Activation,Public Employment Services and their Clients: The Role of Social Class in a Continental Welfare State

This article fills a gap in the existing literature by investigating how public employment service (PES) staff actually deal with their clients under a continental regime of activation. The results reported here are based on interviews both with PES staff and their unemployed clients in Germany. We argue that due to its Bismarckian origins as an insurance‐based system of ‘unemployment protection’, Germany's system of unemployment compensation is attractive not only for the marginalized, but also for core workers. As a result, PES staff deal with clients from very heterogeneous class backgrounds. We demonstrate that social class is a significant factor in client outcomes, and that earlier research has perhaps overemphasized the role of frontline staff as ‘street‐level bureaucrats’. While staff do have considerable power, the result of the encounters between the administration and clients also depends on the capabilities of the clients, which, in turn, are strongly related to social class.     

The Great Recession and Welfare State Reform: Is Retrenchment Really the Only Game Left in Town?

By 2010, when the Greek sovereign debt crisis changed into an existential crisis of the euro, all developed democracies entered a phase in which they had to consolidate their budgets, typically implying a politics of austerity. The scholarly literature, as well as the popular press, suggests that – consequently – welfare retrenchment and cost containment became the only games left in town. In this article, we study the welfare state reform measures taken between 2010 and 2012 in four countries characteristic of mature welfare state regimes (liberal, UK; conservative, Germany; social democratic, Denmark; and hybrid, the Netherlands) to examine empirically whether austerity has indeed become the only item left on the policy menu. Our analysis reveals that retrenchment features prominently on the agenda everywhere, but nowhere by itself. While compensation for income loss is rare since 2010, this still happens. More unexpectedly, reforms in line with a social investment agenda (like expansion of child care or active labour market policies) are still being pursued in all our four cases.     

公共投资政策的社会福利成本

政府的公共投资政策对决定经济增长和社会福利水平起着关键的作用。本文研究了不同公共投资政策的福利成本。我们在一个存在基础设施资本和私人资本的内生增长框架内,给出了计算经济从非均衡状态过渡到平衡增长路径这个过程中的社会福利的方法,比较了不同公共投资政策相对于帕累托最优经济而言给社会带来的福利成本,并分析了影响福利成本的各种因素。政府的最优公共投资政策是使得福利成本最小的政策;在一定条件下,政府短期内可以采取推动型政策以有效地改变经济结构,从而为长期经济增长创造条件,改善社会福利。     

俄罗斯多元文化共存性浅析

俄罗斯民族文化发展经历了1000多年的历史,而在它形成过程中不断受到来自东方和西方文明的影响.在多元化的背景下,新俄罗斯再一次迎接挑战,重新正视自己,开始思考由文化多元化向文化全球化的转变.     

尼古拉斯·周思塑造的中国女性寻求文化身份的历程

澳大利亚作家尼古拉斯·周思在其作品中塑造了一系列令人难忘的中国女性形象,他笔下的女性主人公在异国寻求文化身份经历了从悬置困惑而出走到了解认同而突围再到混杂杂糅且包容的艰难过程。中国女性在中澳文化相遇中经过从被动受辱到主动寻求文化认同的转变,这一转变源于中澳两种文化的杂糅对建立多元性和包容性文化身份的促进作用。     

城乡医疗保障制度的统筹模式分析——基于福利效应视角

随着城市化进程的推进,城乡二元医疗保障与经济社会发展的不适应性渐现.在此背景下,全国各地广泛开展了统筹城乡医疗保障的实践探索.而从参保人福利的角度,受收入、医保待遇差异的影响,农村居民有效医疗需求不足、医疗负担过重的现象普遍存在,通过统筹城乡医疗保障制度来缩小城乡待遇差距,减轻农村居民医疗消费的收入约束是解决这一问题的关键.我国目前正在试点的统筹城乡医疗保障的模式可以分为“全统一”模式、“二元分层基金统一”模式、“二元分层基金分设”模式三种,只有因地制宜地选择适合本地实际的统筹模式,才能更好发挥其效用.     

Welfare programs and the state economy

Welfare policy has been controversial and support is often drawn along political affiliation lines, the economic return of investment in welfare programs is frequently cited as a justification for new and expanded policies. To investigate the direct and indirect effects of welfare programs on economic performance, the authors develop a multilink approach, through employment and investment. The relationship is then tested with data from each of the United States from 1976 to 2006. Findings show welfare programs have no direct effect on a state's economy. Indirectly, welfare has a negative effect through investment, though the effect on employment is minimal.     

多元话语分析：社会分析模式的新尝试

话语分析就是对那些已经说出来的“话”究竟是以怎样的方式以及按照什么样的规则被说出和被传播的过程加以分析。多元话语分析就是从多元主义的立场对话语进行分析。倡导多元话语分析的目的是消除以实证主义和古典诠释社会学为主要代表的传统“实在论”分析模式在社会研究中的影响。多元话语分析包括话语策略分析和话语构成规则分析等基本程序。采用多元话语分析模式进行社会研究,对我们具有多方面的重要意义。     

多重障碍儿童成长发展小组案例分析——基于宁夏儿童福利院的特色小组案例

儿童福利院作为专业的儿童社会工作机构,在儿童社会工作的方法上积累了较为丰富的经验。宁夏儿童福利院的四位多重障碍儿童组成了特色社会工作小组,在深入了解了成员个性和共性的基础上,通过优势视角、生态系统图、游戏疗法、团体疗法等社会工作理论和方法实现小组成员的共同发展与成长。案例成绩的总结对此类小组社会工作方法有很好的借鉴作用。     

强化社会工作协调人职能,增进福利机构专业化进展

福利服务专业化成为福利机构发展的总体趋势。21世纪以来,社会工作作为社会福利专业化的重要推动力普遍走进社会福利领域。在推动社会福利服务专业化进程中,如何发挥其积极功能是社会工作实践探索的重点。本文从强化社会工作协调人职能的角度,探讨社会工作推动福利机构专业化的方式。