Symposium introduction: Life satisfaction and welfare economics

The paper provides an overview of a symposium concerning life satisfaction and welfare economics. It provides a brief summary of the papers contained within the symposium and identifies four kinds of issues that arise from, and are addressed by, the burgeoning work on happiness and capabilities approaches to welfare economics.     

Care and protection in Scottish child welfare: evidence of double jeopardy?

Since the inception of the Scottish children's hearings system, an increasing concentration of child care and protection referrals has emerged. Data on 225 children referred on care and protection grounds are examined. Children faced a double jeopardy of personal adversity against a background of social and economic disadvantage. A smaller group of children were also victims of an offence by an adult. A significant proportion of children had multiple referrals suggesting a recycling of some children. Social adversity in the backgrounds of children has been found in other child welfare studies. The significance accorded to this by social work agencies and the links between neglect and poverty may be overlooked. The importance of policy that provides comprehensive public assistance and services, as found in other European countries, is an inescapable conclusion.     

Research evidence utilization in policy development by child welfare administrators

An exploratory qualitative study was conducted to explore how child welfare administrators use research evidence in decision-making. Content analysis revealed that a cultural shift toward evidence-based practice (EBP) is occurring in Canadian child welfare organizations and multiple types of evidence inform policy decisions. Barriers to using evidence include individual, organizational, and environmental factors. Facilitating factors include the development of internal champions and organizational cultures that value EBP. Integrating research into practice and policy decisions requires a multifaceted approach of creating organizational cultures that support research utilization and supporting senior bureaucrats to use research evidence in policy development.     

Using big data for evidence based governance in child welfare

Numerous approaches are available for improving governance of the child welfare system, all of which require longitudinal data reporting on child welfare clients. A substantial amount of agency administrative information – big data – can be transformed into knowledge for policy and management actions through a rigorous information generation process. Important properties of the information generation process are that it must generate accurate, timely information while protecting the confidentiality of the clients. In addition, it must be extensible to serve an ever-changing policy and technology environment. Knowledge discovery and data mining (KDD), aka data science, is a method developed in the private sector to mine consumer data and can be used in public settings to support evidence based governance. KDD consists of a rigorous 5-step process that includes a Web-based end-user interface. The relationship between KDD and governance is a continuous feedback cycle that enables ongoing development of new information and knowledge as stakeholders identify emerging needs. In this paper, we synthesis the different frameworks for utilizing big data for public governance, introduce the KDD process, describe the nature of big data in child welfare, and then present an updated KDD architecture that can support these frameworks to utilize big data for governance. We also demonstrate the role KDD plays in child welfare management through 2 case studies. We conclude with a discussion on implications for agency–university partnerships and research-to-practice.     

Life cycle consumption of a harmful and addictive good

This article demonstrates that the endogenous desire to quit smoking can result from a rational consumption path chosen at the time the consumer begins smoking. This result is obtained without relying on hidden costs or unknown preferences. A finite-lived agent chooses a path of consumption of a harmful and addictive good to maximize present discounted utility. The consumer chooses his consumption rate to account for the future health consequence of smoking and the withdrawal costs of quitting. A consumer may choose to smoke even if it means a lowered utility level for the majority of the time spent smoking.     

The effect of cross-cultural dialogue on child welfare parenting classes: anecdotal evidence in black and white

The child welfare system indicates that evidence of successful completion of parenting classes is instrumental in determining whether parents are actively engaged in the process of permanency planning. Such classes vary in length and intensity with topics ranging from "How to Raise Healthy Families" to "How to Discipline Your Child." Two social workers (one white and one black), who initially disagreed about the format of a parenting class, chronicle their efforts to collaborate and create a class format that recognizes the psychosocial and, more specifically, the cultural influences inherent in facilitating these classes. The juxtaposition of the clinical concepts of projection and projective identification are evaluated against the backdrop of the social concepts of empowerment and diversity.     

Life cycle of families in an urban community

This study is based on a sample of 1203 families in the city of Sholapur, conducted in 1955 using a cross-section analytical method based on income and family size, in relation to age of head of household. The nature of the life cycle is representational rather than statisitical. Nearly half the household heads were between ages 26-40; 10% were 15-25; and 40% were over 40. The average family size increased steadily and continuously from 3.9 members when the head was under 20, to 6.6 when the head was 55. The number of dependents at this age increased from 2.7 to 4.6. The average number of earners increased from 1.3 to 2. After age 55 the average family size declined from 6.6 to 5.4 for the 56-60 age group. Until the age of 40 the head of the family is usually the only earner. The son at age 20 begins to earn. At 55 the head may retire, but another son may take his place as an earner. The proportions of families with income below Rs. 500 decreased continuously from about 42%, when the family head was under 20; to 15% when he was between 26-40; rose to 25% between ages 46-50; and declined to 12% at ages 56-60. The proportion rose again to 32% over age 60. The proportion of families below Rs. 1000 decreased from 89% in the 0-20 age group to 41% in the 51-55 group, after which it rose to 64% in the over 60 group. The median income of the family increased continously from Rs. 591 when the head was under 20, and increased to the highest level of Rs. 1275 between ages 51-55.     

Bias, racism and evidence-based practice: The case for more focused development of the child welfare evidence base

In spite of continuing concerns about disproportionate representation of African Americans, American Indians, and selected other groups in foster care, development of the practice and policy evidence base has paid scant attention to incorporating the specific concerns of these communities in intervention research. The authors review the current foundation of evidence-based practice and identify gaps in the knowledge base with specific reference to race/ethnicity/culture and class. They recognize the current concerns regarding disproportionality in child welfare services; and summarize the current research on bias and racism to establish potential mechanisms contributing to racially disproportionate outcomes. Addressing these literatures in concert with one another gives new meaning to the phrase, culturally competent evidence-based practice. Culturally competent practice goes beyond admonishing practitioners and policy makers to be more sensitive or to undertake such training. It is a pathway to the development of a more targeted and relevant evidence base: 1) rigorous intervention research with diverse populations could be more intentionally developed and 2) existing rigorous research on successfully addressing bias could be more broadly applied and tested in child welfare. A model for evaluating the validity of the evidence base with respect to diverse populations is proposed.     

Child welfare workers: who they are and how they view the child welfare system

This article examines the characteristics of child welfare caseworkers, their views of the child welfare system, their clients, their agency of employment, and child welfare policies, and whether these views vary according to caseworkers' characteristics. Quantitative and qualitative methods were used to analyze in-depth interviews conducted with caseworkers in New York and Chicago. The major themes that emerged from the analysis indicate caseworkers believed that the child welfare system does not meet the needs of the children in care, lacks the resources to appropriately serve clients, and often establishes goals that cannot be attained by the biological parents. Caseworkers held negative views of the biological parents and, although most described their organization as well equipped, almost as many reported that their organization lacked technical, administrative, and personnel resources. Caseworkers' views of child welfare policies emphasized the need for reforming the system and reevaluating funding priorities.     

Methamphetamine and the changing face of child welfare: practice principles for child welfare workers

Methamphetamine use and production is changing child welfare practice. Methamphetamine is a significant public health threat (National Institute of Justice, 1999) reaching epidemic proportions (Anglin, Burke, Perrochet, Stamper, & Dawud-Nouris, 2000). The manufacturing of methamphetamine is a serious problem for the child welfare system, yet child welfare has not addressed the needs of children living in homes where methamphetamine is manufactured (U.S. Department of Justice, 2002; DOJ, 2003; Altshuler, 2005). This article presents key issues for child welfare workers related to the use, production, and effects of methamphetamine on children and families, and identifies practice principles for child welfare workers in order to ensure safety for victims, parents, and workers themselves.     

Feminism,voluntarism and the welfare state: Toward a feminist sociological theory of social welfare

In current debates about social welfare, the terms public and private are often equated with state vs. nonstate realms. This paper argues that a feminist sociological analysis would reconstitute notions of public and private as forms of social relations that occur in a wide range of activity, thus disentangling them from institutional divisions. It reviews contemporary feminist theory and practice and spells out implications for a feminist sociological theory of social welfare. It uses these implications to look at a particular kind of women’s grassroots voluntary organization that contains possibilities for rethinking societal responses to social welfare needs. She is author ofWomen of the Upper Class (1984), and senior editor ofShifting the Debate: Public/Private Sector Relations in the Modern Welfare State (1987).     

Social welfare and equality

The main purpose of the paper is to provide a unified framework within which normatively significant equality indices can be derived from social welfare orderings. The paper contains a functional representation of the class of social evaluation functions generating relative equality indices.A preliminary version of this paper was written while the second author was visiting the ISI. Financial support from the CAICYT project No. DI-87075, is greatefully acknowledged. We are grateful to W. Bossert and C. Blackorby for comments and useful discussion. The final version of the paper has greatly benefited from the suggestion of an anonymous referee.     

Intermediate inequality and welfare

We introduce a new centrist or intermediate inequality concept, between the usual relative and absolute notions, which is shown to be a variant of the α-ray invariant inequality measures in Pfingsten and Seidl (1997). We say that distributions x and y have the same (x, π)-inequality if the total income difference between them is allocated among the individuals as follows: 100π% preserving income shares in x, and 100(1−π)% in equal absolute amounts. This notion can be made as operational as current standard methods in Shorrocks (1983). Received: 13 May 1998/Accepted: 25 January 1999     

Religion and animal welfare: Evidence from voting data

In November 2002, Florida residents voted on a ballot proposal limiting farming practices that are deemed cruel to pigs. Using county level data, models of support for the proposal are estimated, paying particular attention to the influence of religion. Although the rate of adherents to Catholicism and evangelical denominations are statistically and economically relevant to explain support for the ban, political preferences and socio-economic factors are more important in terms of substantive significance than religious affiliation.     

Child welfare privatization: quantitative indicators and policy issues

The purpose of this study was to demonstrate the development of safety, permanency, and child well-being indicators by using administrative data sets as well as by using these indicators as tools for evaluating Florida's Community-Based Care (CBC) initiative. Longitudinal data from 37 counties including 4 counties that implemented community-based care were examined in this study. The results of the study indicated that the overall performance of CBC counties is at least as good as the performance of their comparison run by the state counties. The findings that emerged from this study may provide important lessons for developing a performance measurement system in the child welfare field.