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 oc cupational welfare. However, from the 1990s, financialization has involved the attenuation of this form of welfare with pressures to improve sharehold er value restricting its score. Focusing on health insurance and occupation al pensions in the UK and the USA this article seeks to explore the traject ory of occupational welfare iii both phases and the distinctive political r esponses to that trajectory as a social democratic politics has been displa ced by a repositioned centre-left focused on a 'third way'.