(Not) Taking Account of Precarious Employment: Workfare Policies and Lone Mothers in Ontario and the UK

Workfare is, at least in part, a policy response to changing labour markets and the expansion taking place in jobs that are low‐paid, irregular and insecure. For lone mothers, increasingly the focus of workfare policies, precarious employment creates special challenges. However, the nature of the jobs that are available to women on social assistance has received relatively little attention in the workfare literature, which focuses more on individual characteristics, supports to employment, and programme impacts. Drawing upon both primary and secondary sources and using Ontario, the province with the most developed workfare programme in Canada, this article examines the ways in which policies support and enforce precarious employment. The article also considers the implications of precarious employment for UK policy, which has not (yet) adopted workfare for lone mothers, although incremental steps in that direction are taking place as employment is increasingly viewed as the appropriate objective of income support programmes for lone mothers.     

对我国高新技术产品出口的策略研究

我国高新技术产品的发展势头良好，但并非无懈可击，这个领域仍然存在诸多不尽如人意之处。基于此，我们必须在高科技产品进入国际市场的过程中，一要依靠宏观政治扶持；二要讲究高新技术含量；三要开拓多元国际市场；四要季视源头，疏通渠道，五要借鉴经验，大胆创新等多种策略来促进我国高新技术的产品的出口。     

Strategic Planning for Support Services for Children with a Parent or Close Relative in Prison

It has long been recognized that children with a parent or close relative in prison are more likely to experience educational difficulties, emotional distress, family breakdown and a substantial reduction in family income (Boswell 2002; Smith et al. 2007; Morgan et al. 2013b; Morgan and Gill 2013). Consequently, children with a parent in prison are more likely to require support from statutory services, especially education and social care. However, statutory support for this group of children is sparse, and children of prisoners tend not to be identified as a priority group. The demand on local authorities to spend their limited budgets wisely means tough decisions have to be made. These decisions are not taken in a vacuum: they are taken in a context of local need, consumer representation, central and local politics; underpinned by the values and attitudes of individual members as well as by the ethos or culture of the local authority itself. In this article we apply Axford's typology (2009) of the different cultures which underpin local authority service provision to data from a research study carried out in 2011 in one local authority which explored support provision in schools for children of prisoners. We examine the contradictions and gaps within the local authority's attempts to synergize the different modules of service delivery into a coherent pattern of provision, and we explore how changes in strategic culture might lead to improvements being made in terms of service delivery to this group of ‘vulnerable’ children.     

Examining the Relationship between Domestic Violence and Depression among Koreans: The Role of Self‐esteem and Social Support as Mediators

Domestic violence is a prevalent social issue in Korea affecting a significant number of people every day. It is thus important to examine how the experience of domestic violence affects their mental health to better address their needs. Using stress‐coping theory as a theoretical framework, this study examines the domestic violence and depression relationship among Korean men and women. Two aspects of self‐esteem and informal and formal social support are examined as potential mediators of this relationship. The data was the first wave of Korean Welfare Panel Study data including 2477 individuals with experiences of abuse. Structural equation modeling procedures were used for analyses. Domestic violence was significantly associated with self‐worth, self‐deprecation, and depression. The experiences of violence eroded self‐worth while reinforcing self‐deprecation and those with more exposure to violence showed a higher level of depression. Self‐deprecation played a significant role in mediating the effect of domestic violence on depression. However, different findings were yielded for social support. While informal social support was significantly associated with domestic violence, formal social support was not associated with domestic violence. Findings suggest for mental health interventions targeting self‐esteem, particularly the diminution of self‐deprecation in working with the victims. Suggestions for future research and implications for social work are also discussed.     

“东亚福利体制”的内在统一性——以东亚六个国家和地区为例

随着福利比较研究的逐步深入,东亚福利体制受到了诸多学者的支持。但另一部分学者对东亚福利体制究竟是否真实存在提出质疑。他们主要从体制差异、文化独立和体制分裂三个方面提出了对东亚福利体制内在统一性的挑战。本文在对中国大陆、日本、韩国、新加坡、中国台湾和中国香港六个东亚国家和地区进行分析后认为,认为东亚福利体制没有明显受到经济政治体制的影响,具有自己独立的福利文化,只存在内在的差异而非整体的分裂。研究进一步证明了东亚福利体制的内在统一性,并回答了东亚福利体制是否真实存在的问题。     

全球化与多元化中的文明对话

全球化是现代性的持续伸展与扩张,一如现代化具有多样性,在全球化的过程中同样也存在着复杂的多元多样问题。东亚社会的文化遗产和特定环境,决定了它与西方模式的不同,通过全球化背景下的启蒙反思和多元性条件下的文明对话,既可以检讨启蒙以来在西方话语笼罩下的价值追寻之缺失,又可以发挥掘井及泉的工夫、重新安立中国文化的重要位置。在文明对话中,注意克服启蒙以来的盲点,尝试建构新的人文精神,便有望开拓出更为宽广的论域来。     

I'm OK, You're (Not) OK: The Private Welfare State in the United States

The American welfare state has been premised on the mixture of substantial private, tax‐subsidized benefits rather than on more universalistic public benefits. That pattern is in some ways being undermined as private pension plans are increasingly going bankrupt and firms reduce the benefits they provide employees. On the other hand, however, the current Bush administration is attempting to enhance the private sector role by allowing individuals to invest at least a part of their social insurance contributions into private savings plans. These changes may in the end increase the role of the public sector as a regulator and underwriter at the same time that attempts are made to minimize public sector involvement.     

Increasing Choice and Control for Older and Disabled People: A Critical Review of New Developments in England

This paper critically examines new policies currently being implemented in England aimed at increasing the choice and control that disabled and older people can exercise over the social care support and services they receive. The development of these policies, and their elaboration in three policy documents published during 2005, are summarized. The paper then discusses two issues underpinning these proposals: the role of quasi‐markets within publicly funded social care services; and the political and policy discourses of consumerism and choice within the welfare state. Despite powerful critiques of welfare consumerism, the paper argues that there are nevertheless very important reasons for taking choice seriously when considering how best to organize and deliver support and other services for disabled and older people. A policy discourse on consumerism, however, combined with the use of market mechanisms for implementing this, may be highly problematic as the means of creating opportunities for increased choice and, on its own, risks introducing new forms of disadvantage and social exclusion.     

论新时期少数民族文学的多元化发展

文中从新时期少数民族文学发展的整体状况出发,分别从民族性、世界性以及市场性三个角度分析了少数民族文学近年的发展倾向,同时也探讨了少数民族文学在这种多元共生的环境中如何确认自身的文化定位问题。