A core principle of the welfare state is that everyone pays taxes or contributions in exchange for universal insurance against social risks such as sickness, old age, unemployment, and plain bad luck. This solidarity principle assumes that everyone is a member of a single national insurance pool, and it is commonly explained by poor and asymmetric information, which undermines markets and creates the perception that we are all in the same boat. Living in the midst of an information revolution, this is no longer a satisfactory approach. This book explores, theoretically and empirically, the consequences of 'big data' for the politics of social protection. Torben Iversen and Philipp Rehm argue that more and better data polarize preferences over public insurance and often segment social insurance into smaller, more homogenous, and less redistributive pools, using cases studies of health and unemployment insurance and statistical analyses of life insurance, credit markets, and public opinion.

‘Big Data and the Welfare State is a big book. Iversen and Rehm take a familiar observation-that advances in science and technology are stripping away our ‘veil of ignorance’ about health and income risks-and turn it into a revelatory account of the changing structure and politics of national welfare states. Anyone concerned about inequality and social policy in the information age (and everyone should be) has to read this book.’

Jacob S. Hacker - Stanley Resor Professor of Political Science, Yale University and author, The Great Risk Shift: The New Economic Insecurity and the Decline of the American Dream (2nd ed., 2019)

‘This is an agenda setting book. It asks how the growing abundance of inform alters both private and public insurance markets. It is a critical theoretical empirical contribution to scholarship on the welfare state and understanding contemporary developments in solidaristic coalitions (or lack thereof) in demanding social insurance.’

Jane Gingrich - Associate Professor of Political Economy, University of Oxford and Tutorial Fellow, Magdalen College

‘This book will change the way we think about the welfare state. Iversen and Rehm develop an innovative argument about the central place of information at the heart of the welfare state and how the Big Data revolution threatens to undermine fundamental principles of social insurance and solidarity. A must-read for anyone interested in political economy and inequality research!’

Marius R. Busemeyer - Professor of Political Science, University of Konstanz