7. Conclusion

This book started out with a rather ambitious agenda: to connect the experiences of high income countries in ethnic heterogeneity with their experiences in poverty and inequality. It is no brainer that this connection involves the roles of welfare state policies since they serve as the conduit through which states attempt to redistribute resources and affect poverty and inequality, irrespective of the specific population that is at risk of poverty and low incomes. But the task to effectively link these two very distinct aspects of society was monumental, calling for mimicking the reality in which a range of economic, political, and socio-cultural structures, policies, and performance are involved. What makes it even more challenging is the focus on cross-national analysis that necessitates comparing contexts that may not be fully comparable, given their unique histories and political and socio-cultural values, attitudes, and preferences.