Poland: Social protection and the pension system during the transition

This paper argues that the brunt of the transition-induced increase in Polish social protection expenditures during 1989-93 has been borne by social insurance arrangements, particularly pensions, rather than by social assistance schemes targeted to the poor or more temporary social safety net schemes. This is largely due to ease of access to social insurance and its more attractive benefit structure. Much of the recent efforts to reform social protection arrangements had an ad hoc nature and was driven by the need to alleviate looming financial distress. A major policy challenge is to avoid further burdening the social insurance system, particularly pensions, by problems that should be addressed by basic income support and emergency assistance policies or by general transfers (e.g. family allowances). Current reform needs are illustrated by using the pension system as an example.     

Social inclusion,exclusion, and well‐being in Australia: meaning and measurement

This paper begins by examining the social inclusion agenda that formed the centrepiece of the social policy agenda of the Australian Government between 2007 and 2013. It discusses several features of the agenda, including its objectives (as articulated by the government) and some of the administrative and bureaucratic mechanisms that were put in place to assist with its development and implementation. Although no formal assessment of the impact of the agenda is attempted, some of the ways in which such an agenda could make a difference are identified. The paper then summarises the social inclusion indicator framework developed by the Australian Social Inclusion Unit with assistance and advice from the Australian Social Inclusion Board, and compares its structure and content with the frameworks developed by two of Australia's leading social research institutes. Finally, data from two national surveys of poverty and social exclusion are used to examine recent changes in social exclusion and the association between the severity of exclusion and levels of subjective well‐being. These latter results show clearly that subjective well‐being is consistently lower among those who experience the greatest degree of social exclusion, suggesting that exclusion as identified and measured reflects external constraints rather than internal preferences.     

借鉴与超越:我国社会救助立法模式的路径选择

建构一个内容全面、制定科学、标准合理的社会救助法律体系是是我国构建和谐社会的重要环节。境外各国或地区的实践已经证明,社会救助立法是建构社会救助体系、维护受救助主体权利诉求以及法制建设的共同需要。这些立法的路径可以大致归纳为综合立法、专业立法、分散立法和混合立法四种模式。在对境外立法模式的比较、借鉴并考虑到目前影响我国社会救助立法的各种因素。建议采取分阶段立法,短期内制定相关的行政法规,再专门制定《社会救助法》,最后制定统领社会保障体系的《社会保障法》。     

Social Security in South Korea and Singapore: Explaining the Differences

The paper sets out statutory social security arrangements in Korea and Singapore and then explains the differences between them. It finds that while Korea has a relatively advanced social security system based primarily on social insurance, Singapore has a patchwork of programmes based on forced saving, tax allowance, public assistance, and public insurance schemes run along commercial lines. Moreover, the increasing share of government expenditure devoted to social security in Korea stands in sharp contrast to the declining share in Singapore. The paper accounts for the variations in terms of the different economic objectives of the two states and the different international and societal constraints they face. In contrast to South Korea * * Republic of Korea. Hereafter referred to as Korea.
which has rapidly established an elaborate set of income maintenance and health care programmes, Singapore continues to resist expansion of such programmes. The objective of this paper is to describe the social security programmes in the two countries and then explain why the supposedly similar political economies have pursued entirely different social security strategies. The paper will argue that to understand the variations, we need to examine the varying economic objectives of the two states and the different international and societal constraints they face.     

Trends in Social Security in East Africa: Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda

As elsewhere in the world and in Africa in particular, social security in the member countries of the East African Community (Kenya, United Republic of Tanzania, and Uganda) has long been provided through voluntary assistance under the traditional extended family system. Later, and more specifically after independence in the early 1960s, when the region had a major increase in the number of employees in the formal sector — both public and private — who were mainly located in urban centres, formal social security schemes started to gain recognition among employed workers. Thus over the years, the urban population became increasingly detached from rural communities where the traditional extended family system was most effective. In addition, their general standards of living rose to such levels that if they ceased to earn employment income for one reason or another their livelihood could not be sustained through the extended family system. The above social security development trends have resulted even today in societies examining and determining ways to improve social protection beyond the formal sector so as to ensure arrangements are put in place for a large part of the working population to be provided with social security insurance during their working life and after retirement.     

The Australian child support reforms: a critical evaluation

The Australian Child Support Scheme aims to ensure that children continue to be supported financially should their parents separate or never live together. Sweeping changes to the Australian Child Support Scheme were introduced between 2006 and 2008, featuring a dramatically different system for the calculation of child support and a more rigorous enforcement regime. The reforms were intended to respond to ongoing concerns about equity, and to changes in social expectations and practices in gender, work, and parenting. In this article we summarise key findings from a large cross‐sequential study of the child support reforms. Although the new formula initially led to lower child support payments, and an increase in the proportion of separated mothers experiencing income disadvantage, payments two years later had increased slightly. More broadly, the new scheme appears to have resulted in little change in separated parents' policy knowledge, parenting arrangements, perceptions of fairness, and child support compliance. Taken together, these findings suggest that Australia may not have made as much progress as it would have liked in this thorny area of social policy – especially in relation to compliance and perceptions of fairness.     

A RATHER INHUMANE ARRANGEMENT: SOUTHEAST ASIAN SETTLEMENT ASSISTANCE INITIATIVES IN MELBOURNE

Due to its specific historical context and unique sociopolitical milieu, Australia has developed a relatively distinctive Southeast Asian settlement assistance model. This article explores the adequacy of the pattern of service delivery that has evolved in Melbourne in response to the settlement needs of the Southeast Asian community. The research finds that the Australian Indochinese aid initiative is high on principle and rhetoric and low on practical solutions. Despite compassionate public pronouncements, assistance institutions increasingly operate in a harsh social, economic, and political context wherein there are few forced migrant-specific provisions. A devolution policy has also engendered an inefficient patchwork service setup rather than a benevolent resettlement arrangement. Without a more genuine official orientation and a more appropriate overall approach, many Australian Southeast Asians are destined to continue a protracted struggle against disadvantage and neglect.     

浅议我国社会救助制度的几个现实困境

社会救助是社会保障体系的重要组成部分,它与民生、社会稳定密切相关。转型时期,中国的社会救助的改革取得了很大的成绩,覆盖城乡的社会救助体系已基本建立,但在社会救助政策的实践过程中仍然存在一些问题,这些问题能否解决关系到我国的社会救助制度能否进一步发展、完善,关系到广大人民能否分享我国经济社会的改革发展成果。本文主要从我国社会救助思想的理论基础和思想渊源出发,探讨了我国社会救助实施过程中几个现实问题,并针对这些问题提出了政策建议。     

Graduating from the child welfare system: a comparison of the UK and Australian leaving care debates

Historically, insufficient resources and assistance have been provided to young people leaving state care. Care leavers have been found to experience significant health, social and educational deficits including homelessness, disproportionate involvement in juvenile crime and prostitution, poor social supports and early parenthood. This paper compares the UK and Australian debates around improving outcomes for care leavers. Whilst there are some minor differences in the respective legislative frameworks and responses, the similarities are far greater. Both countries have failed to provide the range of in-care, transitional and post-care supports and services required to ensure improved outcomes for care leavers.     

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.     

Old Age Pensions in South Africa

This article briefly describes the old age pension system in South Africa, with a special focus on its strengths and the challenges it faces. The article shows that the most pertinent concerns are the level of exclusion from the contributory pension funds, the extent of reliance on the social assistance programme and the lack of institutional capacity to deliver the social assistance programme effectively. The proposed reforms are aimed at achieving a better integrated pension system where contributions are mandatory for all formal sector workers and where contributions are preserved for retirement. The underlying objectives are to limit the growing dependence on social assistance from the State, and at the same time to increase the effectiveness of the social assistance scheme for the target population.     

Paternal involvement in fragile,African American families: Implications for clinical social work practice

Abstract

Changes in family formation and structure mandate reassessment and realignment of traditional parenting roles and arrangements. Adaptation to these changes has been truncated along racial and socioeconomic status lines. Poor African American families and especially fathers in fragile families are most vulnerable and are in need of individual and structural assistance to achieve expected personal and societal role development. The “person‐in‐environment” perspective of clinical social work offers an organizing framework for interventions designed to improve paternal role and family functioning.     

对城市医疗救助制度的思考

实施城市医疗救助制度是贯彻党的十七大关于社会保障的精神、维护医疗保健公平、完善我国社会保障体系的需要。当前城市医疗救助制度存在以下问题：救助对象的确定不够灵活,大病医疗救助模式影响了医疗救助制度功能的发挥,医疗救助资金存在绝对不足与相对过剩的矛盾,法律制度本身不完善,管理体制没有理顺。为了完善城市医疗救助制度,需要更加准确地确定救助对象,逐步推行综合救助模式,解决好医疗救助资金绝对不足与相对过剩的矛盾,逐步完善医疗救助法律制度,理顺医疗救助的管理体制。     

“NO YOBBOS HERE”: EDUCATION AS A VEHICLE FOR SOCIAL CLASS TRANSITION

Five people, after spending their early adult lives working as tradespersons, set about achieving a major identity change. These people are now or have recently been practising academics in Australian universities. This article encompasses their recollections of experiences during a major period of that change; undergraduate teacher education. This was a time when they were confronted by an alternative social class that both confronted their working class identities and offered them alternatives. The following discussion reviews their move from a working class culture to, what is essentially, a middle class work environment, considering the assistance they received and the hurdles they encountered on the way. In tracing this transition, some of the status and cultural differences that distinguish Australian social classes are highlighted.     

Children against parents? The politics of intergenerational recalibration in Southern Europe

Traditionally, Southern European countries displayed remarkably elderly biased social policy arrangements. This article introduces the notion of intergenerational recalibration to capture reforms aimed at rebalancing the generational profile of Southern European welfare states via the expansion of family policy and social assistance schemes—both monetary benefits and care services—and retrenchment in the field of pensions. Then, it elaborates theoretically on the political dimension of this policy strategy, focusing on the implications of the peculiar combination of expansionary and retrenchment reforms, to advance the hypotheses that domestic politics would prevent the realization of such an agenda, whereas the latter would be favored by a major role of supranational actors, especially the European Union. To test these hypotheses, we systematically analyze policy trajectories in the field of pensions and social assistance in Italy and Spain between the mid‐1990s and 2016. This allows, first, to argue that investment in “pro‐children” measures has not adequately balanced the reduction of pro‐parents expenditure and, second, to question the idea that domestic political incentives to expand “pro‐children” policies are necessarily too weak as well as the “enabling” role of external pressures in pursuing intergenerational recalibration.     

Exploring Social Care: Applying a New Construct to Young Carers and Grandparent Carers

Mainstream literature on paid care for children, frail elderly people and people with chronic illness or disability, and unpaid care provided usually by family members within households and kin networks tends to establish dichotomies: formal/informal, commodified/non‐commodified. Recent feminist literature rejects these dichotomies, developing models of social care in which the interconnections of paid and unpaid care are mapped within policy frameworks. This paper uses theoretical frameworks of ‘social care‘: care as labour; care as a relationship embedded in obligation; care incurring a range of costs; to explore two case‐studies: young carers aged up to 24 years who are most often caring for a co‐resident parent; and grandparents who are the primary carers of their grandchildren. The latter may occur under the aegis of child protection authorities, or Family Court orders, or in informal arrangements, not licensed by state authorities. This analysis of the international literature and Australian research data affirms the power of the social care framework, and also shows the influence of social policy settings on informal care provision.     

政府在社会救助中的责任及其职能的合理定位

社会救助制度是整个社会保障制度的基础子系统,作为社会保障体系中的“最后一道防线”,它通常被视为政府的当然责任或义务。本文通过对我国社会救助制度中政府失责问题的剖析,探讨了政府在社会救助制度中应承担的责任及其职能的合理定位。     

Refugees and asylum seekers living in the Australian community: the importance of work rights and employment support

While Australian legislation allows for the mandatory detention of asylum seekers arriving without a valid visa, in recent years the Australian Government has released thousands from immigration detention prior to their protection claims being finalised. This article outlines the results of interviews with eleven men who had been released into such community‐based arrangements after long periods of immigration detention. The major challenge for most of the men who had been granted the right to work upon their release was securing employment, while being denied the right to work was the major challenge for those released without this right. This article explores the social and personal benefits that employment can offer asylum seekers and refugees and the implications it has for integration into their host country.