The impact of the use of the social welfare services or social security benefits on attitudes to social welfare policies

Muuri A. The impact of the use of the social welfare services or social security benefits on attitudes to social welfare policies
Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 182–193 © 2009 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. This article investigates the attitudes of citizens and clients to social welfare services and social security benefits. The data come from a Finnish national survey conducted at the end of 2006. First, the article overviews the previous welfare‐state studies relating especially to the theoretical perspectives of self‐interest and legitimacy. The empirical analysis indicates (i) that a different operation of self‐interest can only weakly explain the differences in attitudes between services and benefits; (ii) that there is general support for Finnish social welfare services and social security benefits, which, however, is mixed with growing criticism among women and pensioners who are supposed to benefit most from the welfare policies; and (iii) that such determinants of attitude as gender, use and, to some extent, lifecycle have become as important as class‐related factors such as income and education.     

Street‐level discretion,emotional labour and welfare frontline staff at the Australian employment service providers

Despite the current controversial debates about discretion in public bureaucracies in general, and in welfare agencies in particular, the current literature on street‐level bureaucracy mainly assumes that discretion is a distinctive feature of the daily work of public servants. Nonetheless, a pertinent question has not specifically been asked in this literature, that is, given the context of privatisation and increased welfare conditionality in the welfare sector that are seriously challenging welfare frontline staff's commitment to social justice and human rights‐based practices, what are forms of street‐level discretion likely to contribute to improving the quality of welfare services? In this study, we attempt to address this question by exploring discretion displayed by welfare frontline staff in four Australian employment service providers. We argue that emotional labour, especially when being informed by critical empathy, is an important and effective form of street‐level discretion that welfare frontline workers can perform to better support welfare recipients and minimise the punitive aspects of welfare policy.     

Differentiation of welfare regimes: The case of Italy

The different welfare system classifications mainly address systems on the national level, while the local levels have not been considered in any great detail. The welfare reform measures adopted in some countries have led to more autonomy on the local level. Consequently, local authorities have adopted different social policies and developed diverse welfare services. This article addresses the case of Italy and shows that classifying a welfare regime by considering only the national level can lead to important local features being missed that are indeed relevant for its classification. The units of analysis are the 20 administrative regions of Italy. The results demonstrate that the Italian welfare system is far from being a homogeneous system and that the resources available on the local level have a considerable effect on the level of the welfare services provided. These results show that more attention needs to be directed at the local level.     

Developmental Social Policy,Social Welfare Services and the Non‐profit Sector in South Africa

The potential and challenge of constructing a democratic developmental welfare state through synergistic state‐civil society relations is the focus of this article. The author argues that while South Africa's pluralist approach, involving a leading role for the state in partnership with voluntary organizations, is a viable policy option to address the country's developmental challenges, anomalies between policy proclamations and actual practice raises questions about the efficacy of the partnership model and the gendered nature of welfare provision. Key governance issues and challenges, namely financial policies and institutional capability, underlie current failures in the delivery of welfare and care services, resulting in the non‐realization of these constitutionally guaranteed social rights. Further public action is needed to remedy the situation. Non‐profit organizations can advocate for policy reforms and challenge the instrumental nature of state‐civil relations and the abrogation of state responsibility for welfare services in contemporary South Africa.     

The Role of Non‐profit Organizations in the Mixed Economy of Welfare‐to‐Work in the UK and Australia

This article charts the development of welfare‐to‐work policies and compares and contrasts the traditions of delivery in the UK and Australia. We find that in the UK, employment services and social security benefit administration have been dominated by the central state, traditionally affording a key role to civil servants as direct delivery agents. However, in federal Australia, mixed economies of welfare‐to‐work operate in the different states, there is a far greater role for social services and non‐profit organizations are firmly established as key providers of frontline employment services. Since the late 1990s, UK welfare reforms have been gradually following the Australian lead in contracting non‐state actors as delivery agents. As this trend seems set to continue and intensify, we examine the Australian experience in order to reflect on the role of non‐profits in policy reform.     

Decision‐making in child welfare services: Professional discretion versus standardized templates

The article explores differences in the assessment and decision‐making processes, in child welfare services where a standardized template is implemented and in services where it is not. Child welfare services in several countries use different approaches to assess children's and families' need for intervention. In Norway, as in other European countries, there is a shortage of knowledge about decision‐making strategies. The article examines how 36 child welfare caseworkers in 6 different teams in Norway investigate, assess, and make decisions at the phase of an incoming referral. The analysed data were collected by focus group interviews. We use decision theory as a theoretical frame of reference. The analysis shows variation in the assessment procedure at different points of the process, depending on which approach was used. Despite such differences, the final decisions made were almost identical. Even though the data has its limitations because of the small number of informants, the results indicate that choice of approach is not decisive for decision‐making in the child welfare services.     

Building state capacity for welfare governance: The pathway and development of child welfare system and social work in China

ABSTRACT

China’s dramatic socioeconomic transformation after the reform and opening up, coincided with changes in state-family relationship, has resulted in a large number of children at risk of care. In the past three decades, child welfare has been highly concerned by the government and society, and the child welfare system has substantially developed in the direction of establishing a moderately universal system. In this process, the development of child welfare and social work has shown a mutually reinforcing trend. This includes the professionalisation of child welfare services, the professional training of child welfare workers and the advancement of child welfare policies. The governance of child welfare is an essential component of national social governance. Its future development should be oriented towards a developmental and holistic approach of governance, and social work as an important institutional actor plays a critical role in promoting good governance of child welfare and beyond.     

Agreement and discrepancy between children,parents, and social workers on school‐based effort avoidance in child welfare services

A multiperspective approach is beneficial for obtaining reliable and multifaceted pictures of child behaviour problems. The goal of the present study is to examine interrater agreement on school‐based effort avoidance between children receiving child welfare services, parents, and social workers. Given previous findings, interrater agreement is expected to be low. Self‐reported data on school‐based effort avoidance were gathered for children and adolescents in child welfare services. Additionally, social workers (using the Teacher‐Report Checklist for social and learning behaviour) and parents (using the parallel version of the self‐rating questionnaire on school‐based effort avoidance) were asked to complete an external assessment tool to compare children's perspectives with the ratings of significant adults. The results confirmed significant discrepancies between parents' and children's ratings on effort avoidance tendencies. Furthermore, there were only small to moderate correlations between children's self‐ratings and the adults' assessments; however, the consensus between adults was higher than the interrater agreement between children and social workers. Discrepancies in ratings from multiple informants underline the importance of integrating multiple perspectives, especially children's perspectives, in the diagnostic process in order to plan and adapt appropriate care and treatment.     

Social investment,social service and the economic performance of welfare states

This article begins with an examination of the role of social services as the key instrument of social investment strategy, presenting an empirical analysis of its impact on economic performance. A pooled time series, cross‐section analysis was conducted with the data of 15 welfare states from 1990 to 2007 under the ‘social investment hypothesis’ that more social service orientedness brings about a greater positive effect on the economy. The results show that a larger share of social service spending in the total social expenditure – more social service orientedness – contributes to economic growth and labour market performance, whereas a larger aggregate size of the welfare state may have a negative effect on employment. In conclusion, this study suggests that the relatively ambiguous welfare strategy of social investment could be clarified as a ‘transition from income security to livelihood security’ in which emphasis is placed on social service. Key Practitioner Message: ● This study suggests that the key instrument of social investment strategy is social service; ● The results show that more social service orientedness contributes to economic growth and labour market performance.     

Empirical Analysis of Fiscal Soundness and Public Social Expenditure: A Lesson for the Future Direction of the Korean Welfare State

The aim of this paper is to investigate the relations between fiscal soundness and public social expenditure in advanced welfare states so as to reconsider the conventional wisdom that welfare expenditure aggravates national finances. Through this, I propose the clues of building the sustainable Korean welfare state. I focus on the interdependent relationship between fiscal soundness and public social expenditure based on fiscal sociology. Considering this interaction, I form two sets of simultaneous equations models and employ a special statistical method, three‐stage least squares (3SLS). The results regarding the causal relationship between fiscal soundness and public social spending indicate that, if public welfare spending is increased, fiscal health is damaged. However, as many comparative social policy researchers have pointed out, outcomes of welfare states differ from country to country according to the composition of public welfare spending. Specifically, some welfare states with priority given to social services such as vocational training or childcare services have maintained the stability of public finance. By extension, we can say that public social expenditures have a positive influence on fiscal soundness based on the composition of social expenditures. Finally, it is possible to create financially sustainable welfare states.     

Public Opinion against Markets? Attitudes towards Market Distribution of Social Services – A Comparison of 17 Countries

This article studies how citizens view the appropriateness of market criteria for allocating services commonly associated with social citizenship rights and welfare state responsibility. The article focuses specifically on a potential role for the market in the provision of social services. The relationship between welfare policy institutions, socio‐economic class and attitudes is explored by comparing attitudes across 17 countries of the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development, using multilevel modelling and data from the 2009 International Social Survey Programme. Results show that public support for market distribution of services is relatively weak in most countries, a result suggesting that public opinion is unlikely to pose a driving force within ongoing processes of welfare marketization. Still, attitudes are found to vary a lot across countries in tandem with between‐country variation in welfare policy design. First, aggregate public support for market distribution of services is stronger in countries with more private spending on services. Second, class differences in attitudes are larger in countries with more extensive state‐led delivery of services. Together, these results point to the operation of normative feedback‐effects flowing from existing welfare policy arrangements. The theoretical arguments and the empirical results presented in this article suggest that future research exploring the relationship between welfare policy and public opinion from a country‐comparative perspective is well advised to place greater focus on the market institutions that, to varying extents in different countries, act as complements to the state in the administration of social welfare.     

Between the maternal and the professional: the impact of being a child welfare officer on motherhood

Child welfare officers experience stress from exposure to child neglect and abuse and the burden of responsibility for children's well‐being. This qualitative study addresses the question: How do social workers who are child welfare officers perceive and cope with the influence of their professional occupation on their relationships with their own children? The research is based on in‐depth interviews with a purposive sample of 10 child welfare workers who are mothers (of 2–4 children aged 2–23 years). The data analysis illustrates how the professional identity and the maternal identity of the child welfare officer fluctuate between two positions. The first is ‘anxious motherhood’ in which anxiety is the prism through which the welfare officer views the world as dangerous for her children, stimulating protective, control‐enhancing actions. The second position is reflective motherhood in which the welfare worker struggles with her own stresses and conflicts as a mother and searches for an experience of meaningful, positive motherhood. The findings reinforce the need to raise the consciousness of child welfare officers regarding the impact of encountering distress and trauma on their own well‐being as parents. In this way, they can prevent secondary traumatization and enhance professional and maternal growth.     

Determinants of welfare service provision after the Golden Age

Jensen C. Determinants of welfare service provision after the Golden Age Int J Soc Welfare 2011: 20: 125–134 © 2009 The Author, International Journal of Social Welfare © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. The welfare state literature exhibits a ‘transfer bias’ in the sense that very little research exists on welfare services or benefits in‐kind. This article presents one of the first systematic studies on the determinants of welfare service provision since the end of the Golden Age of welfare expansion. The article concludes that partisan factors do not drive change, although historically they may have been pivotal. Instead, new factors, including deindustrialisation, female labour force participation and rising public attention appear to be highly significant. It is argued that new studies need to take seriously both the individual characteristics of services as well as the changing social demands that the services are supposed to meet.     

Social Enterprise – A New Phenomenon in the Field of Economic and Social Welfare?

Drawing upon insights from historical institutionalism, this article critically examines the origins of social enterprise and its emergence into the mainstream policy arena. It begins by relating the social enterprise idea to major non‐state/non‐private institutional traditions, including the European social economy, US non‐profits and the UK charitable sector, and places it within the specific field of economic and social welfare. In so doing, the article contests the idea that social enterprise is a new phenomenon in the social welfare field and proposes instead that the supposed ‘novelty’ of social enterprise as an organizational form and a subject of public policy lies primarily in the nature of the socio‐political and economic context of the 1980s–1990s, during which time it became ‘en vogue’. The process of institutionalization of social enterprise and its ascension into the mainstream policy arena is examined in more detail in the case of England during the time New Labour was in office and beyond, and lessons are drawn from this experience concerning both the role that social enterprise plays or is expected to play as a vehicle to address economic and social needs, and how this is intertwined with both a dominant neo‐liberal discourse, as well as alternative perspectives that emphasize more equalitarian and sustainable development paths. The article concludes with some reflections in relation to the apparent consensus that seems to exist around social enterprise as a legitimate subject of public policy and the resulting social enterprization of public services which is currently taking place in England.     

Child‐centric or family focused? A study of child welfare workers' perceptions of ethnic minority children in England and Norway

This paper analyses child welfare workers' perceptions of ethnic minority children in England and Norway based on in‐depth interviews with 52 child welfare workers in 2008. We employ a child‐centric theoretical framework to explore up to what extent workers focus on minority children in their perceptions. We found that about half of our study participants (n= 27) did so, and many more in Norway than England. They perceived many risks and problems for minority children related to their ethnicity, including children's biculturalism and language skills, parenting methods, unequal treatment and racism, lack of social inclusion, and problems in school. Norwegian workers displayed a broad needs perception and embraced a change‐orientated perspective and held parents accountable for their children's educational success and social inclusion. English workers had a narrower approach, focusing on protecting children. We discuss how the cross‐country differences may be related to different welfare state and child welfare paradigms.     

After Safety,What is the Goal of Child Welfare Services: Permanency,Family Continuity or Social Benefit?

Child welfare services have multiple goals, including child protection, family continuity, and achievement of legal permanency so children can end their involvement with child welfare services and have a lifetime family. These goals are not all achievable to the same extent in all cases. American child welfare policy has, in the last few years, become more definitive about the priority of child protection above family preservation. Now, situations which involve safety risks that are too great do not require any efforts at reunifying children to their biological homes. Less clear in American child welfare policy and practice is the value to be placed on other factors – particularly when a child cannot return home and will need an alternative adoptive family. Practitioners often emphasize family continuity – that is, the opportunity to maintain contact with the biological parent and extended family members – as a key decision making consideration. Yet, family continuity does not necessarily predict a successful transition to adulthood that is healthy for children or provides social benefits to the community. This paper explores the rationale for expanding child welfare decision making criteria by adding longer-term outcomes and the likelihood that children will eventually generate social benefits.     

Protective legislation: The “third pillar” of the welfare state

Welfare states are built upon three central social policy pillars: (1) income programs, including an assortment of income maintenance and security benefits; (2) social services, comprising a diverse constellation of provisions, which furnish care such as health care and education, and “in kind” benefits; and (3) protective legislation, encompassing a dense web of proactive and preventative laws, rights, and entitlements, such as health and safety legislation, minimum wage laws, child protection acts, rent controls, and laws governing evictions and foreclosures. Despite its centrality to the welfare state and to our well‐being, this third pillar has received considerably less attention in comparative social policy research. The dominant welfare state typologies have focused almost exclusively upon income measures and, more recently, on social services, to construct their welfare state categories or “worlds” of welfare while largely neglecting this crucial third pillar. A greater focus on protective welfare legislation can help sharpen the distinctions among welfare states within and across the welfare worlds, which is particularly valuable in light of the ongoing erosion of the other two pillars over the past few decades.     

What about the fathers? The presence and absence of the father in social work practice in England,Ireland, Norway,and Sweden—A comparative study

Within Northern Europe, gendered roles and responsibilities within the family have been challenged through an emergence of different family forms, increasing cultural diversity, and progressive developments in welfare policies. To varying degrees, welfare policies in different countries support a dual‐earner model and encourage men to be more active as fathers by reinforcing statutory rights and responsibilities. In child welfare practice, there has traditionally been a strong emphasis on the mother as primary carer for the child; the father has been less visible. This paper explores, in four national welfare contexts, how child welfare social workers include fathers in practice decisions. Data were collected using focus group interviews with social workers from England, Ireland, Norway, and Sweden. Similarities and differences emerge in relation to services and the focus of social work assessments. However, overall, the research suggests that despite gains in policy and legislation that promote gender equality, fathers remain largely absent in child welfare practice decisions about the parenting of their children. From the research, we raise questions for social work practice and the development of welfare policies.     

Childcare policies and services in Hong Kong after the handover: Beyond a feminist critique

This article reviews the development of childcare policies and services in Hong Kong after the handover, gauging it with two standards: promoting the equal development of children and gender equality in our society. Statistics derived from data taken from multiple sources show that the government has been sticking to a “positive non‐intervention approach” to welfare development and that the male breadwinner/female carer model prevalent in this region was shaped and strengthened by current childcare policies and services. The current provision of childcare services is insufficient to guarantee the equal use of childcare among children of different socioeconomic backgrounds, or to ease the tension between the needs of childcare and job requirements in a family, or to emancipate married women from the domestic sphere. A “generative welfare approach” that collects fiscal resources and redistributes them strategically with a systemic mind‐set has been suggested for social policy and service planning, including spending the money in the right place, launching smart and practical policies that can achieve both pragmatic effects and ideological improvement in the area of gender equality, providing financial support or subsidies to a company for the provision of parental leave, and increasing the provision of quality childcare services.     

Introduction: social policy, economic growth and developmental welfare

Although the notion of developmental welfare is not new, it is only in recent times that its central premises have again attracted attention in social policy circles. Since developmental welfare offers an opportunity to challenge the neo-liberal claim that social expenditures harm the economy, and that economic development requires retrenchments in state welfare, more information about this approach is needed. This article discusses the developmental welfare approach with reference to neo-liberalism's current hegemonic influence on social policy. It traces the historical evolution of developmental welfare, discusses its theoretical implications and outlines its practical proposals.