Childcare: welfare or investment?

Conley A. Childcare: welfare or investment? Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 173–181 © 2009 The Author, Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. Childcare (also called day care or preschool) has generally served three purposes: to care for children while parents are employed; to provide early childhood education; and to cater to the needs of poor and disadvantaged children. This article proposes that the welfare approach to childcare be augmented by a social investment approach to enhance human and social capital investments among low income families and communities and to contribute to wider social development goals. The Head Start program in the United States and the Integrated Child Development Scheme in India are used to illustrate this argument.     

Risk awareness and adverse selection in catastrophe insurance: Evidence from California’s residential earthquake insurance market

Journal of Risk and Uncertainty - How does catastrophe-risk awareness affect purchase decisions and selection patterns in the insurance market? I study this issue using data on take-up rates of...     

Cultural policy and investment in China: Do they realize the government’s cultural objectives?

Cultural policy in China has both economic and cultural objectives. In this paper we consider how these two objectives are linked through increases in cultural output. We use a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model of the Chinese economy to analyse the impact of cultural investment on the output of cultural goods and services between 2009 and 2015, and we carry forward the simulations to 2030. Our results show that this cultural policy instrument has had a positive impact on the output of cultural goods and services in a manner that also underpins the purely cultural objectives of government.     

Arrow’s theorem of the deductible: Moral hazard and stop-loss in health insurance

The logic of Arrow’s theorem of the deductible, i.e. that it is optimal to focus insurance coverage on the states with largest expenditures, remains at work in a model with ex post moral hazard. The optimal insurance contract takes the form of a system of “implicit deductibles”, resulting in the same indemnities as a contract with full insurance above a variable deductible positively related to the elasticity of medical expenditures with respect to the insurance rate. In a model with a predefined ceiling on expenses, there is no reimbursement for expenses below the stop-loss amount. One motivation to have some insurance below the deductible arises if regular health care expenditures in a situation of standard health have a negative effect on the probability of getting into a state with large medical expenses.     

Risky investment decisions: How are individuals influenced by their groups?

We investigate the effect of group versus individual decision-making in the context of risky investment decisions in which all subjects are fully informed of the probabilities and payoffs. Although there is full information, the lottery choices pose cognitive challenges so that people may not be sure of their expected utility-maximizing choice. Making such decisions in a group context provides real-time information in which group members can observe others’ choices and revise their own decisions. Our experimental results show that simply observing what others in the group do has a significant impact on behavior. Coupling real-time information with group decisions based on the median value, i.e., majority rule, makes the median investment choice focal, leading people with low values to increase investments and those with high values to decrease investments. Group decisions based on the minimum investment amount produce more asymmetric effects.     

South Asian immigrants' experience of child protection services: are we recognizing strengths and resilience?

Ethno‐racial minority families who come in contact with child protection services face unique challenges that include different ideas about appropriate child rearing practices, possibly different definitions of child maltreatment, the possibility of racial biases and service provision that does not address their particular needs. Ethno‐racial minority immigrants encounter additional barriers to services associated with the challenges of settlement in a new cultural environment. Although considerable research has explored these issues, knowledge of the experiences of ethno‐racial families who have been in contact with child protection is limited. The current paper provides insights from a qualitative study that explored the experiences of one ethno‐racial group (South Asians) in Canada. Findings suggest a variety of reasons that families come into contact with the child protection system, and the characteristics of the sample highlight their difficult financial and employment circumstances. Themes include participants' desire to be better informed about the reasons for child protection involvement and about what they can expect from the worker and the agency. They also identified a wish for services that not only recognize their cultural diversity but also respond to the needs of the whole family. In‐home services were especially appreciated. The findings reveal the resilience and personal agency among participants that can be enhanced through strength‐based approaches to practice. Helping others, establishing community networks and developing needed services were avenues of resilience identified.     

The hot hand belief and the gambler’s fallacy in investment decisions under risk

We conduct experiments to analyze investment behavior in decisions under risk. Subjects can bet on the outcomes of a series of coin tosses themselves, rely on randomized ‘experts’, or choose a risk-free alternative. We observe that subjects who rely on the randomized experts pick those who were successful in the past, showing behavior consistent with the hot hand belief. Obviously the term ‘expert’ suffices to attract some subjects. For those who decide on their own, we find behavior consistent with the gambler’s fallacy, as the frequency of betting on heads (tails) decreases after streaks of heads (tails).     

Better job prospects or an imperative to ‘just work’? A cross-national study on social investment and women's employment

Social investment policies advocate for more and better jobs by supporting families' work-life balance and investing in human capital. But do they really help to boost employment prospects for women? Earlier literature suggests a positive relationship, but not enough attention has been paid to the type of employment, or to who the actual beneficiaries of these measures are. This article combines ISSP survey data with OECD and national data in a multilevel analysis to determine whether social investment policies benefit female employment, improve job prospects, and apply to all women irrespective of their educational level. We find that training and childcare policies are associated with higher employment levels, however, the claim that social investment increases chances for better job prospects finds little empirical support. These findings suggest that active labour market and childcare policies are associated with more women's employment, but they might still be following a push to ‘just work’.     

‘It’s who we are’: eco-nationalism and place in contesting deep-sea oil in Aotearoa New Zealand

ABSTRACT

Given near consensus among the scientific community about the anthropogenic nature of climate change, there is pressing concern about how to mobilise enough people to care and demand wider socio-political change. In this article we explore this urgent issue, drawing on recent conflicts over deep-sea oil exploration and drilling in Aotearoa New Zealand. We explore how some activist groups are attempting to mobilise care and concern around deep-sea oil drilling and climate change through the use of narratives that entwine aspects of national identity with the non-human world. We suggest that these activist groups are not concerned about a retreat of the state, but rather, are in direct conflict with the state, and state interventionism, over fossil fuel development trajectories in Aotearoa New Zealand. In drawing upon eco-nationalism, and particularly a way of life related to place, activists have called into question the common sense of business as usual and thereby sought to expand space for ‘ordinary’ Aotearoa New Zealanders to care about climate change.     

Inequality in Social Insurance Participation and Generosity: Do Firm Characteristics Matter?

Income inequality in China has been much documented and debated. However, one important aspect of income inequality – social insurance inequality – has been largely understudied. We use a large national panel of firm data to examine the possible influence of various firm characteristics on the inequalities in social insurance participation and generosity in the period 2004–07. Our findings reveal substantial ownership sector and regional gaps in social insurance provision by firms, with the private domestic sector and those in the central region lagging behind. Unionized firms, larger firms, and firms with greater market shares also tend to provide better social insurance to their employees. While being an exporting firm is linked with greater social insurance participation and generosity, being a purely exporting firm, however, is associated with reduced social insurance generosity. Lastly, highly educated workers receive substantially better social insurance coverage than their less educated peers. These social insurance inequalities are highly relevant as China pushes forward with establishing a unified social insurance system across urban‐rural boundaries, ownership sectors and industries.     

China’s Grand Strategy: Problems and Approaches

Features of the current strategic environment Qin Yaqing: Peace and development are the two main themes of the international system in the present era. The features of the current era are in sharp contrast with those of the era of "war and revolution." In the latter, the most striking expression of international relations was war between states. Survival was the first item on a state's agenda,     

Legal families and environmental protection: Is there a causal relationship?

In this paper we build on the analysis of La Porta et al. [La Porta, R., Lopez-de-Silanes, F., Shleifer, A., & Vishny, R. W. (1998). Law and finance. Journal of Political Economy, 106(6), 1113–1155], to investigate the importance of legal families in explaining the dissimilar levels of environmental quality indicators among countries with different legal systems. The main intuition behind our analysis is that the nations in which the rights of shareholders are more protected promote real and financial investment; this increases the speed at which the per capita income corresponding to the declining branch of the Environmental Kutznets Curve (EKC) is achieved. In econometrics different regressions analyses were performed, using as dependent variables three different kinds of pollutants (CO₂, fine suspended particulates and waste), and including as an explanation some financial variables never before considered in this kind of study.     

The Legal System and Alzheimer’s Disease: Social Workers and Lawyers’ Perceptions and Experiences

The expected increase in the number of people living with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) worldwide will be accompanied by an increase in the number of cases involving persons with AD brought up to the courts. This study examined the perceptions and experiences of social workers and lawyers regarding these cases. Three focus groups including social workers and lawyers (n = 26) were conducted. Two main themes were raised by the participants: (a) the role of social workers and lawyers in court cases regarding AD, and (b) the need for improving legal encounters involving persons with AD. Similarities and differences were found in both professionals’ interpretations of these shared themes. Results of this study emphasize the need for increasing the knowledge and interprofessional training provided to social workers and lawyers involved in legal cases dealing with issues involving persons with Alzheimer’s disease.     

Penal and welfare conditionality: Discipline or degradation?

This paper aims to complement analyses of welfare conditionality by examining what can be learned from studies of conditional punishment in the criminal justice system. Drawing on a range of recent studies, I explore lived experiences of the conditionality attendant on penal forms of supervision; penal forms that have expanded rapidly in recent decades. I argue that, to paraphrase Stan Cohen, such supervision is as much about the dispersal of degradation as it is about the dispersal of discipline. Indeed, in contemporary western societies, both in punishment and in welfare systems, I suggest that conditionality functions less to discipline poor and marginalised people and more to disqualify them from the entitlements of ordinary citizenship. In so doing, conditionality constructs them as denizens, thus serving to limit the liabilities for the state that arise from social inequalities. Extending Delroy Fletcher and Sharon Wright's metaphor, the abusive slaps now meted out in concert by both hands of the penal state are as much about degrading and denying the entitlements of “needy” denizens as they are about influencing their conduct. But crucially, even within the increasingly restrictive context created by these developments, penal practitioners can and do provide care and assistance.     

Enlightenment Reason and Modernity: Marx’s Critical Reconstruction

Reflection on and criticism of enlightenment reason is an indispensable part of the Enlightenment itself. It is an important counterbalance to the Enlightenment myth and the crisis of modernity, as well as being a major theoretical subject for political philosophy in the age of globalization. This reflection and criticism must be grasped and examined from both the external perspective of socio-historical requirements and the internal perspective of intellectual history. While giving full credit to the achievements of Enlightenment reason and modernity, we need to review their inherent conflicts, reveal the resultant social crisis, and sort out, reflect on and reference postmodernism’s denunciation of Enlightenment reason and the crisis of modernity in order to provide a more far-reaching solution to these issues. Marx turned the critique of Enlightenment reason and modernity into a critical reconstruction of the logic of capital and the capitalist mode of production, seeing the resolution of these evils as lying in transcendence of capitalist private ownership. In this way, he brought the critique of Enlightenment reason to a climax and showed modern society a way to more advanced development.     

A perfect storm: Challenges encountered by family caregivers of persons with Alzheimer’s disease during natural disasters

ABSTRACT

Since Hurricane Katrina there has been a movement across the U.S. to examine best practice for disaster response within the aging population. However, little is known about the experience of natural disasters from the perspective of family caregivers of persons with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia (ADRD). In this exploratory, qualitative study, family caregivers (n=27) were interviewed about their experience with the historic 2015 South Carolina flood. By using thematic analysis, themes were identified to better understand what unique challenges caregivers of person with ADRD experienced. While many caregivers stated they had experienced a natural disaster previously, none had ever done so in their current caregiving role. The caregiving role affected their ability to prepare for the storm and influenced their decision-making regarding evacuation and utilization of recovery resources. Thus, caregivers were confronted by a “perfect storm” of circumstances and uncertainty. Family caregivers need to have actionable emergency plans for disasters that are specific to their role as caregivers of persons with ADRD. Study implications also suggest the role social work professionals can have in educating, advocating, evaluating, and coordinating support to assist caregivers of persons with ADRD as a potentially vulnerable and at-risk population during all phases of disaster.     

Fruit safety regulations in the transatlantic region: How are Africa’s exports faring with the regulations?

The regulations of fruit trade for safe consumption are taken seriously in the EU and US markets to protect the health of the consumers, animals, plants and environmental safety, and thereby reduce health expenditures. The fruit safety regulations as trade policy measures could be either trade-promoting or -impeding. The extensiveness and intensiveness of fruit safety regulations in these markets often have consequences for exporters from Africa and their desire to attain sustainable economic development. The effects of fruit safety regulations are heterogeneous across economic agents. To this end, many stakeholders in Africa’s food system have perceived compliance with these food regulatory measures as necessary conditions to access the developed countries’ markets, particularly in the EU and US. Besides, the competitiveness of Africa’s fruit exports has been impacted by the preponderance of the measures despite its comparative advantages in the fruits sub-sector. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the impact of the EU and US sanitary and phytosanitary measures on Africa’s fruit exports. The empirical strategy involves the use of an augmented gravity model which explore the disentangling of these impact at the extensive and intensive margins of exports. Given the nature of trade data and specifically for this study, the zero trade flows are considered at both margins of exports for 45 African countries from 1995 to 2017. This study finds that the US market is more trade-impeding to Africa’s fruit exports than the EU market. Thus, Africa needs policies tweaking in the fruit value chain quality infrastructure, fruits’ quality and standards enforcement, capacity development, continuous update and modernisation of the fruits’ safety laws, directives and/or regulations. This will enhance the fruits’ quality to propel their access to the transatlantic markets.