The welfare state faces a trilemma in the post-industrial society: employment growth, inequality and fiscal balance. Social Investment is considered as the panacea of this trilemma. However, does it lead to the convergence of the welfare states? or will institutional differences be maintained? We presume that the welfare states would not converge due to institutional legacies. The method of the disaggregated social expenditure will be used to analyse what policies are emphasized. We found that, at least, there are two pathways, social democratic pathway in Nordic welfare states and the third-way pathway in liberal welfare states. Conservative welfare states are divergent, on the one hand, Spain and Italy still place great emphasis on familialism and corporatism; on the other, France and Netherland adopted social democratic pathway by spending more on family policy; lastly, Germany located in the middle. In East Asia, there is no clear pathway of social investment transition.