Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 24 (2006) 377–386 Review Problem shifts in the study of welfare states and societal inequalities  Wout Ultee Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, Netherlands Received 10 May 2005; received in revised form 18 July 2006; accepted 15 September 2006 Abstract This paper takes stock of questions in the field of welfare states and societal inequalities and related areas in sociology. Within general sociology, Lenski offered the question of who gets what and why, and the first generation of studies on welfare and inequality ranging from Cutright to Hewitt replaced questions about income shares for percentile groups by questions about state social security expenditures. Korpi, who initiated a second generation of studies, affected a change towards questions about individual benefit levels relative to the income of members of the working population. Commentators like Baldwin have pointed out that these questions are questions about solidarity, another problem in general sociology. This paper concludes by arguing in favour of a third problem shift, in which questions about the solidarity disfavoured people receive are complemented with questions about the solidarity advantaged people give. © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Problem shifts; Income shares; Social security expenditures; Benefits levels; Solidarity Contents 1. Introduction: the pertinence of problem shifts ................................................................. 378 2. The effects of welfare arrangements on societal inequality: a silly question? ..................................... 379 3. One of general sociology’s questions: who gets what and why? ................................................. 379 4. The Cutright problem shift: from income shares to state social security expenditures ............................. 380 5. The Korpi problem shift: from state expenditures to individual benefit levels ..................................... 381 5.1. The first phase of the Korpi problem shift .............................................................. 381 5.2. The second phase of the Korpi problem shift: keeping up with the times .................................. 382 5.3. The Korpi problem shift and questions in other fields in sociology ........................................ 382 6. ‘The Scandinavian model’ versus Esping-Andersen and Baldwin ............................................... 384 7. The next problem shift: from receiving to giving solidarity ..................................................... 385 8. Cohesion as a question in general sociology and the field of welfare and inequality ............................... 386 References ................................................................................................ 386  I presented a powerpoint of this paper at the May 2005 meeting in Oslo of the Research Committee on Social Stratification and Mobility of the International Sociological Association. E-mail address: W.Ultee@maw.ru.nl. 0276-5624/$ – see front matter © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.rssm.2006.09.002