This comparative study is the first to center on the key issues of homeownership and control today in a number of industrialized countries. Experts from Canada, Great Britain, Russia, and the United States draw a cross-national and interdisciplinary, informed picture of basic issues and values, current trends, and different policy approaches that have been tested in recent years. This overview of various national policies and programs is intended for students and scholars, policymakers and public administrators dealing with fundamental problems in homeownership and control.

Ownership and control has long been a central theme in the heated public debates in different countries over housing policy. How are notions about ownership and control tied to culture? What are some of the basic values about homeownership in western societies? What place has homeownership played in the life cycles of black and white families in the United States? What limitations to privatization exist in housing reform in Russia now? Who benefits or loses from public housing sales in Britain? How are multi-family public housing projects of the 1960s in the United States being converted to community-corporation control? What different kinds of tenant attitudes exist toward tenant management in two U.S. public housing developments? What type of role do nonprofit housing cooperatives in Canada play? These are only some of the questions that the ten chapters set out to answer. Reference lists accompany each of the chapters, adding to the usefulness of this public policy study for text purposes.

This volume provides a Europe-wide comparative analysis of the role of civil society organizations active in the field of unemployment and precarity. It illustrates how crucial civil society organizations are for the inclusion of the young unemployed, mainly in two ways: by delivering services and by advocating policy.

Social security systems throughout the world are faced with unprecedented challenges in response to growing criticisms about unacceptable expenditures for government programs and questions about the appropriate role of government in providing social protection through social insurance and social assistance programs. The challenges are also a result of dramatic demographic, social, and cultural changes around the world. A variety of radical and modest reform measures are currently being discussed which have the potential of significantly impacting the means of income and health care for the elderly, children, and families.

This book examines these challenges from the perspective of local analysts in both industrial and economically developing nations. The purpose of the analysis is to promote a better understanding of the integral role that social security plays in the social and economic development of diverse societies. The chapters examine the wide range of challenges to social security in Britain, Egypt and Turkey, the Netherlands, Poland, the United States, Uruguay, and Zimbabwe. An overview of the most prevalent issues are discussed, including fiscal viability, economic development, equity, administration, public confidence, and the role of social security as the primary government instrument for social protection against the loss of income and health. Essential reading for students and researchers in social policy, gerontology, and comparative social welfare.

Culture is not new to the study of migration. It has lurked beneath the surface for some time, occasionally protruding openly into the discussion, usually under some pseudonym. The authors of the papers in this volume bring culture into the open. They are concerned with how culture manifests itself in the migration process for three groups of actors: the migrants, those remaining in the sending areas, and people already living in the recipient locations. The topics vary widely. What unites the authors is an understanding that though actors behave differently, within a group there are economically important shared beliefs (customs, values, attitudes, etc.), which we commonly referred to as culture. Culture plays a central role in our understanding of migration as an economic phenomenon. While the papers in this volume occasionally touch on this diversity and the conflicts it engenders, this is not the focus of the volume. Here the emphasis is on the distinctions in culture between migrants, the families they left behind, and the local population in the migration destination. The new interactions directly affect all three groups. Assimilation is one result; separation is also a possibility. Location choice, workplace interaction, enclave size, the opportunity for the migrant obtaining credit in their new country, the local population's reaction to migrants, the political culture of the migrants and local population, links to the country-of-origin, and the economic state of the host country, all contribute to the classic conflict between assimilation and separation. This volume will consider different aspects of the process of assimilation considering the affect on the migrants themselves, on the local population, on the families left at the home country and others.

By virtue of a quiet revolution over nearly a hundred years, Britain has evolved into a home-owning society. The impact of this on British society has been barely understood, but it has helped to shape the Blair 'workfare' state and to draw Britain firmly towards the English-speaking world while distancing the country from other European nations. Taking a policy-analysis approach and drawing from the burgeoning comparative literature, this textbook explores what has happened to British housing since 1900. Providing more than an account of British housing, the book reinterprets the housing system in a way that is sensitive to the historical and cultural contexts of British policy and society. Examining the nature of 'housing' and how it helps to shape society, Lowe sets British housing in its global context. Written in an accessible style, Housing Policy Analysis leads the reader through the basic concepts to more challenging themes. It will be important reading for students of housing studies, social policy, public policy and applied social studies.

This study has been written during my time at the Institute of Public Finance at the Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg, Germany. I am indebted to a number of people who have made this work possible. First and foremost, I thank my teacher Prof. Dr. Bernd Raffelhuschen .. with whom I had the pleasure of working for many exciting years. The German term "Doktorvater" alludes to the fatherly role of a thesis supervisor, and he has truely lived up to this role. Also, I am grateful to Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Hans-Hermann Francke for his co-correction and the valuable comments he has given me. In addition, I wish to thank my family. Especially, my wife, Daniela, has not only supported me with her love and affection but has also kept an eye on my discipline when the going got tough. The greatest sacri?ce in the course of working on this thesis, have been the miles and many hours away from her. Unfortunately, the yearsofmydoctoralstudieswereovershadowedbythedeathofmyfather. Tohimand mymother,Eva-MariaBorgmann,Iamimmenselygratefulfortheirloveandsupport throughout my life. Daniel Besendorfer and Erik Luth .. have been close companions and friends at the Institute of Public Finance from my ?rst days in Freiburg, and I have gained from their friendship enormously. This work has largely pro?ted from comments and suggestions of many colleagues who have also been great fun to work with. Among them, I especially thank Holger Bonin, Oliver Ehrentraut, Matthias Heidler, Stefan Fetzer, Pascal Krimmer, and Stefan Moog.

This book explores the role of the welfare state in the overall wealth and wellbeing of nations and in particular looks at the American welfare state in comparison with other developed nations in Europe and elsewhere. It is widely believed that the welfare state undermines productivity and economic growth, that the United States has an unusually small welfare state, and that it is, and always has been, a welfare state laggard. This book shows that all rich nations, including the United States, have large welfare states because the socialized programs that comprise the welfare state-public education and health and social insurance-enhance the productivity of capitalism. In public education, the most productive part of the welfare state, for most of the 19th and 20th centuries, the United States was a leader. Though few would argue that public education is not part of the welfare state, most previous cross national analyses of welfare states have omitted education. Including education has profound consequences, undergirding the case for the productivity of welfare state programs and the explanation for why all rich nations have large welfare states, and identifying US welfare state leadership. From 1968 through 2006, the United States swung right politically and lost its lead in education and opportunity, failed to adopt universal health insurance and experienced the most rapid explosion of health care costs and economic inequality in the rich world. The American welfare state faces large challenges. Restoring its historical lead in education is the most important but requires investing large sums in education, beginning with universal pre-school and in complementary programs that aid children's development. The American health insurance system is by far the most costly in the rich world, yet fails to insure one sixth of its population, produces below average results, crowds out useful investments in children, and is the least equitably financed. Achieving universal coverage will increase costs. Only complete government financing is likely to restrain long term costs. In memory of Robert J. Lampman Colleague, Co-author, Friend and Mentor

Although many scholars have emphasized the shortcomings of federal housing programs, few have examined their successes and failures on a case-by-case empirical basis. With the possibility that federal involvement in housing may increase in the future, we need to have more precise knowledge of what works, what does not, and why. Donald Rosenthal's new book is the first study to focus on the Section 8 Neighborhood Strategy Area program (NSA)--one of the last major housing initiatives of the Carter administration. Reporting on his extensive field research, the author examines the development and implementation of the program and documents its results. In the process, he provides valuable new insights on American intergovernmental relations between 1977 and 1984 and traces the evolution of federal policy on assisted housing and community development under the Carter and Reagan administrations.

Although there has been general improvement in America's housing since 1949, when the U.S. Congress proclaimed the goal of a decent home and suitable living environment for every American family, this stated national aim has clearly not been achieved. Substandard housing conditions are still prevalent anong various racial, ethnic, and economic groups. This book, edited by a leading population and housing scholar with contributions from nationally recognized housing experts, reviews recent data derived from census reports and housing surveys. It focuses on the reasons why the quality and quantity of housing available to blacks, Hispanics, Asian Americans, and American Indians remains significantly below standards for whites.

"Creating the Welfare State" investigates how private business and public bureaucracy worked together to create the structure of much of the modern welfare state in America. Covering the period from the 1980s to the present, this important volume employs interdisciplinary techniques to demonstrate how politics, economics, law, and social theory merged over the course of a century of policy formulation and implementation. The authors also draw upon previously unconsulted sources from government warehouses and archives to analyze the operation of early federal social welfare programs such as vocational rehabilitation. Their discussions range from those early programs to modern ones such as cost of living pay adjustments and social security disability benefits. This emphasis on the notion of the continuing development of welfare programs is a significant factor in the welfare state controversies--a factor often ignored by other historians and writers.

This book offers unprecedented insights into both the workings of the Commonwealth and into the contrasting experiences of member states within it, with regard to social exclusion. Chapters on British social policy tradition and on concepts of social inclusion/exclusion, preface a series of case studies illustrative of different member states' experiences to date. The book concludes by re examining the Commonwealth per se, with reference to its own problems of development and, nevertheless, its social policy development potential for the future. PATRICIA HARRIS is Professor of Sociology and Social Policy, and Director of the Centre for Social and Community Research at Murdoch University, Australia BARBARA HARRISS-WHITE is Professor of Development Studies and Deputy Directory of Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford University, UK LAKSIRI JAYASURIYA is Emeritus Professor and Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the School of Social and Cultural Studies, University of Western Australia, Australia JAMES LEE is Associate Professor at the City University of Hong Kong, China W.DAVID MCINTYRE is Emeritus Professor at the Macmillan Brown Centre of Pacific Studies at the University of Christchurch, N

This book sets out unique findings on whether social capital influences health and health inequalities in European welfare states. Drawing on cross-national data from the European Social Survey (ESS) as well as Swedish national survey data and registers, the book develops a new theoretical definition of social capital that guides the books empirical studies. The findings suggest that welfare state generosity is a decisive factor for social capital and that social capital is of significance for health inequalities both between and within European welfare states. The book also discusses the potential dark sides of social capital and examines evidence of circumstances in which social capital has negative health externalities.

In late summer 2015, Sweden embarked on one of the largest self-described humanitarian efforts in its history, opening its borders to 163,000 asylum seekers fleeing the war in Syria. Six months later this massive effort was over. On January 4, 2016, Sweden closed its border with Denmark. This closure makes a startling reversal of Sweden's open borders to refugees and contravenes free movement in the Schengen Area, a founding principle of the European Union. What happened? This book sets out to explain this reversal. In her new and compelling book, Vanessa Barker explores the Swedish case study to challenge several key paradigms for understanding penal order in the twenty-first century and makes an important contribution to our understanding of punishment and welfare states. She questions the dominance of neoliberalism and political economy as the main explanation for the penalization of others, migrants and foreign nationals, and develops an alternative theoretical framework based on the internal logic of the welfare state and democratic theory about citizenship, incorporation, and difference, paying particular attention to questions of belonging, worthiness, and ethnic and gender hierarchies. Her book develops the concept of penal nationalism as an important form of penal power in the twenty-first century, providing a bridge between border control and punishment studies.

While social welfare programs, often inspired by international organizations, are spreading throughout the world, the more far-reaching notion of governmental responsibility for the basic well-being of all members of a political society is not, although it remains a feature of Europe and the former British Commonwealth. The welfare state in the European sense is not simply an administrative arrangement of various measures of social protection but a political project embedded in distinct cultural traditions. Offering the first accessible account in English of the historical development of the European idea of the welfare state, this book reviews the intellectual foundations which underpinned the road towards the European welfare state, formulates some basic concepts for its understanding, and highlights the differences in the underlying structural and philosophical conditions between continental Europe and the English-speaking world.

This title offers a front-burner issue on the public policy agenda today is the increased use of partnerships between government and nongovernmental entities, including faith-based social service organizations. In the wake of President Bush's faith-based initiative, many are still wondering about the effectiveness of these faith-based organizations in providing services to those in need, and whether they provide better outcomes than more traditional government, secular nonprofit, and for-profit organizations. In "Faith, Hope, and Jobs", Stephen V. Monsma and J. Christopher Soper study the effectiveness of 17 different welfare-to-work programs in Los Angeles County - a county in which the U.S. government spends 14 per cent of its entire welfare budget - and offer groundbreaking insight into understanding what works and what doesn't. Monsma and Soper examine client assessment of the programs, their progress in developing attitudes and resources important for finding self-supporting employment, and their experience in finding actual employment. This study reveals that the clients of the more explicitly faith-based programs did best in gaining in social capital and were highly positive in evaluating the religious components of their programs. For-profit programs tended to do the best in terms of their clients finding employment. Overall, the religiously active respondents tended to experience better outcomes than those who were not religiously active but surprisingly, the religiously active and non-active tended to do equally well in faith-based programs. "Faith, Hope, and Jobs" concludes with three sets of concrete recommendations for public policymakers, social service program managers, and researchers.

This book provides an up-to-date survey of existing economic literature on the dimensions of growing income inequalities in both advanced and emerging countries. The different explanations and dimensions of inequalities are addressed, particularly globalization, technical progress, in-work poverty, changes in labour market institutions, education and intergenerational mobility, growth and development. The nine chapters provide simplified models exploring each of these elements, and assess commonly accepted explanations and mechanisms.

In the midst of growing criticism of current economic orthodoxies and welfare systems, basic income is growing in popularity. This is the first book to discuss existing at examples of basic income, in both rich and poor countries, and to consider its prospects in other places around the world.

Since the early 1990s, European welfare states have undergone substantial changes, in terms of objectives, areas of intervention, and instruments. Traditional programmes, such as old age pensions have been curtailed throughout the continent, while new functions have been taken up. At present, welfare states are expected to help non-working people back into employment, to complement work income for the working poor, to reconcile work and family life, to promote gender equality, to support child development, and to provide social services for an ageing society. The welfare settlement that is emerging at the beginning of the 21st century is nonetheless very different in terms of functions and instruments from the one inherited from the last century. This book seeks to offer a better understanding of the new welfare settlement, and to analyze the factors that have shaped the recent transformation.

Using an analytical framework based on Foucault's concept of governmentality, and through unique case-studies, this volume explores the ongoing transformations taking place in the Swedish welfare state.

Housing allowances have become increasingly important policy instruments in the advanced welfare states. Operating at the interface between housing and social security policy, they provide means-tested assistance with housing costs for low income households. In the present era of fiscal austerity, such schemes are seen by many governments as a more efficient way to help tenants than rent controls or 'bricks and mortar' subsidies to landlords. Yet as the contributions to this collection show, housing allowances are not without problems of their own, especially in relation to housing consumption and work incentives. This book examines income-related housing allowance schemes in advanced welfare states as well as in transition economies of central and eastern Europe. Drawing on experiences in ten countries, including Britain, Sweden, Germany, Australia and the USA, it presents new evidence on the origins and design of housing allowances; their role within housing and social security policy; their impact on affordability; and current policy debates and recent reforms. Unique in it's depth of coverage, "Housing Allowances in Comparative Perspective" is essential reading for researchers, students and lecturers in social policy, housing and urban studies.

Social protection systems are intended to support households in financial difficulties, a role that has been underlined during the recent Great Recession in many countries around the world. This volume presents new results on the dynamics of social assistance, minimum-income and related out-of-work benefits in a range of different country contexts. It contains eight original articles, which shed light on benefit spell durations, the movements into and out of receipt of safety net benefits, the individual or family characteristics associated with these movements, the extent of state dependence or 'scarring', and the interaction of various welfare programs. The results establish an evidence base for an informed policy debate in a range of OECD countries. They also provide methodological background for future work on benefit receipt patterns.

This book fills an important gap in housing research, covering the impact of recent changes in housing policies and markets on the development of state-of-the-art asset management within the social rented sector in various countries.

This unique project explores one of the increasingly popular policies for long-term care: the provision to care users of cash, rather than services so that they can employ their own caring labour directly. The authors are scholars from Austria, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, the USA and the United Kingdom in the fields of social policy and gerontology. The book includes introductory and concluding chapters by the editors, which develop new theories of care commodification and present a comparative overview of these important policy trends.

The Economics of Social Insurance and Employee Benefits focuses on non-wage benefits paid to workers in the United States, covering both government-mandated and voluntarily provided benefits. The author argues that benefits affect workplace productivity, and concentrates on the economic thinking behind how to design non-wage benefits in order to achieve competitive advantage. Part I briefly introduces these programs and discusses some of the insurance and economic concepts that are useful both for evaluating current programs and in analyzing what changes might mean for future costs and benefits. Part II deals with mandated social insurance programs, while Part III discusses benefits voluntarily provided by employers. Throughout the book, private sector human resource practices and public sector human resource policies are linked to various benefit models: the human capital model; the passive participant model; the insurance model; the managed care model; and the integrated health benefits model. Butler argues that the current program-centered approach to human resource and risk management is often ineffectual because it (1) ignores overlapping benefits that mitigate useful cost-sharing mechanisms; (2) often results in the concentration of benefits among relatively few workers; and (3) sometimes has the unintended consequences of negatively affecting workers' human capital. In advocating a worker-specific' approach to employee benefits, the book offers a unique perspective on how human resource managers, risk managers, and public policy makers can promote those institutions and programs that best increase workers' productivity.