Aboriginal Children Belong in the Aboriginal Community: Changing Practices in Adoption

The placement of aboriginal children has been the responsibility of white social workers attached to state welfare agencies. Many of these children have been fostered or adopted by white families and have had little or no contact with the aboriginal community. Aboriginal people are now voicing opposition to such practices and are calling for an end to inter-racial adoption. They want the placement of all aboriginal children to be in the hands of the aboriginal community and are seeking to establish aboriginal placement agencies. These, and other demands, were voiced by an aboriginal task group at the recent First Australian Conference on Adoption.     

Public Opinion On Taxes And Government Spending

This article analyses egalitarian attitudes as well as opinions concerning taxation and government spending. Australians would prefer to have their taxes reduced than to increase government spending on social services, if faced with such an alternative. Typical welfare programs have a low priority, but the public would like to see increased spending on education and science, health services, roads improvements, military defence, and fighting against drug addiction. An individual's opinions about government spending are influenced by his or her socio-economic characteristics, with unemployed people and urban dwellers being more supportive of government spending on social programs.     

Migration and welfare

Migrants accout for an increasing proportion of unemployed people in Europe, and their economic position is deteriorating in many countries. Non-European refugees face the biggest risk of unemployment and welfare dependence. This, in turn, affects their health and wellbeing. Assessing and meeting the need for health care and social welfare for these vulnerable individuals is a challenge to health care, social services and to the public in host countries. Mainstream facilities should be the base, but transitional culturally sensitive programs may have many advantages as complements. Ethnically specific public services should not be regarded as a privilege for certain groups but as a measure to protect minorities from hidden discrimination. There is great complexity in migratory flows as well as in the responses of recipient countries. This generates opportunities for comparative research programs focusing on intercultural encounters and adaptation processes. Joint effort are essential to initiate collaborative research.     

中国式“福利依赖”的制度设计探源——北京市城市居民最低生活保障制度案例研究

本文通过对北京市25户低保家庭的长期跟踪调查,总结分析了中国制度背景下福利依赖的类型及原因。中国低保制度把多种福利与低保资格捆绑在一起,收入和资产审查缺乏可操作性,制度设计上促进就业政策基本失效。以上这几方面构成了福利依赖的制度设计原因。从这个意义上来说。中国的福利依赖原因很大程度上并不是救助福利丰厚,而是福利缺失所致。即失去低保资格会使家庭的很多风险失去保护,并且我国缺乏家计调查和工作福利制的可操作性,这些与发达国家有关“福利依赖”问题的争论有着根本的区别。     

Work,welfare, and wellbeing: The impacts of welfare conditionality on people with mental health impairments in the UK

The personal, economic, and social costs of mental ill health are increasingly acknowledged by many governments and international organisations. Simultaneously, in high-income nations, the reach of welfare conditionality has extended to encompass many people with mental health impairments as part of on-going welfare reforms. This is particularly the case in the UK where, especially since the introduction of Employment and Support Allowance in 2008, the rights and responsibilities of disabled people have been subject to contestation and redefinition. Following a review of the emergent international evidence on mental health and welfare conditionality, this paper explores two specific issues. First, the impacts of the application of welfare conditionality on benefit claimants with mental health impairments. Second, the effectiveness of welfare conditionality in supporting people with experience of mental ill health into paid work. In considering these questions, this paper presents original analysis of data generated in qualitative longitudinal interviews with 207 UK social security benefit recipients with experience of a range of mental health issues. The evidence suggests that welfare conditionality is largely ineffective in moving people with mental health impairments into, or closer to, paid work. Indeed, in many cases, it triggers negative health outcomes that make future employment less likely. It is concluded that the application of conditionality for people with mental health issues is inappropriate and should cease.     

Population education: a new strategy for India

Hamstrung by excessive population growth which has absorbed economic gains and faced with the prospect of even greater population gains due to the fact that 45% of her people are under 15 years of age, India must take bold steps to change fertility patterns. The best way of achieving this is to adopt a strong program of population education to convince young people to have small families out of a concern for the threat to the quality of life posed by excessive population. The objectives of population education, as defined by the National Seminar of Population Education in 1969, "should be to enable the students to understand that family size is controllable, that population limitation can facilitate the development of a higher quality of life in the nation and that a small family size can contribute materially to the quality of living for the individual family." The improvement in the health and welfare of individual family members was also emphasized. 3 major elements of population education are 1) determinants of population growth; 2) demography; and 3) consequences of population growth. 2 other aspects, generally called "sex education," can be added: human reproduction and family planning policies and programs. Inclusion of the latter items is highly controversial. Some maintain that the passions aroused by sex education can destroy the entire education program before it has a chance. Before launching an extensive program, the author recommends studying the social norms and constraints of the community, ensuring that the program is in competent hands, and instituting and evaluating pilot programs.     

Aboriginal Health Courses

The relevance of social and economic factors other than physical circumstances in determining aboriginal health is discussed. How these factors determine the goals of aboriginal health and influence what the participants can do about them is examined. A critical need is seen for health courses to train indigenous health workers. Problems of running such courses and selecting candidates are raised, and a greater role for social scientists in such courses is noted.     

Welfare Generosity in Europe: A Multi‐level Study of Material Deprivation and Income Poverty among Disadvantaged Groups

The aim of this study is to analyze whether and to what extent welfare generosity moderates the risk of income poverty and material deprivation among disadvantaged groups, that is, people with ill health, low education and lack of employment. The data are based on the 2009 European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (cross‐sectional) surveys. The analyses comprise 27 and 28 European countries, including 292,874 and 302,343 individuals between 18 and 64 years of age. Multi‐level analyses demonstrated that welfare generosity moderated the risk of both material deprivation and income poverty. With few exceptions, the risk decreased among disadvantaged groups in absolute terms. Among individuals who experienced the combinations of limiting long‐standing illness and either low education or non‐employment, the absolute inequalities in material deprivation decreased with increasing welfare generosity. Also, the absolute inequalities in income poverty among individuals who experienced the combination of limiting long‐standing illness and low education were lower in more generous welfare contexts. Results indicated lower absolute levels of both material deprivation and income poverty among disadvantaged individuals in generous welfare states. However, for material deprivation the results were more substantial and consistent than for income poverty. Taken together, these findings support the view that generous welfare states reach the worst‐off and are successful in buffering material deprivation and income poverty and, hence, in reducing social inequalities.     

The responsibility of public welfare in family planning

The primary objective of the paper is the implementation of family planning programs in and by the public sector. Providing health service is the category that family planning falls into within public welfare. Only 700,000 patients are now receiving family planning services from all public and private agencies combined. This is only 13% of the target population. All too many policy statments have been made with little done to implement them. The estimation is that in 1966 and 1967 HEW spent about three million dollars on family planning. Public programs have progressed farther through Office of Economic Opportunity than through HEW. Religious sources are the strongest opposition to welfare involvement in family planning. Social work as a profession has a role in family planning to the extent that it considers its role helping people and enhancing family functioning.     

Work barriers perceived by welfare recipients of a community employment program in Beijing,China

This research adopted a qualitative research method to explore work barriers perceived by 36 welfare recipients of a community employment program in Beijing, China. The barriers identified included personal and family factors of low education, lack of working skills, poor physical health, mental health problems and family care burden, along with interpersonal factors of weak social networks and social factors of high competitiveness in the job market and age discrimination. The findings were discussed in Chinese social contexts. The practice and policy implications of the study were noted and further research was recommended.     

The Development of State Welfare in the Asian NICs with Special Reference to Taiwan

This paper explores Taiwan's welfare development from its specific politico-economic situation. Although education and public health are well developed in Taiwan and social insurance is expanding to cover more and more Taiwanese people, the govenmental welfare effort is still too low to meet the welfare needs of the public. This is especially so given our discovery that military servicemen and related groups receive over 70% of the welfare expenditure of the central government while the disadvantaged receive only around 3%. Furthermore, political crises are often accompanied by a significant growth in social expenditure, implying that the purpose of state welfare is to maintain the stability of the Taiwanese state rather than to protect the well-being of Taiwanese people. Political isolation forces the Kuomintang (KMT) to secure Taiwan's role in the international community via economic growth. The development of state welfare cannot be allowed to have a negative effect on this highest priority. The limited resources, therefore, are allocated to economic goals as well as to the KMT–state apparatus in order to keep the KMT in power. However, the democratization of Taiwanese politics since the 1980s has forced the KMT to consolidate its legitimacy from the people and the improvement of social welfare is one measure for this purpose. Whether or not Taiwan becomes a Western-style welfare state through the expansion of state welfare in the near future, it furnishes a useful example with which to examine existing welfare theories.     

Redefining Welfare: Australian Social Policy and Practice

The present paper outlines and analyzes Australia's welfare reform policies as they have been implemented over the past decade. While there have been numerous social policy initiatives over this period, welfare reform provides an interesting site for analysis and review. This suite of policies and programs is of particular importance from several standpoints. First, its target groups – those needing income security assistance, including the unemployed, people with disabilities, and single parents – are historically and traditionally of concern to social work and social welfare. Second, welfare reform policies have had significant impact on social welfare agencies, and the social workers and welfare workers employed in them. Finally, welfare reform has had a wider impact on inequality in Australia and our attitudes to those in need. This paper first provides a brief overview of the context of Australian social policy and welfare, its origins and current situation. It then outlines the key operational elements of welfare reform and how it has been implemented. The third section of the paper offers a critical analysis of these policies and programs and finally poses some questions and issues requiring further discussion and research.     

Digitalization,Street‐Level Bureaucracy and Welfare Users' Experiences

Internet/web‐based forms of communication have increasingly been implemented by welfare agencies. However, there have been few studies of the experiences of welfare service users and the consequences of new technology for welfare service users. To what extent is the new technology adopted by the Norwegian Welfare and Labour Organization (NAV) used, and how do the users apply and experience the new possibilities? Do screen‐to‐screen encounters replace face‐to‐face encounters, and is this trend affected by age, gender, education or type of benefit? To answer these questions, we combine survey data, short‐term fieldwork in welfare reception areas and qualitative interviews with people receiving health and work‐related benefits. Our study indicates that screen‐to‐screen interaction in general does not replace face‐to‐face encounters, as many face‐to‐face encounters are related to screen communication. However, digital competence combined with life circumstances appears to be the source of a new divide between welfare service users.     

Public policies and family outcomes: empirical evidence or ideology?

Research findings and other data dealing with government policies and programs such as Social Security, supplemental security income, welfare reform, deinstitutionalization, abortion, and compensatory preschool education show that these programs have promoted family well-being and not hindered family interests.     

以人为本与推进科学发展、社会和谐

党的十七大提出"推动科学发展、促进社会和谐"的重要战略目标。人的全面发展是实现这一战略目标的最高原则,共同幸福是实现这一战略目标的根本目的,尊重保障人权是实现这一战略目标的基本要求,诚实友爱的人际环境是实现这一战略目标的重要条件。     

Welfare program participation among rural‐to‐urban migrant workers in China

Xu Q, Guan X, Yao F. Welfare program participation among rural‐to‐urban migrant workers in China Int J Soc Welfare 2011: 20: 10–21 © 2010 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and International Journal of Social Welfare. An estimated 225 million Chinese people have migrated to cities from China's rural areas over the past two decades. These rural‐to‐urban migrant workers have greatly challenged China's welfare system. The pre‐reform welfare system was a duel scheme with an urban–rural distinction in which rural residents were not covered by state‐run welfare programs and had to rely on their families and rural collectives. The development of employment‐based social insurance programs in 1999 made social welfare programs available for rural‐to‐urban migrant workers. Using an anonymous survey conducted in seven cities across China in 2006, we found that social insurance program participation rates were low among rural‐to‐urban migrant workers. Individual factors, including lack of knowledge of welfare programs and of a willingness to participate, and macro‐level factors, including type of employer and industry, are critical in determining migrant workers' participation in welfare programs. Implications for policies and practice are discussed.     

Fat government,thin populace? Is the growth of obesity prevalence lower in more generous welfare states?

In the last few decades, the prevalence of obesity has expanded rapidly and now constitutes a grave public health concern across the developed world. Obesity is negatively associated with, among other factors, education and healthcare quality, which are factors that governments can and do influence through welfare policies. This study investigated to what extent the change in the prevalence of obesity is lower in more generous welfare states. Based on pooled time series cross‐section regressions for 15 developed countries over 25 years, we found that the more generous are transfer payments, health policy and education policy, the lower is the increase of obesity prevalence. These findings have important implications for public policy formation and the public health and welfare state literatures.     

The Indian family in the seventies; an integrated family policy

Social and economic stresses of urban and industrial developments are eroding the traditional closeknit Indian family structure and causing a change in values among the young people. A comprehensive program aimed at strengthening all aspects of family life is needed. This would include legislation raising the minimum age of marriage and counseling in sexual matters and family planning. In India families are still considered more important than individuals and counseling should be directed to the family as a unit. The family's needs of housing, education, health, welfare, and employment should be considered as part of a whole package program.     

After the Handover in 1997

This paper analyzes the development of social welfare, social work education, and the social work profession against the background of Hong Kong's socio-economic and political development before and after the historic 1997 transfer of sovereignty. The change from a British colonial regime to China's Special Administrative Region has not changed Hong Kong's welfare regime, which provides the context in which the social work profession and education developed. The welfare sector has been increasingly subject to managerialist control by the government. Marketization in higher education in general has resulted in the proliferation of social work education programs. On the other hand, social work education has ventured new directions of development to face up with the challenges of increasing globalization.     

Unemployment in Spain

This article describes the problem of unemployment in Spain and its recent evolution. Data on unemployment in relation to economic growth and some basic demographic characteristics are presented. We also analyze programs designed to reduce unemployment and others to protect unemployed people as different aspects of developing the welfare state in Spain. The framework for analyzing the welfare state is the evolution of industrial relations. Other problems about unemployment are analyzed, including geographical disparities between northern and southern Spain, where rural unemployment is especially severe. We offer an overall perspective on the problem and the government initiatives to ameliorate it.