A comparison of social assistance in China and Sweden

This article compares social assistance in China and Sweden, and finds a number of similarities. In both countries, benefits are regulated by a national policy, while local governments are responsible for administration. The proportion of the population receiving social assistance is surprisingly similar in China and Sweden. Social assistance reduces dire poverty but is less successful in raising full-year recipients above the poverty line used in international comparisons of developed countries. During the last decade, the income thresholds used to assess claims have not increased at the same rate as the mean income level in both countries. Not surprisingly, there are also substantial differences in the social assistance systems of the two countries. The Swedish system has a long history; the Chinese is relatively recent. The income thresholds differ in terms of their method of calculation and the extent of the relief they offer. While the same thresholds are applied across Sweden, in China they vary by location. The profiles of recipients also differ between countries.     

Making ends meet: perceptions of poverty in Sweden

During the era after the Second World War, Sweden has built a welfare system based on labor market participation and income maintenance. Low unemployment and decent wages are supposed to guarantee people a labor market income or income maintenance, which in turn should provide a proper standard for everyone. However, a rapid increase in unemployment and economic problems have made the future of the Swedish welfare state more uncertain than ever. These circumstances have, among other things, led to the suggestion that Sweden should abandon the income maintenance policy and create a social policy system with the more limited ambition of guaranteeing everyone a minimum income. In that case, one central question must be answered: what constitutes a decent minimum income in today's Sweden? Where should we draw the poverty line under which people will not be forced to live? These questions are central in the current debate. The consensual poverty line method is used in this article to derive a poverty line relevant for today's Sweden. The results shows that more than every fifth household has an income below the consensual poverty line. That is, they have an income that most Swedes would argue is too low to make ends meet. The level of the consensual poverty line was compared with the National Board of Health and Welfare's guidelines for social assistance. The consensual poverty line was shown to be more generous to small households and the norm for social assistance was more generous to larger households. Finally, the expenditure for guaranteeing all Swedish household a minimum income equal to the consensual poverty line was estimated: more than SEK 25 billion per year. The results in the article casts serious doubt on the ability of the Swedish welfare state to secure a decent income to all citizens.     

Welfare Stigma of Social Assistance on Women Recipients in Urban China

Abstract

In urban China, the study of the welfare stigma of poor females receiving social assistance is neglected. An in-depth interview method was used with 16 urban female assistance recipients aged 16–70?years old in the city of Chengdu to examine the forms and the consequences of welfare stigma on them. The purpose of the study is to examine the issue of welfare stigma of female assistance recipients in urban China by means of empirical evidence. The findings suggest that female assistance recipients suffer from welfare stigma in three forms: identity stigma, treatment stigma, and procedure stigma. The three kinds of stigmas mingled with each other are imposed on the female assistance recipients and make them victims of constructed welfare stigma. Welfare stigma does not affect the decision to apply for assistance to meet basic living expenses. Suffering from welfare stigma positions female recipients in a state of isolation and exclusion. The study’s results suggest that efforts should be made to reduce and eliminate welfare stigma of social assistance on female assistance recipients in urban China. Future study should be broadened to consider the comparison of the stigma on female recipients with that on male recipients.     

Social assistance in China and Sweden: how policy intentions are translated into local practices

This article compares social assistance policies in China and Sweden, with a special focus on the means of translating policy intentions into local practices. Unlike China, Sweden has laws regulating social assistance, which is intended to ensure a ‘reasonable standard of living’. Though considered a legal right, assistance is Sweden is means-tested. While social assistance claims are dealt with by the welfare bureaucracy in Sweden, in China the process of application involves the input of cadres, administrative officials from different levels of government, and neighbours. The challenges facing Sweden are to find ways to cope with long-term social assistance and to help recipients find work. The challenges facing China are to establish a social assistance law and standardized management procedures, and to incorporate the resources of social work.     

Welfare consequences of the Swedish disability service system

It has been frequently discussed whether the Swedish disability service system is efficient and whether it meets the demands of equity. The costs of the system for support and service were recently estimated to be USD 11 billion. This article describes the welfare situation for disabled people compared with the general population in Sweden. The Swedish disability service system has managed to provide disabled people with a disposable income over the subsistence minimum in Sweden, but also in the same range as for the general population. In other welfare parameters, disabled people appear to have great welfare losses compared with the general population. Evaluations of handicap technologies (such as service and support) aiming to reduce or compensate for these welfare losses have to meet the requirements of equity and efficiency of the Swedish disability service system.     

Cumulative patterns of well-being among young social assistance recipients versus other youths

What are the levels of living conditions of young social assistance recipients compared to the youth population at large? This paper investigates living conditions among young social assistance recipients in Norway, compared to a similar age group within the total population. The overall distribution indicates a cumulative rather than compensatory pattern. Social assistance recipients trail behind the population at large across all indicators. They lag more behind the overall population with regard to cumulative levels-of-living scores than with regard to each and every indicator. This lends support to the notion that one should adopt an integrated approach in the treatment of youth living on social assistance, rather than focus on any single issue as “the” problem to assess.     

Work or welfare – a dilemma in the declining Swedish welfare state

The number of welfare recipients among people of working age increased from 1985 to 1992 in Sweden. Unexpectedly, this increase also took place under the economic boom during the late 1980s, characterized by very low unemployment. This is shown in a study of a 10% representative sample of the Swedish population. Not only has the number of welfare recipients increased, there has been a parallel increase in the relative number of people who are gainfully employed. This trend prevails until 1991, when the employment rates start going down. Until then, the development is characterized by growing polarization (bifurcation) into those who depend on work for their subsistence and those who depend on transfer payments from the welfare system. The development of welfare dependence has been different for men and women. The reasons for this development are discussed. Data about the increasing cost of social security are also presented, showing that the welfare system has not been in any immediate economic crisis from 1985 to 1993.     

Smaller net or just fewer to catch? Disentangling the causes for the varying sizes of minimum income schemes

The number of social assistance recipients varies significantly between welfare states. Social assistance is a last-resort residual benefit, so a high number of receipts may be related to policies for first-tier benefits, social assistance and their implementation, as well as need factors (unemployment rate and low income). Considering the strong political will to diminish the receipt of last-resort benefits, we demonstrated a way to decompose the reasons for eligibility in a cross-national analysis of two Nordic countries, namely Finland and Sweden. By using administrative register microdata, eligibility simulations and policy swaps, we found that the legislative features of social assistance, such as more extensive benefit norms and earning disregard, contribute to Finland's higher eligibility rate and likely explain some of the reasons for its higher number of recipients. Finland also exhibited lower non-take-up rates among those eligible, which implies better access to benefits than in Sweden.     

A comparative study of social assistance systems in Macao and Hong Kong

This article compares social assistance systems in Macao and Hong Kong. It finds that Macao delivers a higher level of social assistance benefits, whereas Hong Kong has a larger group of social assistance beneficiaries. The Hong Kong Government spends a larger amount on social assistance provision and imposes tougher controls on the recipients, compared to Macao. The results of the comparison indicate that Macao and Hong Kong differ markedly in the type of productivist welfare regime they belong and challenge the assertion that the two welfare systems form a distinct welfare model.     

Narrowing of Public Responsibility in Finland, 1990–2010

Public responsibility in Finland has narrowed in the last 20 years while the sphere of the private sector has been increased. The economic crisis of the early 1990s was not the cause, but an accelerator of public sector/welfare state retrenchment in Finland. Based on which, it was easy for the advocates of neo‐liberal reforms to argue that the changes were a must. The welfare state programmes however, are popular among the Finnish population and therefore large one‐time cutbacks have not been possible beyond the immediate aftermath of the economic crisis. This article looks into three different methods through which the Finnish welfare state has been gradually cut since then: (1) by not raising income transfers along with the rising cost of living and wages; (2) by reducing funding of public services; and, on the other side of the coin (3) through regular tax cuts contracting the revenue side. Welfare state retrenchment in Finland has therefore been achieved in a subtle fashion through slow gradual weakening of social programmes on one hand, and through cuts in revenue on the other that have left proportionally more in the hands of the wealthier. These combined movements have resulted in a drastic reversal in the trend in income inequality in Finland.     

Developmentalism in Korea: A Useful Tool for Explaining the Role of Social Security in the Reduction of Poverty and Inequality

It is conventional wisdom that universalism is more effective than selectivism in addressing the problems of poverty and inequality. In providing income security for the elderly, retirement pensions calculated on the principle of social insurance represent universalism and social assistance benefits on the basis of means-test selectivism. Korea has both a contributory pension scheme and social assistance program for the elderly. The social assistance began in 1961. The contributory scheme, the National Pension, started belatedly in 1988 and its coverage expanded to the entire population in 1999. We can, therefore, expect that the social security system, especially the universal pension scheme based on social insurance, has some positive impacts on the reduction of poverty and inequality. This paper, however, raises doubt as to the conventional wisdom and thus reviews the developmental process of the Korean social security system for the aged. It was found that the dominant ideological controversy revolved, not around universalism versus selectivism, but around the option between developmentalism and other strategies. Our empirical analysis showed that the public pension had little impact on the reduction of poverty and inequality, particularly in comparison with advanced welfare states. This is not surprising at all, since poverty eradication and redistribution were not major objectives of the Korean social security system. The controversy between universalism and selectivism was relatively unfamiliar in the policy process of the Korean social security system. Even though the redistributive effect is getting larger as the National Pension system becomes mature, the developmentalist model has been proved to be a more useful tool for explaining the limited role of Korean social security.     

Room to move? Professional discretion at the frontline of welfare‐to‐work

Outcomes of social policies have always been mediated by the discretionary agency of front‐line staff, processes which nevertheless have received insufficient attention in policy evaluation and in the social policy literature more broadly. This article takes the case example of the policy reforms associated with the Australian government's welfare‐to‐work agenda. Drawing on two discreet research projects undertaken at different points in the policy trajectory, the practices of social workers in Centrelink – the Commonwealth government's primary service delivery agency involved in welfare‐to‐work – is examined. Centrelink social workers have been and remain one of the core groups of specialist staff since the Department's inception in the late 1940s, working to improve the well being of people in receipt of income security. Their experiences of the recent past and their expectations of the future of their professional practice as welfare reform becomes more entrenched are canvassed. In summary, the discretionary capacity of the Centrelink social workers to moderate or shape the impact of policy on income security recipients is steadily eroding as this group of professionals is increasingly captured by the emerging practices of workfare.     

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.     

Decentralization of decision making: the case of payment policies for children's daycare

To bring about equality, the Nordic welfare states have provided a broad range of services with as homogenous eligibility criteria as possible. This homogeneity of social benefits has been obtained by centralized decision making and a high degree of statutory regulation. Recent trends in all welfare states veer towards greater local independence and decentralization. This article examines how the decentralization of decision making in Finland has affected the realization of basic welfare state principles. The specific aspect from which the topic is examined are user fee policies for children's daycare. The analysis gives a rather inconsistent picture of possible explanations for the differences between daycare payment policies. Municipal decision making is influenced by economic rather than political or structural factors. However, logical economic explanations are found only in large municipalities. This study highlights that decentralization of decision making has put families in very different economic positions in different municipalities - municipal traps are emerging. The relationship between welfare services and income redistribution has become ever more complicated as decision-making powers have been localized. A family may, for example, be paying the highest daycare fees but at the same time be entitled to social assistance.     

Controlled and dependent: experiences of living on social assistance in Sweden

Marttila A, Whitehead M, Canvin K, Burström B. Controlled and dependent: experiences of living on social assistance in Sweden
Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 142–151 © 2009 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. This study explored experiences of people receiving social assistance in 21st‐century Sweden, based on 33 in‐depth interviews conducted in 2005 and 2006. Two overarching themes emerged from the accounts, encompassing both a material and a psychosocial dimension of living on social assistance. Recipients reported that social assistance was generally sufficient for their basic material needs but allowed for no extras. It was possible to live on social assistance for a short time, but became difficult in the longer term. Perceptions of powerlessness, hopelessness and dependency were common and had the most damaging consequences for the recipients' perceived wellbeing. Some recipients believed that society at large had negative perceptions of people living on social assistance; it was something to be ashamed of but, at the same time, it was the recipients' only possible source of income. Findings of this study are partly similar to previous studies conducted in Sweden, suggesting that improvement in services should take into account the experiences of social assistance recipients.     

The Choice Revolution: Privatization of Swedish Welfare Services in the 1990s

During the 1990s, the Swedish welfare state was declared by some to be in a “crisis”, due to both financial strain and loss of political support. Others have argued that the spending cuts and reforms undertaken during this period did slow down the previous increase in social spending, but left the system basically intact. The main argument put forward in this article is that the Swedish welfare state has been and is still undergoing a transforming process whereby it risks losing one of its main characteristics, namely the belief in and institutional support for social egalitarianism. During the 1990s, the public welfare service sector opened up to competing private actors. As a result, the share of private provision grew, both within the health‐care and primary education systems as well as within social service provision. This resulted in a socially segregating dynamic, prompted by the introduction of “consumer choice”. As will be shown in the article, the gradual privatization and market‐orientation of the welfare services undermine previous Swedish notions of a “people's home”, where uniform, high‐quality services are provided by the state to all citizens, regardless of income, social background or cultural orientation.     

On Inter‐ and Intra‐Individual Redistribution of the Welfare State*

Objective. The redistributive effect of the welfare state is traditionally measured by comparing the gross and net distribution of annual income among adults. This standard approach does not account for the fact that a large share of the taxes paid by adults are paid back to the very same individuals later in life. The objective of this article is to examine the factors that determine the difference between redistribution according to the standard approach and redistribution of lifetime incomes. I also discuss under what circumstances intra‐individual redistribution is beneficial for low‐income earners. Methods. A formal model of a simple welfare state in a society with low‐ and high‐income earners is used to describe inequality of gross and net income among adults and for complete lifetime incomes. The model is calibrated with data describing the Swedish welfare state. Results. Theoretically, the redistribution of lifetime income can be bigger or smaller than the redistribution indicated by the standard approach. Swedish data suggest that most welfare states are more redistributive when a lifetime perspective is used compared to the standard approach. Conclusions. Most of the redistribution carried out by modern welfare states is so‐called intra‐individual redistribution. Compared to the situation that would arise without the welfare state, intra‐individual redistribution is likely to be favorable for low‐income earners because it compensates for inequalities in the distribution of assets and access to capital markets.     

Assimilation and participation in social assistance among immigrants

This article analyses assimilation and social assistance participation among immigrants in Sweden. Probit regressions are used in order to estimate the participation rates in social assistance among different groups of immigrants and native-born Swedes. The analysis is based upon panel data since the same individuals have been tracked in different years. The results show that among immigrants from the Nordic countries and from Western societies the participation rates are about the same as among comparable native-born Swedes. Immigrants from South European and non-European countries are over-represented in welfare usage. This over-representation remains even after controlling for differences in observable characteristics such as age, gender, family situation and educational attainment. Non-European immigrants assimilate out of welfare dependency at a faster rate than European immigrants, but despite this, non-European immigrants are over-represented in social assistance utilisation even after 20–25 years of residence in Sweden.     

Conceptualising dignity in the context of social security: Bottom-up and top-down perspectives

Dignity and social security have been closely associated since at least the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, but there is a lack of clarity around what dignity means in this context. This article explores how two key stakeholders—out-of-work benefit recipients and policymakers—understand dignity in the context of social security, drawing on qualitative research with each group. The evidence presented notes a relative absence of direct references to dignity among policymakers, although related issues are nonetheless discussed, whereas benefit recipients commonly articulate experiences of undignified treatment and the negative impact this has on their lives. This article's exploration of dignity is of particular relevance to Scotland, where recent framework legislation includes the principle that their security system should be underpinned by “respect for the dignity of individuals.” The authors propose that a social security system that protects dignity must take account of distributional, relational, and intrinsic aspects of dignity—providing sufficient income, treating users with respect, and avoiding interventions or discourses that are disrespectful and dehumanizing. Further, the authors question whether it is possible for dignity to enjoy meaningful protection within highly disciplinary conditional welfare regimes.