Welfare state reforms and informal employment

Especially for the past quarter century, critiques and reform requests towards the welfare state has been one of the most significant issues on the agenda in many countries. This thesis, in sum, analyzes the genesis, development and models of the welfare state and the relationship between reform requests and the informal employment.The genesis of the welfare state began to emerge in the late 19th century in the Western Europe. However, it was not until the II. World War that welfare states came to play a vital role in the society. This term, which is stand out with large-scale public provisions of social welfare services, capital accumulation in national borders and serial production and consumption is called Golden Age.However, in the middle of 1970?s and especially early 1980?s, welfare states confronted to reform requests and heavy pressures for withdrawal. Even though, there are several reasons of this situation, the main reasons are economic globalization and neo-liberal politics. On the other hand, financial crises and demographic changes are also stimulate a crisis for the finance of welfare states and justify reform requests.In employment dimension, neo-liberal politics caused to outsourcing of primary manifacturing prosess and extending the non-standart employment types. By the way, reform justifications such as globalization, flexibility, deregulation, localization and debt result in informalization of employment. Consequently, the thesis concludes that the reform requests and arrangements on the welfare state make employment relationships more informal and the reform requests are one of the main reasons of the informalization of employment relationships.Key Words: Welfare State, Informal Employment, Reform, Globalization, Informalization