Welfare institutions were characterized as stratification agents by Esping-Andersen’s 1990 seminal work. However, the mechanisms through which institutions reproduce inequalities have not been yet fully uncovered. This paper will provide preliminary evidence of a potential new explanation not only of how social policies produce inequalities, but also of how these effects can be self-sustaining. Social protection programmes endow different goals and purposes that may influence individual’s preferences and perceptions. These perceptions of the individual’s position in the society are reportedly correlated with objective socioeconomic status. Yet, the institutional design of social policies is expected to moderate this relationship at the individual level, while also directly influencing average levels of social status at the country level.

These claims will be tested using large-N multilevel techniques. The data on welfare dimensions will be retrieved from the 2021 Comparative Welfare Entitlements Project developed by Scruggs and Ramalho Tafoya. These measurements will be combined with data from the ESS Round 6 (2012) on individual’s self-placement in society (variable ‘plinsoc’). The extent to which systems are universalistic will be associated with subjective status, in that universalistic systems will show higher average levels of subjective social status. Furthermore, the higher universalistic systems are, the lower the variances of subjective status are at the country level.

As a consequence, this paper stresses the relevance the interconnection between welfare policies and social status. These insights can guide future research towards unveiling the political implications that the structuring capacities of the welfare state can have.