Southern European welfare states - in common with their northern counterparts - are under stress. They have become the object of studies exploring the southern "type" or "model" of welfare. This collection provides a series of both comparative and specific country analyses.

This book contains a concise, simple, yet precise discussion of externalities, public goods and insurance. Rooted in the first fundamental theorem of welfare economics and in noncooperative equilibrium, it employs elementary calculus. The book presents established theory in novel ways, and offers the tools for the application of the social welfare criteria of efficiency and equity to environmental economics, networks, bargaining, political economy, and the pricing of public goods and public utilities.This innovative, user-friendly textbook will be of use over a broad range of disciplines. The applications found here include international global-warming issues (North vs. South model), and bargaining over externalities (Coase's theorem). This text also introduces the Wicksell-Lindahl model in its original form, which depicts the parliamentary negotiation between representative parties and provides an effective introduction to political economy. Later, these ideas are applied to the pricing of an excludable public good, revealing the theoretical connection between public utility pricing and the pricing of excludable public goods. The text integrates three forms of discourse: verbal, graphical, and formal. Elementary calculus is frequently used, allowing for clarity and precision; qualities that are often missing in conventional textbooks. The main text considers a finite number of consumers and appendices cover the continuum mathematical model, which is implicit in the references to the 'marginal consumer' found in traditional texts. The analysis found in Public Microeconomics is simple and operational, conducive to computationally easy examples and exercises. This textbook is ideally suited to graduate and upper-level undergraduate courses in economics, political science, policy and philosophy. Contents: Preface Foreword to Students 1. Introduction 2. Private Goods Without Externalities 3. Externalities 4. Public Goods 5. Public Utilities 6. Uncertainty and Asymmetrical Information Index

Social Security expansion is back on the agenda, at a time when Americans need it more than ever-here's what it should look like (and why it matters to everyday people all over the country) "Altman and Kingson cut through the fog of calculated confusion and outright lies about Social Security."-David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author The COVID-19 crisis has pulled the curtain back on America's looming retirement income crisis, a fraying of the national community, and ever-worsening income inequality. Never before have so many people's livelihoods and futures been thrown into flux. Now more than ever, expanding Social Security is essential to addressing these challenges. Social Security Works for Everyone!, an evolution of the argument Nancy J. Altman and Eric R. Kingson made in their acclaimed first book, Social Security Works!, presents the case for expanding Social Security, explaining why monthly benefits need to be increased; why Americans need national paid family leave, sick leave, and long term care protections; and how we can pay for it all. Don't believe the nearly four-decade, billionaire-funded campaign to convince us that the program is destined to collapse. It isn't. At a time when growing numbers of Americans are seeing beyond the false choice between financial security for working people and financial security for the federal government, this book eloquently makes the case that universal programs that benefit all Americans (yes, even the rich) make our country stronger and our lives more secure. Social Security works because it embodies the best of American values-the ones that will allow Americans to obtain financial security and weather the next crisis.

The majority of people, in cultures worldwide, seek fulfilment and happiness in marriage and couples relationships. Many mental health professionals now find they are increasingly consulted when such relationships encounter difficulties that threaten the wellbeing of the couples involved. The costs of such difficulties can be high, to society, to children and to other family members, in both emotional and economic terms. Psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists, counsellors and social workers will find in this uniquely comprehensive handbook a critical review of knowledge in this wide field, as well as a guide to best practice in its many areas of intervention. The scope of the handbook includes an overview of healthy, normal marriage processes, the major influences on marital quality and stability, the interaction between individual adjustment, environmental events, and relationship satisfaction, and interventions designed to assist couples to enhance their relationship. The emphasis in the chapters which review research is on explicating the implications of current state-of-the-art knowledge for assessment and intervention with couples. Over half the book comprises detailed guidelines on how to conduct interventions for relationship problems. This includes work on different approaches to couples therapy, adapting couples therapy to the needs of couples in which one partner has significant individual psychopathology, working with just one partner, responding to crises initiated by extramarital affairs, mediating divorce, and working with families in which there are combined marital and parenting difficulties.

Asset-based policies are becoming an increasingly important form of public and social policy globally. This sees individual assets - such as savings or housing--as crucial aspects of a new form of welfare provision emerging in countries such as the United States, Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand. In this book, the first of its kind, Rajiv Prabhakar provides a theoretical perspective on the emerging asset agenda as well as examining specific policies, including the British Child Trust Fund.

A uniquely hybrid approach to welfare state policy, ecological sustainability and social transformation, this book explores transformative models of welfare change. Using Ireland as a case study, it addresses the institutional adaptations needed to move towards a sustainable welfare state, and the policy of making such transformation happen. It takes a theoretical and practical approach to implementing an alternative paradigm for welfare in the context of globalisation, climate change, social cohesion, automation, economic and power inequalities, intersectionality, and environmental sustainability, as well as perpetual crisis, including the pandemic.

This edited collection presents a comprehensive examination of women's relationships to housing--both as consumers of housing services and managers of these services. The book begins with a discussion of women's experience of housing as buyers of property and users of housing services, examining in detail income differentials, the dominance of the needs of the nuclear family in housing forms and the ways in which housing allocations policies often discriminate against women. Subsequent discussion looks at women as producers of housing and assesses the structures within which they have to work.
While much of the literature to date has portrayed women as passive recipients of services and victims of discrimination, this volume shows the very active role women have played, for example in housing protest movements. Throughout, the book is forward looking, considering the possibility of new housing forms which would challenge gender assumptions and be more attractive to women. The contributors make policy recommendations necessary to the creation of affordable housing and employment and training agencies to ensure better equal opportunity policies.

Since the 1970s the public commitment to social solidarity between citizens through comprehensive provision of welfare has been eroded by the imperatives of international markets. In this volume the problems posed to public intervention are analyzed. The contributors compare and evaluate how different countries have dealt with these challenges.

This highly original and thought-provoking book examines the recent expansion of social protection in China, India, Brazil and South Africa - four countries experiencing rapid economic growth and social change.The authors explore the developments in each country, analyze the impact of government cash transfers and discuss key future trends. The study reveals that social protection has complemented economic growth and supported development efforts and has been fundamental to promoting equitable and sustainable societies. The book is essential reading for students of social policy, economics, development studies and public administration and will be an important resource for policymakers and administrators everywhere. Contributors: F. Bastagli, M.P. Gomes dos Santos, A. Hall, R. Kattumuri, J. Kruger, B. Li, J. Midgley, L.G. Mpedi, R. Mutatkar, K. Ngok, L. Patel, D. Piachaud, M. Singh, F.V. Soares, S. Soares, Y. Zhu

This volume represents the proceedings of the second in a series of discussion meetings convened by The Royal Society with the aim of reviewing the ways in which human needs and national expectations can be served by technological developments in the 21st century. "A Global Strategy for Housing in the Third Millennium" provides an authoritative account of the demand for housing in rich and poor countries, and shows how that demand may be satisfied by well co-ordinated social and technological policies. It provides basic principles in good housing design and social attitudes towards housing. The contributors - leading authorities from North America, Europe and Japan - predict future contributions of technology to housing for basic needs and comfort in temperate and extreme climates. New materials, construction processes and the increasing use of electronics in building services and overall planning are also central to this book. The wide range of viewpoints from which future technical developments in housing are approached should make this book beneficial for those professionally concerned with the planning, construction and management of housing.

Originally published in 1994 The Politics of the Welfare State looks at how the privatization and marketization of education, health and welfare services in the past decade have produced a concept of welfare that is markedly different from that envisaged when the welfare state was initially created. Issues of class, gender and ethnicity are explored in chapters that are wide ranging but closely linked. The contributors are renowned academics and policy-makers, including feminist and welfare historians, highly regarded figures in social policy, influential critics of recent educational reforms and key analysts of current reform in the health sector.

The current economic crisis has presented itself as a formidable challenge to the welfare states of Europe. It is more relevant than ever to ask: do existing minimum income protection schemes succeed in adequately protecting citizens, be it whether they are excluded from work, working, retired, or having children? Drawing on in-depth and up-to-date institutional data from across Europe and the US, this volume details the reality of minimum income protection policies over time. Including contributions from leading scholars in the field, each chapter provides a systematic cross-national analysis of minimum income protection policies, developing concrete policy guidance on an issue at the heart of the European debate.

Focusing on a program ("Homebuilders") that has attracted national attention, this book develops implications for family-centered curricula in such areas as social policy, direct practice, program design/management, practice research, theory and prevention.

Hundreds of millions of tenants live in Third World cities. In many cities, they constitute the majority of households. Despite the numerical importance of this segment of the population, there exists only limited information on who these people are and their living conditions. Information is even more limited on those who provide rental accommodation.
"Landlord and Tenant" is the first book written in English to discuss rental housing in the developing world, particularly in Latin America. The book summarizes and analyzes current knowledge about rental housing in Latin America, and compares this information with the situation in other areas of the developing world.
The authors use survey data and in-depth interviews to compile a detailed portrayal of landlords and tenants in Mexico. They explore the reasons that landlords invest, or fail to invest, in rental housing and the reasons that tenants move into rental housing and into peripheral self-help ownership. The relationship between landlords and tenants is examined, with an explanation of how the state intervenes in that relationship. "Landlord" "and Tenant" also reviews Mexican housing policy, with its clear bias towards increasing home ownership, and explores ways of improving the quality and stock of rental accommodation.

This is a major new textbook on UK housing policy covering contemporary issues, policies and management across the whole range of housing tenures set in a historical and comparative context. Designed as a replacement for Peter Malpass and Alan Murie's highly successful Housing Policy and Practice, it addresses the evolution of policy and practice with a central focus on five key themes: institutional and governance arrangements, economic and demographic change, the loss of identity of housing policy, the interlinked issues of inequality and standards and the interests served or involved in the processes and outcomes of housing policy.

In this highly practical volume, the contributing authors explore some of the dimensions associated with aging in place. There are increasing numbers of older Americans who are faced with fundamental changes in their economic circumstances, health, and marital status which have an impact on their ability to age in place. Without the necessary supports many may have no other choice but to be prematurely or inappropriately placed in costly health care facilities or be forced to move into unfamiliar, less safe, less satisfactory housing environments. Aging in Place explores some of the dimensions associated with aging in place and informs readers about unmet needs and available living options for elderly persons. Experts discuss a number of crucial factors regarding the availability of social supports and the impact it has on the independence of the elderly, specifically their living arrangements. They address the issue of control and how access to social contact and real choices about services and facilities increases independence among the elderly; congregate housing as an alternative to nursing care for those elderly too frail for less supportive housing; discharge policies concerning frailty in senior living arrangements; and the lack of a full range of services in many alleged full service communities.

This work is the most comprehensive volume to focus on new directions in professional practice with families of people with mental illness. It offers a multidisciplinary systems-oriented examination of theory, research, and practice in the area. Unique features include a consideration of life-span and family system and subsystem perspectives, as well as the inclusion of powerful personal accounts of family members. It is written from the perspective of a competence paradigm for clinical practice, which offers a constructive alternative to the more prevalent pathology models of the past.

This work is the most comprehensive volume to focus on new directions in professional practice with families of people with mental illness. It offers a multidisciplinary systems-oriented examination of theory, research, and practice in the area. Unique features include a consideration of life-span and family system and subsystem perspectives, as well as the inclusion of powerful personal accounts of family members. It is written from the perspective of a competence paradigm for clinical practice, which offers a constructive alternative to the more prevalent pathology models of the past. In the era following deinstitutionalization, families often have served as an extension of the mental health system. There is much evidence that the needs of families are often poorly met. In response to the shortcomings of the system and to their own anguish, families have become increasingly assertive in articulating their needs for respect, support, information, skills, resources, and services. This volume is designed to provide professionals with increased understanding of the experiences and needs of families, as well as with concrete suggestions for enhancing their effectiveness in meeting those needs.

The first three chapters are designed to explore general issues related to the family experience and family-professional relationships, the conceptual and empirical context, and new directions in professional practice. The next six chapters provide the experiential core of the volume, covering such topics as life-span perspectives, the subjective and objective burden, the family system, family subsystems, coping and adaptation, and the needs of families. The final three chapters are concerned with intervention, including nonclinical strategies that are designed primarily to educate and support families, and clinical strategies that are designed primarily to provide treatment. The nonclinical and clinical intervention strategies that are discussed have the potential to comprise a full continuum of family-oriented services that can be tailored to the needs, desires, and resources of particular families. The final chapter is concerned with intervention on the level of the mental health system.

While recent Labour and coalition governments have insisted that many unemployed people prefer state benefits to a job, and have tightened the rules attached to claiming unemployment benefits, mainstream academic research repeatedly concludes that only a tiny minority of unemployed benefit claimants are not strongly committed to employment. Andrew Dunn argues that the discrepancy can be explained by UK social policy academia leaving important questions unanswered. Dunn presents findings from four empirical studies which, in contrast to earlier research, focused on unemployed people's attitudes towards unattractive jobs and included interviews with people in welfare-to-work organisations. All four studies' findings were consistent with the view that many unemployed benefit claimants prefer living on benefits to undertaking jobs which would increase their income, but which they find unattractive. Thus, the studies gave support to politicians' view about the need to tighten benefit rules.

This book answers a number of important questions about the distribution of wealth among people and the way that this distribution has changed over time. It provides a comprehensive analysis of the personal distribution of wealth from many dimensions: economic, statistical, ethical, political, sociological and legal. Using data from 21 countries, this book demonstrates how inequality in the distribution of wealth varies between different parts of the world and how it evolves, with particular emphasis on the claim that there has been a long-term and continued increase in inequality since the 1970s in most countries. It discusses alternative ways of measuring the degree of inequality, analyses Thomas Piketty's claim that society has become more unequal in recent decades, and assesses the relative importance of the various determinants of the distribution of wealth. The authors explain why the distribution of wealth is unequal, and discuss how it could be changed with alternative policies and the possible consequences of these policies for economic efficiency. The authors also compare the different distributions of wealth that are implied by alternative views of society. This is a valuable resource for students and academics in economics, political science and sociology seeking a state-of-the-art account of the theory and evidence surrounding inequality in the distribution of wealth.

The world-scale expansion of markets and market relations ranks among the most transformative developments of our times. We can refer to this process by way of a generic if inelegant term - marketization. This book explores how processes of marketization have registered across East Asia's diverse social landscape and its implications for patterns of welfare and inequality. While there has been great interest in East Asia's economic rise, treatments of welfare and inequality in the region have been largely relegated to specialist literatures. Proceeding from a synthetic critique of political economy, this book places welfare and inequality at the center of a more encompassing comparative approach to political economy that construes countries as dynamic, globally embedded social orders defined and animated by distinctive social relational and institutional features.

This timely book offers a nuanced critique of the nudge narrative, and demonstrates why and how ethical behaviour can have significant positive economic and wellbeing outcomes. Morris Altman models a complex alternative to the expectations of ethical behaviour and shows how this behaviour can be consistent with competitive market economies, contrary to what conventional economic theory suggests. Providing an alternative theoretical framework to analyse the relationship between ethical behaviour, decision-making environments and capabilities, individual preferences and the economy, Altman examines how being ethical can be an engine for economic growth and development. The book offers a better understanding of how ethical behaviour is good not only for the economy, but also for improving the wellbeing of our society at large whilst respecting and enhancing the rights and freedoms of individuals. This book is an important read for all those not content with the conventional economic narrative. It is also a provocative and thoughtful book for policy-makers and economists looking to better understand the growing importance of ethical behaviour for the economy.

How successful have recent government initiatives been in preventing child harm and family breakdown?

The NSPCC recently conducted a large-scale two-year evaluation study with families in difficulty, to explore the content and effectiveness of family support services.

Looking at the services from all stakeholder perspectives – children, parents, staff – Ruth Gardner presents the findings of the study and asks to what extent specific problems such as parental stress, vulnerability, isolation and child behaviour were resolved over six months of interventions including group work, parent training and volunteer home visiting.

Using the voices of all the stakeholders, Supporting Families reviews the national policy for family support since the inception of social services departments and, through best practice and policy recommendations, points the way forward to more inclusive provision.

Bringing together NSPCC research with key practice-based solutions, Ruth Gardner's timely study is required reading for everyone working to prevent child harm.

The extraordinary rise of China is one of the greatest global stories of recent times. However, China's development has been described as uneven, uncoordinated, and unsustainable , and has now reached a critical turning point. To transform itself into a successful high-income economy, China urgently needs to develop a new welfare regime. Social policy and social welfare programmes are pivotal not only to meet mounting social needs but also to promote social cohesion. This timely book explores key turning points in China s trajectory, from the creation of a socialist egalitarian society promising a relatively stable livelihood at the expense of economic development, through the market-oriented reforms which have dismantled the traditional social protection system. The authors present the formidable social challenges ahead, including demographic shift, residential migration, and corrosive inequalities, and outline the emerging forms of social security protection in urban and rural areas, community-based social care services, non-governmental organizations and the social work profession. To redress inequalities and strengthen social cohesion, China needs to construct a robust developmental and redistributive strategy with shared responsibility between different levels of governments, as well as between civil society, the state and the market. This comprehensive and astute guide to one of China s key current challenges will be welcomed by students and scholars of social policy, welfare, sociology and political science, and all interested in contemporary China.