The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism

The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism is a book on political theory written by Danish sociologist Gøsta Esping-Andersen, published in 1990. The work is Esping-Andersen's most influential and highly cited work, outlining three main types of welfare states, in which modern developed capitalist nations cluster. The work occupies seminal status in the comparative analysis of the welfare states of Western Europe and other advanced capitalist economies.

It has been described as the most influential welfare state research of the contemporary period. The work called into question well-established ways of thinking about differences among welfare states in advanced capitalist democracies. At the time of writing this book, Gøsta Esping-Andersen was Professor at the European University Institute, Florence.