Social workers' attitudes towards social welfare policy

As social workers are widely called upon to take an active role in influencing social welfare policy, a better understanding of their views on the welfare state is crucial. This study examines the attitudes of 422 Israeli social workers from diverse social welfare agencies regarding social welfare policy. The framework for understanding these attitudes includes the notions of professionalisation processes, social work values, and the class position of social workers. The study's findings indicate that support for the welfare state is quite moderate and these reflect more the class affiliation of social workers than their professional values and the professionalisation process.     

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.     

New conditionality in Australian social security policy

The past two decades have witnessed the application of new forms of conditionality to Australian social security policy. This paper argues that a distinctive feature has been the attempt to link receipt of government benefits to parental behaviour in order to address concerns about the welfare of children. With a view to providing a framework that can help to inform debates regarding the merits of these new forms of conditionality, this paper outlines the historical antecedents and philosophical framework of new conditionality. The paper also examines three pertinent Australian social security initiatives: the Maternity Immunisation Allowance, the Improving School Enrolment and Attendance through Welfare Reform Measure, and Compulsory Income Management. The paper concludes with some consideration of the potential pitfalls of new conditionality.     

Minimum income programme and welfare dependency in China

In the mid‐1990s China introduced a means‐test cash benefit called the Minimum Living Standard Guarantee System (dibao). Alongside the increases in both the number of beneficiaries and the budget, there is growing public concern that dibao is creating welfare dependency. Using survey data collected in three cities in China, we investigated to what extent dibao beneficiaries look for work. Focus group discussions were held with programme administrators and beneficiaries. While headline figures suggest that a considerable proportion of beneficiaries are of working‐age and able to work, their personal and household circumstances are important factors in determining their long‐term unemployment. There are also dibao design issues that have created financial disincentives to work. The specific origins of the policy of addressing the problem created by layoffs of inefficient state‐owned enterprises are still affecting the implementation of the programme and preventing it from playing a significant role in poverty reduction.     

Personal values and support of welfare policy among undergraduate students in Israel

Sociological and socio‐psychological theories maintain that values play an essential role in predicting attitudes. Most research portraying the effect of a single value on various attitudes claims that the effect of values on attitudes increases if the attitudes and the specific values are related or if the attitudes involve objects or situations that reflect specific values. This exploratory study examined the relationship between personal values, considered as components of an individual's mindset or psychological structure, and attitudes supporting social welfare policy. The participants in the study were Israeli Bachelor of Arts students from four institutions of higher learning. The students' personal values were measured, and the effect of their values (beyond the students' socio‐demographic characteristics such as gender, religiosity etc.) on social support for welfare policy was tested.     

From the hidden welfare state to the hidden part of welfare state reform: Analyzing the uses and effects of fiscal welfare in France

This article argues that fiscal welfare in Europe not only forms part of the “hidden welfare state” (Howard, 1997 ), but also constitutes an important yet understudied—and therefore hidden—element of welfare state reform. Using the example of France, and relying both on available data and on an exhaustive database of social tax expenditures (STEs) compiled for 2014, the article begins by providing an overview of the structure of STEs in France (section 2 ). It then analyzes the specific uses and effects of STEs in the fields of employment, health care, and pensions. In particular, it shows, first of all, how STEs have constituted a privileged instrument for circumventing certain institutional features such as high levels of minimum wage and of social security contributions in the field of employment (section 3 ). Second, it also shows that STEs have been used to quietly divert resources away from the earmarked social security funds and into collective private insurance funds, thus fueling their development, in the case of health care and pensions (section 4 ). Lastly, the article engages with the notion of the “social division of welfare” (Titmuss, 1958 ) by considering some of the distributional effects of fiscal welfare in France (section 5 ), before concluding (section 6 ).     

Poverty and welfare in Denmark

From 1945 to the 1980s, Denmark was characterized by the absence of poverty or at least by the lack of any debate over poverty. However, by the mid-1980s, the presence of new forms of poverty made it impossible for politicians and social scientists to neglect poverty as an issue. The re-emergence of poverty did not clarify its extent, but it is widely agreed that poverty now is related to social exclusion and marginalization from the labour market. Empirical evidence is given that shows a poverty incidence of about 8%; the extent of marginalization is calculated to include 20-25% of the population of working age. The existence of poverty can be seen as a critique of the Scandinavian welfare state project, which was developed explicitly to fight and eliminate poverty. The article concludes with a discussion of the latest welfare state development in Scandinavia and possible future trends, summarized as welfare pluralism. The further implementation of the concept of welfare pluralism holds both positive and negative prospects for the poor, since it opens up both a more differentiated yet possibly also more stratified distribution of welfare     

The welfare politics of Charles Murray are alive and well in the UK

Prideaux SJ. The welfare politics of Charles Murray are alive and well in the UK
Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 293–302 © 2009 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. This article takes a historical look at the ‘underclass’ debate that was prominently provoked and perpetuated in Britain by the American Charles Murray. It does so because the recent protestations about gun crime, welfare dependency and lone parenthood by David Cameron and the Conservative Party have not only echoed New Labour's New Deal logic, but have also reignited an argument that furiously raged in British policy debates during the 1980s and 1990s. Despite numerous criticisms and critics questioning Murray's selection of evidence, methodology and use of anecdotal vignettes, it is still apparent that the stereotypical assumptions about a section of British society who choose not to work, live a life of crime and produce inadequately socialised illegitimate children still persist. Consequently, the article revisits these arguments so that lessons from the past can now be brought to the fore and, hopefully, taken on board academically if not politically.     

Introduction to the special issue on welfare conditionality in Australia

Conditionality in Australia’s welfare state has sustained a significant academic critique, including the critique published in this journal. In this Special Issue of the Australian Journal of Social Issues, we contribute to the existing critical literature on welfare conditionality. This Special Issue aimed to provide empirical scrutiny into welfare reform and conditionality in Australia. The articles extend our understanding of welfare conditionality’s underpinnings and its lived effects. These case studies illuminate the aspects of welfare conditionality that have not received enough attention: the role of technology, the question of mobility, the relationship with housing and the little thought given to the state’s role in mutual obligation. What is clear is that the individualisation of structural problems is not just a theoretical and political misstep ripe for critique, but leads to the formulation of policies that impact marginalised people’s capacity to shape life on their own terms. Through different empirical foci, all papers in this Special Issue demonstrate how welfare conditionality is put forward as a solution to address the consequences of structural disadvantage.     

The hidden welfare state, tax expenditure and social policy A comparative overview

This article describes, discusses and presents information about tax expenditure and its relation to social policy. It stresses that the hidden welfare state strongly influences social policy and that only looking at the direct provision of welfare goods may be misleading when making comparisons between countries. The article presents new figures on tax expenditure in relation to social policy and does so in a comparative perspective. It is argued that tax expenditure seems to have an upside down effect, but further research is needed to substantiate this. It concludes that tax expenditure strongly influences the provision, financing and delivery of social policy, and tax expenditure therefore has to be more fully integrated into the analysis of the welfare state.     

The treatment of families in the Australian welfare state, 1984 to 2010

This paper uses Australian Bureau of Statistics' fiscal incidence figures to track trends in the treatment of families with children in the Australian welfare state across the period 1984 to 2010. Our four main findings are that: sole parent families gained while couple families made no net gain; there was no growth in ‘middle class welfare‘; couple families are slightly better off than elderly households in terms of their final incomes, but considerably less well off in terms of their net worth; and stated differences in policy intentions by the major political parties have had little influence on trends in actual government redistribution.     

Emotions, self-interest and support for social welfare in a Chinese society with reference to a Dutch study on welfare legitimacy

This article aims at contributing to a better understanding of welfare legitimacy in different institutional contexts. It examines whether or not emotions are important for welfare legitimacy by using survey findings from a representative sample of Chinese residents in Hong Kong. It follows a Dutch study of a similar nature, but finds that the Chinese exhibit a different response pattern towards the emotional motives of moral obligation and empathy and the non-emotional motives of self-interest, probably as a result of the perception of the residual nature of the Chinese welfare system. In the Chinese case, personal characteristics carry different effects compared with those found in the Dutch study. A further finding is that both emotional motives and self-interest motives are significant for hypothetical choices of welfare alternatives. But their effects are marginal, though striking in comparison with other determinant variables. In conclusion, the article argues that reciprocal self-interest is progressive, an idea that is unlikely to be honoured by many welfare state theorists such as Richard Titmuss.     

Retrenching or renovating the Australian welfare state: the paradox of the Howard government's neo-liberalism

Most conventional studies of the former Australian Liberal–National Coalition government refer to its neo-liberal ideological agenda: its concern to reduce government interference with free market outcomes by restricting access to social security payments. That analysis suggests a substantial retrenchment of the Australian welfare state based on redirecting responsibility for the disadvantaged from government to corporations, private individuals and families. Yet there is increasing evidence from reliable sources that the government has not reduced social expenditure, and that increasing resources have been directed, particularly via the family payments system, towards some disadvantaged groups such as low-income families and the aged. Utilising the theory of the US political scientist Paul Pierson, this article explores the joint paradox of Australian neo-liberalism: the punitive treatment of some disadvantaged groups such as the disabled and lone parents versus the generosity towards other groups and, more generally, the growth rather than decline in social expenditure. The author asks what this paradox tells us about the likely future of the welfare state in Australia and elsewhere.     

Mutual aid in the welfare system in the Republic of Korea

For the past two decades, in many Western industrialized states, problems of their welfare systems have become more and more obvious. Three common complaints about welfare systems are high taxation, minimal effectiveness and impersonal bureaucracy. Various measures (such as budget cuts, decentralization and privatization) have been undertaken in order to overcome these problems by many welfare states. In any case, public welfare systems in many Western industrialized states do not cover the affective element which is inherent in the Korean welfare system. In Korea, where the public welfare system is in the formative stage, mutual aid, which is based on a long tradition of personal and voluntary networking, has played an important role in meeting citizens' welfare needs not only by material aid but also by psychological support. To understand welfare in society, it is necessary not only to study the welfare provided by the state and the market but also to consider the welfare provided by mutual aid networks.     

Mothers' postdivorce earnings in the context of welfare policy change

We examined in this study the implications of divorce for mothers' earnings, comparing the 1990s and the 2000s, and illuminating developments in welfare policy for single‐parent families over those two decades. After the welfare reform of 2003, the economic autonomy of single mothers, established through a combination of welfare state‐based benefits and paid labour, was delegitimised, with a turn toward the marketplace. Using a unique data set created for this research by merging Israeli census files for 1995–2008, annual administrative employment records from the National Insurance Institute and the Tax Authority, and data from the Civil Registry of Divorce, we found that most mothers tended to increase their income from paid labor following divorce. However, they did so significantly more prior to the welfare cuts than after the cuts. The results can inform policy discussions about how mothers' postdivorce earnings might be affected by welfare policy shifts.     

Work, welfare and the attack on the welfare state: the mixing of politics and policy

This article considers the current ideological and political attack against the floor of benefits for poor families in the United States. It examines a number of punitive approaches to the treatment of families on welfare that were developed in the United States in the late 1980s and the 1990s and contends that such policies will not effectively deter the dysfunctional behavior of some of the poor. Rather these policy developments reflect an attack on current national policies of developing an income maintenance floor that seeks to economically sustain poor families, albeit often inadequately. The article contends that current welfare proposals by conservatives and social liberals are not satisfactory for dealing with the problems of the welfare poor and offers suggestions for dealing with these deficits. It also notes that criticisms of welfare state protection for the poor raised in the United States are much more categorical than those raised in Sweden.     

Child‐led research in the context of Australian social welfare practice

This paper details the first child‐led research programme to be implemented in Australia in which children design and lead their own research about issues they identify. The programme was specifically adapted for children who were service users of a nongovernment organization that provides social welfare and support services to vulnerable children and their families, living in communities of the disadvantaged. The practitioner – researchers faced the expected challenges of power in child–adult relations pertinent to the status of children in a genuinely child‐led research endeavour. However, the paper details the additional challenges and responses required when conducting research in a practice environment and the successful adaptations that were used to meet these challenges. The positive findings of an independently commissioned programme evaluation raise important questions about the place and purpose of child‐led research within the field of children's social welfare practice.     

Rethinking the construction of welfare in Mexico: Going beyond the economic measures

This study utilized a multidimensional measure of social welfare composed of 26 social indicators integrated in nine categories: education, employment and social protection, income, health, housing conditions, subjective wellbeing, social capital, use of technology, and culture and leisure to help understand social welfare in Mexico. We also compared the integrated measure with the Human Development Index. Estimation was performed using the method. Our analysis indicated that the health and housing conditions categories contributed the most to social welfare across the 32 Mexican States. In relation to the indicators, income and trust in other people were associated with welfare. Further, results on the welfare ranking of Mexican states revealed variations between the two indices and the HDI). Specifically, only four states occupied the same position on both indices, ten recorded different positions on moving up or down from their levels of social welfare. Implications of observed correlations are presented.     

The forgotten half: analysing the politics of welfare services

Jensen C. The forgotten half: analysing the politics of welfare services Int J Soc Welfare 2011: 20: 404–412 © 2010 The Author(s), International Journal of Social Welfare © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. This article discusses the welfare state and argues that the service component has been neglected in the mainstream literature. A main reason for the neglect is the lack of theorising on the distinction between the politics of welfare services and the politics of transfers. An analytical framework that may help overcome this problem is presented.