STUDY Change through Convergence? Reform Measures of European Welfare States in Comparison WOLFGANG SCHROEDER, SASCHA KRISTIN FUTH, BASTIAN JANTZ June 2015 „ „ The six welfare states under examination – Austria, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom – changed incrementally between 1998 and 2014. These changes led, overall, to the gradual transformation of the welfare states in these countries. „ „ There were both long-term changes in objectives and successive and sequential changes in existing instruments; a number of new instruments were also introduced. „ „ In the three policy areas under examination – labour market policy, family policy and pensions policy – the dominant focus is on the labour market and recommodification. This is topped off, besides the self-responsibility already mentioned, increasingly by elements of privatisation and marketisation. „ „ In the past two decades there has thus been a substantial restructuring of welfare state social security systems with the predominant aim of encouraging labour market participation. However, there has yet to be any adaptation of social security systems to the prevailing social risks over the life course, in particular with regard to critical transitions and employment in a period of structural change in the workplace.