studies. Subsequently, hierarchical cluster analyses are performed for 2007 and 2019, one for a group of redistributive variables and one for socio-economic variables. The cluster analysis confirmed that differences among individual social regimes are blurred over time, and belonging to a social regime does not automatically lead to occurrence in the same cluster. The new and old member states are mixed in terms of redistributive variables, while economic differences among these countries are still present.