Social protection is fast becoming one of the most important themes in development policy. This book examines the political processes shaping the formulation of social protection policies; compares the key conceptual frameworks available for analysing social protection; and provides a comparative discussion on social protection policies focused on the poor and the poorest.

The Young Lives project is a long-term study of childhood poverty in developing countries. International experts follow two groups of children in poor communities in four countries as they grow into young adults with five rounds of surveys, interspersed with on-going participatory research with a smaller number of the children, planned to cover a period of 15 years. This book represents the engagement of Young Lives with researchers and debates in the field, reflecting on the first two rounds of data coming from Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam, with supporting material from Tanzania and South Africa. Topics include the ethics of research, the long-term causes and consequences of childhood poverty, and the resilience and optimism shown by children and their families. The authors also look at the dynamics of childhood poverty -- how and why some families move in and out of poverty as well as learning, children's timeuse and life transitions -- focusing on children's daily lives, their families and communities.

In 1997, Mexico launched a radical new program to combat poverty. Initially named Progresa and now known as Oportunidades, the revolutionary program has become an important example of a sustainable and scalable poverty reduction strategy in the developing world. In Progress against Poverty, Santiago Levy offers his unique perspective on the development of the program, the reasons for its success, the challenges it faces, and its applicability in other nations.

Written by a multi-disciplinary team of contributors, this collection explores the different dimensions of well being, poverty and inequality. A person's sense of well being is compounded of many elements including economic, political and social psychology. Poverty and inequality are aspects of a lack of well being in multiple dimensions and, this texts argues, development should be considered a process that overcomes these multiple deficiencies This book examines the advantages of analysing poverty and development by multi-discipline research. Economists, political sociologists and anthropologists put forward an idea of well being from their own perspective, using their own research material, while the editors argue in their introduction that bringing to bear of many disciplines can enrich the research output of all.

A volume in Advances in Cultural Psychology Series Editor: Jaan Valsiner, Clark University This book covers the results of investigation of social realities and their public representation in Brazilian poor communities, with a particular emphasis on the use of cultural tools to survive and create psychological and social novelty under conditions of severe poverty. A relevant part of it brings together the multi-faceted evidence of a decade of research concentrated in two particular low-income areas in the city of Salvador da Bahia, Brazil. Other studies conducted in other Brazilian areas and in Cali, Colombia are included. In contrast to most representations of poverty in the social sciences which create a "calamity story" of the lives of poor people, the coverage in this book is meant to balance the focus on harsh realities with the cultural-psychological resiliency of individuals and families under poverty.

This book, co-published with the UN's Dept of Economic and Social Affairs, offers a critical appraisal of the conventional measures and analysis of poverty as well as of poverty reduction policies. It is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Despite greater efforts in reducing poverty since the early 1980s, poverty remains stubbornly high in many parts of the world. This collection argues that the mainstream perspectives on poverty and deprivation have contributed to considerable distortion and misunderstanding and that is not unrelated to ineffectual policy perscriptions. In particular it highlights the World Bank's dollar-a-day measure of poverty and exposes the inadequacies of Bretton Woods-inspired poverty reduction programmes.

Originally published 1974. Thousands of elementary schools for the children of the poor were founded during the nineteenth century, yet there is scarcely a published history of a single one of them. This volume is precisely such a history and the authors trace its story against the background of local and national change in education and society. On the basis of a unique collection of records the authors have pieced together a picture of the social composition of the school, its curriculum and teaching methods, and its administration and finance. They relate the history of the school to that of London and the church, to that of educational authorities and educational policy.

This volume provides comprehensive updated coverage of inequality and poverty issues in China. Some of the methodologies developed herein are published for the first time and may be used in other contexts and for other countries. The use of different data sources and state-of-art research techniques ensures that the findings and conclusions can be substantiated and that the policy recommendations are reliable and robust. Contributors to this volume are renowned experts in their respective areas, including, notably, Justin Lin, Xing Meng, Kai-yuen Tsui, and Guanghua Wan. For these reasons, those with an interest in income distribution in general and China's development in particular, will find this volume essential reading.
Rapidly rising inequality in China has contributed to the sluggishness of domestic demand and emerging poverty. It has thus exerted considerable pressure for commodity exports and represents a root cause of increased trade disputes. These have profound ramifications for the US, EU, and other economies, and the international business community. Consequently, economists and sociologists, among others, are increasingly focused upon inequality and poverty issues in China and relevant policy implications.
This volume, arising from a two-year UNU-WIDER project, addresses issues that include the inequality-growth relationship, regional/personal variation in incomes and human well-being such as education, the determinants of inequality and poverty or their changes, gaps in innovation capability, and the role played by China's development strategies in affecting inequality.

M. Riad El-Ghonemy argues that if current trends in government-led and market based land reforms persist the rural poor population in developing countries will continue to rise. Based on nearly half a century of academic and field research this valuable work presents compelling evidence on persistent rural poverty, hunger and increased inequality in developing countries over the last thirty years. The book furthers the debate with sixteen detailed case studies and looks beyond the typical views of the roles of the state and the market on land reform. The Crisis of Rural Poverty and Hunger contains comprehensive case studies including countries such as China, Korea and Honduras provides bases for discussions of government-mandated land reform, pro-active participation of NGOs and facilitated functions of the market mechanism. This book is essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students interested in the fields of rural and agricultural development, development economics and geography.

First published in 2006. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Find out how welfare reform has affected women living at the poverty level Women, Work, and Poverty presents the latest information on women living at or below the poverty level and the changes that need to be made in public policy to allow them to rise above their economic hardships. Using a wide range of research methods, including in-depth interviews, focus groups, small-scale surveys, and analysis of personnel records, the book explores different aspects of women's poverty since the passage of the 1986 welfare reform bill. Anthropologists, economists, political scientists, sociologists, and social workers examine marriage, divorce, children and child care, employment and work schedules, disabilities, mental health, and education, and look at income support programs, such as welfare and unemployment insurance. Women, Work, and Poverty illuminates the changes in the causes of women's poverty following welfare reform in the United States, using up-to-date research that's both qualitative and quantitative. Taking racial and ethnic diversity into account, the book's contributors examine new findings on the feminization of poverty, the role of children and the lack of child care as an obstacle to employment, labor market policies that can reduce poverty and improve gender wage equality, sex and race segregation in the labor market, and the low quality of jobs available to low income women. Women, Work, and Poverty examines: marriage, motherhood, and work pay equity and living wage reforms community resources welfare status and child care acquiring higher education advancing women of color income security repaying debt after divorce gender differences in spendable income women's job loss Women, Work, and Poverty is an invaluable aid for academics working in social work, social policy, women's studies, economics, sociology, and political science, and for policy researchers, anti-poverty activists, and women's leaders.

Find out howand whylegislation has made economic rights more important than human rights Since 1996, politicians and public officials in the United States have celebrated the success of welfare reform legislation despite little, if any, evidence to support their claims. The Promise of Welfare Reform: Political Rhetoric and the Reality of Poverty in the Twenty-First Century presents articles from 23 community practitioners and researchers who challenge the reform that has turned public aid from a right to a privilege. The authors transcend conventional academic writing, offering careful and thoughtful analysis that examines the history of welfare reform, its connection to poverty, family issues, and the impact of racism on poverty and on the treatment of the poor. The Promise of Welfare Reform analyzes the consequences over the past ten years of legislative changes made to the public assistance program formerly known as Aid to Families with Dependant Children (AFDC). This powerful book examines the social, political, and economic context of welfare reform, including the elimination of poverty as a societal goal, how racial and ethic groups have been targeted, popular stereotypes about the poor and their work ethic, anti-immigrant hostility, the struggles of single mothers with children, domestic violence, and marriage as a realistic escape from poverty. The book's authors address the need for empathy and understanding to change public sentiments about welfare and poverty. Contributors to The Promise of Welfare Reform include: Elizabeth A. Segal and Keith M. Kilty, co-founding editors of the Journal of Poverty (Haworth) Frances Fox Piven, co-author of Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare Ann Withorn, co-editor of For Crying Out Loud: Women's Poverty in the United States Mimi Abramovitz, author of Under Attack, Fighting Back: Women and Welfare in the United States Joel Blau, co-author with Mimi Abramovitz of The Dynamics of Social Welfare Policy Margaret K. Nelson, author of The Social Economy of Single Mothers: Raising Children in Rural America Gwendolyn Mink, co-editor of Welfare: A Documentary History of U.S. Policy and Politics Kenneth J. Neubeck, co-author of Welfare Racism: Playing the Race Card Against America's Poor Lynn Fujiwara, author of Sanctioning Immigrants: Asian Immigrant Women and the Racial Politics of Welfare Reform Nancy C. Jurik, author of Bootstrap Dreams: U.S. Microenterprise Developments in an Era of Welfare Reform and much more! The Promise of Welfare Reform challenges current views on welfare reform and promotes alternative methods to alleviate poverty. It is an essential resource for sociologists, political scientists, economists, public policy and management specialists, social welfare and human services workers, and anyone else concerned about changes made to public assistance by the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996.

First Published in 2005. The study of social administration is fundamentally the study of social policy, how it came to be in the developed communities of Western society, how it grew and how it succeeded in achieving the ends which it set out to achieve. This is Volume I from a collection on the battle against poverty and looks at Pauperism of the Elizabethan era to social policy and human rights of the 1960s.

This incisive book addresses the history of poverty in the US, investigating how those in need have been understood and governed during the last 70 years. John Macnicol launches a multi-faceted analysis of government attitudes to welfare and 'dependency', highlighting the impact on the poorest groups of American society. Poverty in the US is explored through the eyes of prominent liberals, including Gunnar Myrdal, John Kenneth Galbraith and Michael Harrington, in times of economic growth and recession, from the New Deal to the rise of neoliberalism. Macnicol also examines the career and ascendancy of the leading conservative, Charles Murray, and his contention that America suffered a growing 'underclass' largely created by over-generous welfare. Through analysis of the mechanisms and output of leading conservative think-tanks in the late twentieth century, the author identifies the key features of historic and contemporary discussions related to poverty and dependency in the US and the dynamic changes of American attitudes to its poorest constituents. A timely discussion for a period of economic cynicism, this book is crucial reading for scholars of social policy, particularly those examining the history of impoverishment and debates relating to poverty and dependency. Students of social policy, sociology and economics will also benefit from its insights into historic US government attitudes and reactions to poverty.

The economies of Latin America have undergone a deep process of change in the last decade as a result of the application of major reforms. The outcome can be fairly described as a New Economic Model. This New Economic Model is distinguished from its predecessor, in force before the 1980s debt crisis, by an emphasis on market forces and export-led growth. This book explores the main features of the New Economic Model in Latin America and, through analysis of the reform process and case studies, examines its impact on income distribution and poverty.

This volume contains an analysis of the economic problems encountered in Mongolia during the transition from a centrally planned to a market economy, when poverty increased dramatically, unemployment rose sharply, health and education indicators derteriorated and the economic and social position of women declined. Yet there is considerable potential in Mongolia for a broadly based acceleration of output, particularly if priority is given to the nomadic livestock sector and to grass-roots development at the provincial level. This book contains policy suggestions intended to promote growth and employment and to reduce poverty.

Food Security, Poverty and Nutrition Policy Analysis: Statistical Methods and Applications, Third Edition combines statistical data analysis and computer literacy, applying the results to develop policy alternatives through a series of statistical methods for real world food insecurity, malnutrition and poverty problems. The book presents the latest uses of statistical methods for policy analysis using the open source statistical environment R, in addition to having the original Stata files and applications. A new chapter on obesity brings in new datasets for analysis to effectively demonstrate the use of such data for addressing policy issues. Finally, program evaluation methods which can be directly applied to the data on food security, nutrition, poverty indicators and causal factors are included. This unique, real-world data takes the reader through a "hands-on" approach toward econometric practice whereby they can also test the effects of policy and program interventions. Further, this is the first book to explore actual data with STATA and R statistical packages that also provides a line-by-line guide to the programming and interpretation of results.

Rural Poverty moves beyond the highly visual forms of poverty characteristic of the city, to explore the nature of poverty in rural spaces of Britain and America. The book sets out the key features of poverty in rural areas and highlights the important processes that act to hide key components of rural poverty.
The book seeks to challenge dominant assumptions about the spatialities of poverty and the nature of rural spaces in Britain and America. Drawing on a broad range of new research material, it provides a comprehensive and critical review of the nature of poverty in rural spaces. Particular attention is given to the scale, profile and causes of poverty in rural areas; the spatial unevenness and local geographies of rural poverty; the experiences of different forms of poverty in rural spaces; and the shifting governance of rural welfare at central and local spatial scales.
Case-study material used in the book has been drawn from a wide range of locations, including Wiltshire, Northumberland and Hampshire in the UK and New England in the US.

The number of poor people in China is huge, despite recent economic advances. This book investigates the problem of poverty in China's regions, discussing in particular the role of rural-urban migration in reducing poverty. It surveys the distribution and characteristics of poverty, examines anti-poverty initiatives by the Chinese government and includes the results of original research conducted in Shanxi, a typical province in Central China.

This book assesses Ecological Migration and Precision Poverty Alleviation Measures, based on research conducted in Ningxia. "Resettling residents currently living in poor areas" is an important measure for "precise poverty alleviation." China's central government has provided extraordinary support for these areas, so as to help with "removing poverty nests," "changing poverty industries," and "pulling out the roots of poverty."This book is mainly based on research conducted in Ningxia, one of the earliest areas in China to achieve poverty alleviation and development through immigration and relocation. Since the Twelfth Five-Year Plan, Ningxia's ecological migration has been integrated into the process of new urbanization and industrialization. Poverty alleviation and relocation not only involves regional transfer, industrial transformation, and changes in livelihood, but also the social adaptation and integration of migrant groups. In addition to examining these aspects, the book shares stories of how impoverished individuals have succeeded in changing their fates.

Winner of the 2016 AESA Critics' Choice Book Award Molly Makris uses an interdisciplinary approach to urban education policy to examine the formal education and physical environment of young people from low-income backgrounds and demonstrate how gentrification shapes these circumstances.

Richard Layard is one of Britain's foremost applied economists, whose work has had a profound impact on the policy debate in Britain and abroad. This book contains his most influential articles on the subject of unemployment. It is published along with a companion volume Inequality , which deals with these topics and with economic transition. Unemployment explains what causes unemployment and proposes remedies to reduce it. There is a strong focus on how unemployed people are treated and how this affects unemployment - including Layard's well-known recommendation of a job-guarantee for long term unemployed people. Other key topics covered are the effect of unions and wage bargaining, the effect of low skill, and the possible role of rigid employment laws. The book opens with Richard Layard's personal credo Why I became an Economist .

Public silence in policymaking can be deafening. When advocates for a disadvantaged group decline to speak up, not only are their concerns not recorded or acted upon, but also the collective strength of the unspoken argument is lessened - a situation that undermines the workings of deliberative democracy by reflecting only the concerns of more powerful interests. But why do so many advocates remain silent on key issues they care about and how does that silence contribute to narrowly defined policies? What can individuals and organizations do to amplify their privately expressed concerns for policy change? In "Healthy Voices, Unhealthy Silence", Colleen M. Grogan and Michael K. Gusmano address these questions through the lens of state-level health care advocacy for the poor. They examine how representatives for the poor participate in an advisory board process by tying together existing studies; extensive interviews with key players; and, an in-depth, first-hand look at the Connecticut Medicaid advisory board's deliberations during the managed care debate. Drawing on the concepts of deliberative democracy, agenda setting, and nonprofit advocacy, Grogan and Gusmano reveal the reasons behind advocates' often unexpected silence on major issues, assess how capable nonprofits are at affecting policy debates, and provide prescriptive advice for creating a participatory process that adequately addresses the health care concerns of the poor and dispossessed. Though exploring specifically state-level health care advocacy for the poor, the lessons Grogan and Gusmano offer here are transferable across issue areas and levels of government. Public policy scholars, advocacy organizations, government workers, and students of government administration will be well-served by this significant study.