Child protection and welfare: cultures,policies, and practices

Child protection and welfare have become international issues in a globalized world. Ideas about childhood and the upbringing of children vary widely, depending upon the prevailing economic, socio-cultural, religious, and political contexts. These have had dramatic effects on the way societies value children, and the role acquired by the state in their protection and advancing their well-being. Children, however, remain at risk. They are placed at risk by the breakdown of extended family systems as a result of urbanization, and as a result of impaired functioning of some nuclear families, in the absence of kinship safety nets. Some traditional cultural practices place children at risk, especially girl children. Poverty creates risks for all children but it can create specific catastrophic risks for girls. Countries can enact visionary laws intended to protect children, but they will be ineffective against entrenched social attitudes, especially if only limited resources can be provided to implement and enforce them. This is the ultimate challenge that the world community must address if the vision of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is to be realized.     

Standing up to complexity: researching moral panics in social work

Moral panics are central to social work policy and practice. Voluntary agencies and statutory bodies (including governments) create and sustain moral panics in order to raise awareness of, and win support for, their own understandings of social issues and problems. This is not a neutral enterprise; on the contrary, moral panics often have consequences that are negative, whether intended or unintended. Far from leading to greater social justice and a more equal society, they may reinforce stereotypes and lead to fearful, risk-averse practice. This paper discusses one such moral panic in 2013 that centred on the story of ‘Maria’, a Bulgarian Roma child living in Greece. The paper explores the meaning and use of the concept of moral panic before unpacking this case-study example in more detail. We argue that the moral panic over ‘Maria’ has much to tell us about ideas of welfare and protection, institutional racism and children and childhood, as well as the connections between ‘private troubles’ and ‘public issues’. We conclude that social work as a profession must stand up to complexity, and in doing so, be aware of its own role in relation to moral panics.     

农村集体公益性建设用地的价值诉求与认知分析

农村集体公益性建设用地对农村公共设施的完善及农民生活水平的提高具有无可代替的作用,然现行规范对其规定甚少,集体公益性建设用地本身构造不明、价值不清造成适用模糊的困境。应明确农村集体公益性建设用地以维护集体成员利益为核心,以土地资源优化利用为重点,在具体设定上暗含公私力量的平衡。农村集体公益性建设用地使用权的主体实际上是以农民集体为核心的多元混合主体,因自身的公益属性,致使部分权能受限,应以合目的性与合规划性对其流转进行限制。     

金融知识差异与我国家庭财富积累

通过应用中国城市家庭消费金融调研数据,本文系统的实证检验了改进后的金融知识指标、经济学专业、金融学专业以及家庭理财规划等因素对家庭各项财富积累的影响,并通过使用合适的工具变量进行两阶段估计,验证了这种正向影响的稳健性。此外,实证结果中家庭理财规划以及理财规划时间跨度的正向边际效应表明,理财规划可能是金融知识差异影响家庭财富积累的重要机制。研究结论有利于更准确地理解居民金融知识差异对于家庭福利,特别是退休福利的影响。     

The effect of paid maternity leave on low-income families' welfare use in the US

Despite the critical role that paid maternity leave can assume in the economic lives of low-income families, research to date has paid insufficient attention to whether paid maternity leave reduces welfare use for low-income families. Using the Current Population Survey (CPS) March Supplement 2007–2014 with the difference-in-difference (DiD) technique, this study finds a significant policy effect of paid maternity leave on reducing the probability of using Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), TANF benefit amounts and TANF participation length. This study confirms that paid maternity leave is likely to prevent low-income families from using welfare during job interruptions stemming from the birth of a child. Given that TANF is often associated with negative political and social connotations, paid maternity leave can be used as an important social policy to improve economic security as well as offer empowerment in overall social standing for low-income mothers. The discussion focuses on the implications of the findings in a broader context of American welfare states.     

Determinants of social assistance caseloads for employable single adults without dependants in Canada

Government officials like the idea of just a small number of households in their respective jurisdiction receiving social assistance. A large number is seen as costly to the public treasury, and declining caseloads are generally viewed as a mark of success for both the economy and the government of the day. But what factors account for the size of a Canadian province's social assistance caseload? This article aims to shed light on this question, with a focus on single adults without dependants (and without serious disabilities) during the 1989–2017 period. One important finding is that when the value of social assistance benefit levels for this group increases by 1% in a province, the social assistance caseload for this demographic rises by 0.457%. Put differently, there is indeed an important behavior response associated with higher benefit levels. In response, we propose that provincial officials budget for higher take up levels when they increase benefit levels for this household group.     

Evaluating social investment in disability policy

Disability policy in European countries is displaying a shift towards social investment: increasing human capital and access to the labour market. The reasoning that underlies this transition is that disabled persons would benefit from mainstream employment, but are impeded in traditional policy by deficiencies in labour supply and demand. However, the shift towards more activating policies in many countries is accompanied by a decline in social protection. It is unclear whether social investment may effectively promote the employment chances of disabled persons within this context. The present research examines this question through a quantitative, cross-sectional, multilevel analysis on microdata from 22 EU countries. Our findings suggest greater activation to predict lower employment chances, while reducing passive support shows mixed effects. Conversely, measures for facilitation in daily life predict greater employment chances, as do measures for sheltered work. These findings raise questions over the value of social investment for disabled persons—and underline the need to overcome broader barriers in the labour market and in society.     

Dual conditionality in welfare and housing for lone parents in Ireland: Change and continuity?

This article focuses on multiple conditionalities in benefits and housing from the perspective of lone parents in Ireland. The Irish case echoes historical experiences elsewhere and is offered not as an exceptional or extreme case but as an in-depth single case study and a lens for comparison. Although contemporary forms and combinations of conditionalities are new to Ireland, the experience of multiple conditionalities in benefits and housing is not new. Hence, a historical perspective is used to examine contemporary multiple conditionalities in benefits and housing. In the past, conditional regimes for lone parents were justified in terms of moral reformation for first time mothers and avoiding moral contagion of mothers with subsequent pregnancies. In contemporary times, in the case of employment, lone parents are problematised as working part-time and “nesting” on in-work-benefits, and in the case of homelessness, lone parents who prioritise the security of tenure embedded in social housing are accused of “gaming” the system. While acknowledging ambiguities, the paper finds the overlap of welfare and housing discourses contribute, intentionally or unintentionally, to epistemological foundations or understandings of lone parents, shifting public perceptions, and framing them as “problems” to be solved. They simultaneously temper lone parents' expectations. Increased precarity and disempowerment is associated with dual conditionality, and ontological uncertainty is multiplied when experienced cumulatively across employment, social protection, and housing regimes in a context of generally poor public services and labour market precarity and in the historical context of stigmatisation. Nonetheless, lone parents demonstrate considerable agency.     

The 2015 welfare reform of the National Basic Livelihood Security System in South Korea: Effects on economic outcomes

In July 2015, South Korea’s National Basic Livelihood Security System (NBLSS) was reformed for the purposes of eliminating welfare blind spots and reducing poverty. The reform is expected to affect the recipients’ economic behaviours and choices. In this study, we used changes in benefits and eligibility for the NBLSS under the customised benefit system to identify the effects of the change in the NBLSS on a proposed set of economic outcomes – income, labour supply, consumption, savings, poverty reduction. To estimate the effects, we used data from the 10th–12th waves of the Korea Welfare Panel Study and employed a difference‐in‐differences framework integrated with the propensity scores. We found that the NBLSS helps the poor to reduce financial and material hardships through income and consumption increments, but that it does not provide disincentives to the recipients from participating in the labour market or from saving.     

Building home on a fault line: Aging out of child welfare with a serious mental health diagnosis

Youth aging out of foster care are at high risk for homelessness. This research explains how and why homelessness occurs among youth with serious mental health struggles after aging out of residential and transitional living programmes. Using a longitudinal constructivist grounded theory design, we analyse 20 in‐depth interviews exploring youth's transition experiences and perceptions of transition success within 4 months of emancipation and at 6 and 12 months postemancipation. Monthly 15‐min check‐ins prevented attrition. A three‐phase transition process was observed driven by participant desires and actions to cultivate psychological home through establishing physical home alone away from social networks. Pre‐emancipation, the promise of home was privacy and opportunity for self‐redefinition. Shortly after emancipation, home became a physical and social space to be, a valuable resource to share and a demonstration of personal transition success. However, later in the year postemancipation, maintaining physical home proves nearly impossible given the risk context. Findings speak to how and why youth aging out appear overly self‐reliant upon emancipation. Cultivating a psychological sense of home has practice implications for child welfare providers who aim to prepare youth to live independently postemancipation.