Leading scholars in the field examine the highly topical issue of the future the welfare state in Europe. They argue that welfare states need to adjust, and examine which kind of welfare architecture will further Europe's stated goal of maximum social inclusion and justice. The volume concentrates on four principal social policy domains; the aged and transition to retirement; the welfare issues related to profound changes in working life; the new risks and needs that arise in households and, especially, in child families; and the challenges of creating gender equality.

The Politics of Social Welfare in America examines how politicians, theorists, and citizens discuss need, welfare, and disability with respect to theoretical and political projects. Glenn David Mackin argues that participants in these discussions often miss the way their perceptions of those in need shape their discourse. Professor Mackin also explores disability rights groups and welfare rights activism in the 1960s and 1970s to examine the ways that those designated as needy or incompetent often challenge these designations, thus making the issue of welfare an ongoing conflict over who counts as competent and generating new ways of understanding democracy and equality.

Immigration is right at the top of the political agenda for the 21st century. This book draws together and unifies analysis of immigration into the major EU countries and the US, presenting in an accessible and clear way the major trends and dramatic developments of the past decade. While the influence of the welfare state on immigration incentives is a key issue, various other influences on both legal and illegal migration are analysed, together with the implications of migration for the market outcomes on these two continents.

This book identifies specific changes to bring U.S. social policy in accord with the Information Age of the 21st century, in contrast to the policy infrastructure of industrial America. Welfare State 3.0: Social Policy after the Pandemic acknowledges the existing social infrastructure, considers viable options, and provides supporting data to suggest social policy reform by four strategies: consolidating programs, harmonizing applications, expanding equity, and conducting experiments. The book favors discreet, poignant proposals of social programs. In 12 chapters, the text provides an analysis that honors past accomplishments, recognizes the influence of established stakeholders, and concedes program inadequacies, while plotting specific opportunities for policy improvement. In contrast to liberalism's tendency toward idealism, the book adopts a realpolitik appreciation for social policy. Written by one of the most respected academics of U.S. social policy, this book will be required reading for all undergraduate and postgraduate students of social policy, social work, sociology, and U.S. politics more broadly.

We have a detailed picture of how inequality impacts people's lives, but a much weaker sense of how people perceive, interpret and understand issues of inequality. What shapes people's everyday understandings of inequality? How are understandings of inequality located in everyday concerns, moral values and principles of justice? This book considers what provokes everyday 'views' or framings of inequality. It examines how different approaches can help us understand this process, drawing on a range of literatures, including social attitudes and perceptions research, class identities and neoliberalism, theories of the psychosocial, affect and the abject, social constructionism, social movements research, and pragmatism. The book examines how troubling social situations come to be regarded as inequalities, explores how they come to be understood as 'class', 'gender', 'racial' or other kinds of inequality, and considers how such inequalities come to be seen as susceptible to intervention and change.

A progressive resurgence is happening across the United States. This book shows how long-lasting coalitions have built progressive power from the regional level on up. Anchored by the "think and act" affiliate organizations of the Partnership for Working Families (PWF) these regional power building projects are putting in place the vision, policy agenda, political savvy, and grassroots mobilization needed for progressive governance. Through six sections, the book explores how Partnership for Working Families projects are a core part of the defeat of the right-wing in states such as California; the challenge to corporate neoliberalism in traditionally "liberal" areas; and contests for power in such formally solid red states as Arizona, Georgia, and Colorado. This book considers how these PWF groups work on economic, racial and environmental justice challenges, equitable development, and other critical issues. It addresses how, at their core, they bring together labor, community, environmental, and faith-based organizations and the coalitions and campaigns that they developed have won and continue to win substantial victories for their communities. Igniting Justice and Progressive Power will be of interest to activists and concerned citizens looking to understand how lasting political change actually happens as well as all scholars and students of social work, urban geography, political sociology, community development, social movements and political science more broadly.

This book examines community group settings for young men who are fathers, with particular emphasis on the role of gender within the groups and the possibilities of such groups for the 'un-doing' of gender. Young men who are fathers are often marginalized and negatively portrayed within society. Groups allow them space and opportunity for peer support with other young men, to gain confidence and skills, and to positively develop their fatherhood identities. They offer young fathers opportunities to encounter new role models and can therefore help to reimagine young men who are fathers, challenging stereotypes and offering support for young men and their families. Supporting Young Men as Fathers will be of interest to students and scholars in the areas of sociology, social work, health promotion and youth work as well as practitioners working within family settings or who may encounter young men who are parents within their professional roles.

Over the past three decades, professions across the European Union have faced significant and radical challenges. This book analyses three professional groups involved in the academic and health sectors and how they are affected by different national Welfare State models such as Mediterranean, Scandinavian and Anglo Saxon.

This book explores the significance of psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott's ideas for contemporary debates about care. Locating Winnicott in relation to a range of fields, including psychology, philosophy, sociology, critical theory and feminist theory, it examines the implications of his thinking for understanding and transforming the relationship between care and society. Winnicott was unique amongst psychoanalysts for the emphasis he placed on care in the development of subjectivity. The book unpacks Winnicott's understanding of care and assesses its relevance for conceptions of social responsibility, justice and transformation. In a world where care is in crisis, how might we theorise the conditions necessary for the development of caring subjectivities, and is it possible to infer a relationship between those conditions and progressive social change? This unique book will be of interest to readers in psychosocial studies, politics and anyone concerned with thinking about the relationship between care and social transformation.

This book presents a critical analysis and examination of the major theories and social issues in the social construction of aging and death. It is concerned with the impact of death and places how our experiences of death are transformed by the roles that truth and discourse about aging play in everyday life. A major element of the book is an examination of the way in which groups and individuals employ specific representations of mortality in order to construct meaning and purpose for life and death. To accentuate this, the book provides an investigation into the social construction of death practices across time and space. Special attention is given to the notion of death as a socially accomplished phenomenon grounded in a unique sociological introduction to the meaning of death throughout history to the present. The purpose of this book is to critically inform debates concerning the abstract and empirical features of death examined through the lens of sociological perspectives. This book explores the emergent biomedical dominance relating to ageing and death. An alternative is advocated which re-interprets ageing for Graduate schools. This innovative book explores the concept, history and theory of aging and its relationship to death. Traditionally, many books have focused on older people dying of 'natural causes', a biomedical explanatory framework. This book looks at alternative social theories and experiences with aging and relate to death in different countries, victims, crime, imprisonment and institutional care. Are these deaths avoidable? If so, what are the solutions the book addresses. This is one of the first books that re-interprets aging and its relationship of examples of death. It will be of essential reading for graduate students and researchers in understanding these different examples of aging and death across the globe.

Contemporary Healthcare Issues in Sub-Saharan Africa: Social, Economic, and Cultural Perspectives discusses contemporary healthcare issues in Sub-Saharan Africa to identify deficiencies in the system and provide workable recommendations for strengthening healthcare delivery on the continent. Contributors address topical issues such as drug quality, malaria control, health insurance, geriatric care, and the environment-health nexus. The contributors also study intimate partner violence and maternal-child health, food safety, prevalence of childhood tuberculosis, and cardiovascular diseases. This book provides in-depth analyses of current issues in Sub-Saharan Africa that blend theory and practice. The diverse group of contributors includes experts in clinical medicine, pharmacy, economics, anthropology, public health, and the social sciences.

The Chinese government has recently adopted a radical welfare approach by contracting out social services to non-governmental organisations (NGOs). This is a big departure from its traditional welfare model, whereby all public services were directly delivered by government agencies. This book examines this new welfare approach. It analyses the implementation of various types of services for individuals, families and communities - including medical social services, care of the elderly, probation services and much more. It discusses important issues arising from contracting out, considers the nature of the contracted NGOs and their services, and explores major problems encountered by both government agencies and NGOs. This book also compares the similarities and differences of contracting policies in different cities. Overall, the book provides an overview of one of the most important welfare policy changes in contemporary China.

One of America’s pre-eminent economists offers a provocative critique of the failures of liberalism.

In The Vision of the Anointed, Thomas Sowell presents a devastating critique of the mind-set behind the failed social policies of the past thirty years. Sowell sees what has happened during that time not as a series of isolated mistakes but as a logical consequence of a tainted vision whose defects have led to crises in education, crime, and family dynamics, and to other social pathologies.

In this book, he describes how elites—the anointed—have replaced facts and rational thinking with rhetorical assertions, thereby altering the course of our social policy.

Inequality has been rising in advanced industrialised countries. At the same time, increased immigration has accentuated the ethnic diversity of those countries. Both developments have created challenges for advanced industrialised countries to integrate immigrants into the country. Immigration and Poverty examines how advanced industrialised countries integrate immigrants into the labour market and welfare state and how this influences immigrant poverty. The main argument draws on insights from two research strands, the comparative welfare state and the migration literature. In brief, this book argues that a country's labour market and welfare system does not directly influence immigrants' poverty but is conditional on immigrants' social rights, here understood as their labour market and welfare state access. Immigration and Poverty argues and shows that it is crucial to embed migration-specific policies within a country's prevailing institutional setting to understand why immigrants fare better in some countries as compared to others.

Changes in the international environment, from the stagflation of the 1970s to the globalization of capital markets in the 1990s, have challenged the ability of all advanced welfare states to maintain postwar achievements of full employment, social security and social equality. Nevertheless, national responses and actual performance differed greatly. This two-volume study examines the adjustment to external economic challenges over three decades in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom Volume I presents comparative analyses of differences in the vulnerabilities and capabilities of these countries, in the effectiveness of their policy responses, and in the role of values and discourses in the politics of adjustment Volume II presents in-depth analyses of the experiences of the countries, including special studies on the participation of women in the labour market, early retirement, the liberalization of public services and international tax competition.

This book unravels the lives, needs and experiences of Nigerian and Ghanaian women working in prostitution in Brussels. This volume casts a light on the working conditions and the experiences of 38 women of Nigerian and Ghanaian origin, whose daily struggles and challenges are recalled from interviews in the field. Working within the red-light district of Brussels, an area with high crime rates and lacking in basic healthcare provision, the women are faced with a number of issues on a daily basis, ranging from security and health-related concerns, to work-related stress, discrimination and perceived stigma. Full voice is given to their stories, as well as contributions from state actors and local inhabitants, with the chief aim of building safe and healthy places for both residents and workers alike. The authors conclude in presenting clear recommendations and tools for practitioners and policy makers, designed to improve the outcomes of migrant women working not just within the red-light district of Brussels, but also within wider European and global contexts. This book will be of particular interest for researchers and students of Migration Politics, Development Studies, Social Work and Sociology, as well as a useful guide for policy makers and practitioners in the field.

This book seeks to understand the politics of deservingness for future Social Security reforms through an interpretive policy analysis of the 2005 Social Security privatization debates. What does it mean for politics and policymaking that Social Security recipients are widely viewed as deserving of the benefits they receive? In the 2005 privatization debates, Congress framed Social Security in exclusively positive terms, often in opposition to welfare, and imagined their own beloved family members as recipients. Advocates for private accounts sought to navigate the politics of deservingness by dividing the "we" of social insurance to a "me" of private investment and a "them" of individual rate of return in order to justify the introduction of private accounts into Social Security. Fiscal stress on the program will likely bring Social Security to the policy agenda soon. Understanding the politics of deservingness will be central to navigating those debates.

Access to justice for all, regardless of the ability to pay, has been a core democratic value. But this basic human right has come under threat through wider processes of restructuring, with an increasingly market-led approach to the provision of welfare. Professionals and volunteers in Law Centres in Britain are struggling to provide legal advice and access to welfare rights to disadvantaged communities. Drawing upon original research, this unique study explores how strategies to safeguard these vital services might be developed in ways that strengthen rather than undermine the basic ethics and principles of public service provision. The book explores how such strategies might strengthen the position of those who provide, as well as those who need, public services, and ways to empower communities to work more effectively with professionals and progressive organisations in the pursuit of rights and social justice agendas more widely.

At a time of significant transformations in Chinese society, this book addresses the key issue of social welfare and the reform of the welfare system in 21st century China. Considering both the theory and policy making across a variety of welfare issues which directly impact on the country's economic development, it examines the development of civil society, changes in social stratification and in social class structure. It notably considers the key questions of welfare in both urban and rural settings, for different population groups such as children, the elderly and the disabled, addressing topical issues of housing, education, public health, poverty and the restructuring of related welfare policy system to tackle China's key issues. It also considers the impact of migrant workers in China and their social integration, including within the welfare system. Providing a unique insight into how economic globalization and financial crisis affects Chinese social welfare policies, this book is a key read for scholars worldwide interested in social transformation in Chinese society at a time of significant social and economic transition.

First published in 1952, this is a full-scale and definitive account of the life and work of Sir Edwin Chadwick. Among the sources used are the Chadwick Papers, the Peel, Place, Russell and Gladstone Papers, the Home Office, Treasury and Ministry of Health papers and the minutes and documents of the Metropolitan Commission of Sewers. Centred on this mass of material, this book demonstrates that the great social reforms of the Victorian age should be attributed, not so much to the Cabinets, but to the labours of a handful of civil servants. It also argues that Edwin Chadwick was the most influential of these civil servants and through this illuminating biography, Professor Finer gives an account of early Victorian administration as seen from inside. This book will be of interest to those studying Victorian social reform, the history of the welfare state and social policy.

Over the past three decades, market reforms have transformed public services such as education, health, and care of the elderly. Whereas previous studies present markets as having similar and largely non-political effects, this book shows that political parties structure markets in diverse ways to achieve distinct political aims. Left-wing attempts to sustain the legitimacy of the welfare state are compared with right-wing wishes to limit the state and empower the private sector. Examining a broad range of countries, time periods, and policy areas, Jane R. Gingrich helps readers make sense of the complexity of market reforms in the industrialized world. The use of innovative multi-case studies and in-depth interviews with senior European policymakers enriches the debate and brings clarity to this multifaceted topic. Scholars and students working on the policymaking process in this central area will be interested in this new conceptualization of market reform.

Using an approach that combines transnational and comparative social policy analysis with international relations, this book assesses various global social policy actors and compares their ideas and prescriptions about national health care systems. It highlights the importance of considering health policies across multiple scales.

G.K. Chesterton delivers insightful commentary on modern behavior and social practices influenced by big business, gender roles, government and other notable figures throughout his lifetime. The book is inspired by his own personal beliefs regarding faith, family and the working man. What's Wrong with the World is a critical analysis of various topics covered by acclaimed writer G.K. Chesterton. He tackles contemporary ideals that dominate society and dictate culture. This book compiles Chesterton's most prominent beliefs about the dangers of consumerism and a social hierarchy that thrives on oppression. It's an indictment of what he considers the world's most undeniable ills. G.K. Chesterton was a principled man with old fashioned values. His personal views shaped his literary work as well as his opinion of others. His catalog is full of essays offering distinct commentary with an indelible writing style. With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of What's Wrong with the World is both modern and readable.

Tourse, Mooney, and their contributors argue that schools alone can no longer meet the complex needs of children and adolescents. The overwhelming needs of school children require that schools institute massive coordinated and collaborative efforts among various disciplines and agencies. The authors propose a restructuring of schools and social service systems to respond to the needs for interprofessional collaboration.

While they focus primarily on the collaboration of social work and education, they look beyond that to relationships with other allied disciplines in public schools and explore collaborative linkages with nursing, law, counseling, pastoral counseling, and other agents of society. The collection culminates with an examination of the realities of interprofessional collaboration in urban and suburban communities. This is an important guide for researchers, policy makers, and professional educators involved with school reform and systems change in the United States.