The dynamics of welfare stigma

Drawing on the symbolic interactionist tradition, this paper focuses on the construction and management of welfare stigma in female welfare recipients' daily lives. In-depth interviews with ten women on welfare are analyzed, particularly in terms of how respondents manage their use of food stamps as stigma symbols. The complex and often contradictory pictures the women in this study painted of their feelings of stigma do not support the assumption, which underlies most research on welfare stigma, that welfare stigma is a coherent and relatively constant entity. The results of this study suggest instead that welfare stigma may vary depending on the social audience, situation, and recipient's life history. This analysis suggests that a symbolic interactionist approach to studying welfare stigma illuminates complex and dynamic aspects of welfare stigma that are obscured in other approaches and that future research on welfare stigma would benefit from drawing on the symbolic interactionist tradition.     

The welfare economics of the future

Conclusion Reasons and Persons is one of the most important works of recent moral philosophy. No economist whose work impinges on moral philosophy can afford to ignore it.I have benefited very greatly from discussion with members of the Economics and Philosophy Departments of Bristol University about Reasons and Persons and about this review. And I am particularly grateful to Deborah Mabbet, Adam Morton and Amartya Sen for their comments     

The ideological context of child welfare

This paper examines consequences for child development and well-being of the prevailing institutional order and ideology of the United States and concludes that child development in our country is severely obstructed because of socially structured violence which permeates our way of life. The paper ends with comments on prospects for social transformation which seems necessary to assure the development and well-being of every child.     

The recent history of Scottish child welfare

SUMMARY. During this century, the main features of child care policy in Britain have been the creation of a separate system of juvenile justice, the extension of state responsibilities for child protection and substitute care, a growing emphasis on foster care in preference to residential care, and increased professionalism and co-ordination of services. This article, the second in a two-part series, begun in issue 5(2) looks particularly at differences in child care policy between Scotland and England, the most striking of which has been in the juvenile justice arrangements. The Scottish children's hearings are fully committed to welfare principles, keeping young offenders and children in need of care and protection within a single system of decision-making.     

The climate of child welfare employee retention

This article describes differences in perceptions of the child welfare work environment among Title IV-E educated individuals who remain within public child welfare and those who sought employment elsewhere after fulfilling a legal work commitment. Job satisfaction, emotional exhaustion, and personal accomplishment were predictive of staying versus leaving. The empirical evidence suggests that efforts to retain highly skilled and educated public child welfare workers should focus on creating positive organizational climates within agencies.     

The early history of Scottish child welfare

SUMMARY. There is a growing interest in the history of childhood and child care. This article brings together from disparate sources some of the details and themes concerning the emergence and development of public and voluntary child welfare in Scotland. Particular attention is given to residential and foster care arrangements under the Poor Law and to the influence of ‘philanthropic’ individuals and organisations. Comparative references are made to the contemporary situation in England and Wales and to present day practice.     

The development of preventive methods in child welfare

Past approaches, current trends and future directions in primary preventive social work are reviewed with an emphasis on child abuse and neglect. An historical analysis reveals the bases for current methods of dealing with social problems. In describing current practices, several models for the delivery of human services are defined. This review concludes with an overview of recent research on primary prevention in social welfare.     

The implications of employment liability for welfare reform

We analyze the importance of employment liability as a potential barrier to welfare reform. In particular, research linking wrongful termination doctrines to labor market outcomes is integrated with empirical analyses of welfare caseloads to obtain evidence of the likely importance of liability risk to the willingness of firms to hire welfare participants. Calculations suggest that liability concerns were probably not a major factor in past decisions about whether or not to hire AFDC recipients. Nationally, the elimination of tort liability for wrongful termination could have provided additional jobs for fewer than one percent of welfare recipients. However, with evolving court doctrines, liability risks could become more important in the future, especially in those state jurisdictions, such as California, where employers traditionally have faced the prospect of punitive damages for wrongful termination.     

The three political economies of the welfare state

Le très long débat sur la nature et les causes de l'état providence n'a pas apporté de réponses définitives à l'une ou l'autre de ces questions. Cet article a trois buts: 1/ réintégrer le débat dans la tradition intellectuelle de l'économie politique pour mieux faire ressortir les principaux problèmes théoriques; 2/ spécifier les caractéristiques principales de l'état providence, les méthodes traditionnelles de mesure de l'état providence en termes de dépenses n'étant plus satisfaisantes; 3/'sociologiser' l'étude de l'état providence. La plupart des études sur le sujet ont été basées sur une conception linéaire du monde: plus ou moins de puissance, d'industrialisation ou de dépenses. Cet article considère que les états providences sont d'abord des groupes de régimes-types et que leur développement doit être expliqué de manière interactive.
The protracted debate on the welfare state has failed to produce conclusive answers as to either the nature or causes of welfare state development. This article has three aims: 1/ to reintegrate the debate into the intellectual tradition of political economy. This serves to put into sharper focus the principal theoretical questions involved; 2/ to specify what are the salient characteristics of welfare states. The conventional ways of measuring welfare states in terms of their expenditures will no longer do; 3/ to 'sociologize' the study of welfare states. Most studies have assumed a world of linearity: more or less power, industrialization or spending. This article insists that we understand welfare states as clusters of regime-types, and that their development must be explained interactively.     

The individual welfare function : A rejoinder

The Individual Welfare Function (IWF), introduced by Van Praag (1968), is a cardinal utility function. It can be measured by means of survey questions. Since its introduction, the IWF has been used extensively in both theoretical and empirical research. This research is reviewed, with an emphasis on policy applications.     

The individual welfare function : A comment

There appear to be a number of problems associated with the empirical measurement of the cardinal utility function discussed in the review by Kapteyn and Wansheek. The purpose of this comment is to explain these problems and to examine their implications.     

The NIP graph of a social welfare function

We consider the fraction of pairs of m distinct alternatives on which a social welfare function f may be nondictatorially independent and Pareto when the domain of f satisfies the free k-tuple property. When k = 4 we improve the existing upper bound to . When there are at least 26 alternatives and we obtain an original upper bound, . To obtain these results we define and analyze the graph formed from the nondictatorial independent and Pareto pairs and combine the results of this analysis with known results from extremal graph theory. The authors extend special thanks to the two reviewers and the editor for their comments.     

The individual welfare function: A review

The Individual Welfare Function (IWF), introduced by Van Praag (1968), is a cardinal utility function. It can be measured by means of survey questions. Since its introduction, the IWF has been used extensively in both theoretical and empirical research. This research is reviewed, with an emphasis on policy applications.     

Bergson social welfare functions in applied welfare analysis

Characterizations of the orderings induced on a set of alternatives by often-used Bergson Social Welfare Functions are provided. The characterizations are particularly useful in applied welfare analysis, because they are formulated entirely in terms of orderings of alternatives, rather than orderings of utilities, as is typically done.Helpful comments from Charles Blackorby, Ake Blomqvist, John Broome, Sam Bucovetsky, Mike Hoy, Glenn MacDonal, John Weymark and three referees are gratefully acknowledged, but the usual disclaimer applies.     

Chemically exposed children: The child welfare response

Child Welfare Agencies, especially in urban areas, are confronted with multiple problems as they attempt to deal with the complex needs of chemically dependent families. Maternal chemical use places children at an elevated risk of placement and other negative events. This article critiques research on incidence and consequence of maternal chemical use and suggests strategies Child Welfare Agencies can employ in working with these vulnerable families.This work was supported by a grant from the Program for International and Crosscultural Social Welfare, School of Social Work, University of Illinois.