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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social welfare & social services > Welfare & benefit systems
No sector has been as vital as oil to the Russian economy since Vladimir Putin came to power. The longest serving leader since Stalin, Putin has presided during a period of relative economic prosperity driven largely by booming oil windfalls. Oil in Putin's Russia offers an in-depth examination of the contests over windfalls drawn from the oil sector. Examining how the Russian leadership has guided the process of distributing these windfalls, Adnan Vatansever explores the causes behind key policy continuities and policy reversals during Putin's tenure. The product of over ten years of research, including interviews with decision-makers and oil industry officials, Oil in Putin's Russia takes an innovative approach to understanding the contested nature of resource rents and the policy processes that determine how they are allocated. In so doing, it offers a comprehensive and timely account of politics and policy in contemporary Russia, and a significant contribution to research on the political economy of resource rents in mineral resource-rich countries.
Based on open-ended interviews with adult children and children-in-law, this book documents how plain folk from the working and middle classes manage to provide care for their frail, elderly parents while simultaneously meeting the obligations of their jobs and their own immediate families. Adult children who care for elderly parents are pressured daily trying to juggle the responsibilities of work, family, and caregiving. Deborah Merrill shows how plain folk (as one caregiver termed herself) from the working and lower middle classes manage to provide care for their frail, elderly parents while simultaneously meeting the obligations of their jobs and their own immediate families. The evidence is drawn from open-ended, in-depth interviews with adult children and children-in-law, all of whom have worked outside of the home at some point during caregiving. Merrill examines the strategies that caregivers use to combine work and caregiving and the accommodations they make in their jobs. She also points to the pathways that lead family members to caregiving roles and how those pathways vary according to family history, gender, and in-law status. By focusing on class differences in caregiving and pointing to policy implications, Merrill has provided an invaluable resource for students, researchers, and policymakers in social work, gerontology, family studies, and social issues.
When political parties make policy decisions they are influenced by the competition they face from other parties. This book examines how party competition and party systems affect reforms of social protection. Featuring a historical comparison of Italy and Germany post-1945, the book shows how a high number of parties and ideological polarisation lead to fragmented and unequal social benefits. Utilising a comparative approach, the author brings together two important issues in welfare state research that have been insufficiently investigated. Firstly, the complex influence of party competition on social policy-making, and second, how some social groups enjoy better social protection than others. Moving beyond the two countries of the case study, the book proposes an innovative framework for studying segmentation of social protection and applies this framework to a wider set of 15 advanced welfare states. Overall, this book draws together different strands of research on political parties and on welfare states, and introduces a new argument on how party politics shapes social policy. An invaluable text on the political economy of the welfare state, Politics of Segmentation will be of interest to scholars of political economy, social policy and comparative politics.
Originally published in 1988, this book offers the first comprehensive and critical analysis of the privatisation of public housing in Britain. It outlines the historical background to the growth of public housing and the developing political debatea surrounding its disposal. The main emphasis in the book, however, is on the ways in which privatisation in housing links to other key changes in British society. The long trend for British social housing to become a welfare housing sector is related to evidence of growing social polarisation and segregation. Within this overall context, the book explores the uneven spatial and social consequences of the policy.
'This important and illuminating book provides a powerful and harrowing depiction of the inadequacies of the Australian welfare system. Its findings challenge the foundations and direction of the welfare reform agenda.' - Professor Peter Saunders, University of New South Wales'This major new study challenges many myths about life on welfare and in low paid work. It should be read by anyone concerned with welfare reform.' - Jane Millar, Professor of Social Policy, University of BathWhat is it really like to be unemployed and on welfare? How do you make ends meet? Does the welfare system actually help people get back into jobs?Half a Citizen draws on in-depth interviews with 150 welfare recipients to reveal people struggling to get by on a low income, the anxieties of balancing paid work with income support, and how unstable housing makes it difficult to get ahead.By investigating the lives beyond the statistics, Half a Citizen also explodes powerful myths and assumptions on which welfare policy is based. The majority of welfare recipients interviewed are very active, in paid work, caring for children or for other family members, and they see themselves as contributing and participating citizens, even if they sometimes feel they are being treated as 'half a citizen'. These stories of resilience and passion bear no resemblance to the clich d images of dependence, laziness, and social isolation which underpin social policy and media debate.
As the state of America's children and families continues to degenerate, the human services system struggles to render the support it was designed to provide. Despite such efforts, American families have difficulty accessing services; they are forced to navigate an incomprehensible system where quantity is often deemed insufficient and quality is compromised. Simultaneously, expenditures on human services have soared to record levels, further spurring both concerns and efforts to reform and better integrate a sadly dysfunctional system. In the first comprehensive synthesis of the history, theory, and practice of service integration, Sharon Lynn Kagan, with Peter R. Neville, explores why past efforts to reform the human service system have had only isolated triumphs and marginal impact in improving the quality of life for children and families. Tracing the history of human services in America from the colonial period to the present, the author analyzes the underlying assumptions, barriers, and strategies that have characterized the service integration movement. Drawing on history, empirical research, and intellectual theory, as well as on the personal experiences of practitioners and leaders, the author extracts principles and insights that offer new directions for future social service reform. Published in cooperation with the National Center for Service Integration
The first edition of this book was also the first volume in the Issues in Children's and Families' Lives book series. Like the others in the series, this volume is devoted to issues affecting children and their families. The decision to devote the first volume to family violence was made because it was recognized that violence remains one of the major factors undermining the quality of family life, especially for women and children. It can be acknowledged that there has been some progress in the areas of social policy and clinical practice and yet the number of individuals and families affected by violence is still at an alarming level. The chapters in this second edition testify to the ongoing expansion of knowledge in the field of family and intimate violence. They attempt to summarize some of the best of current scholarship conducted by family violence researchers. Several chapters address issues of prevention, treatment, and intervention services. The contributors are all leaders in the field and reflect a variety of disciplines and different approaches. The diverse perspectives brought to bear on the subject by professionals from a range of disciplines add to the richness of this volume.
The present study analyzes the livelihood security system of contemporary Japan in international comparison from a historical and gender perspective. It posits ?livelihood security systems? rather than ?welfare states? or ?welfare regimes? as its object of analysis to enter the role of non-governmental institutions and of governmental policies reaching beyond income transfers into vision. Based on rich statistical materials, the evolution of Japan's livelihood security system in recent decades is traced to reveal a rigid male breadwinner orientation increasingly out of step with social realities. The need for remedying the gender bias built into Japan's social insurance schemes has been politically highlighted since the late 1990s, but legislative action has continued to be deferred. The author argues that at present the livelihood security system of Japan is not only dysfunctional, but actually functioning in reverse, in a sense of furthering social exclusion. The study concludes with suggestions for a possible reconstruction of Japan's social security system, arguing for an increased role of the ?third sector? or ?social economy? in livelihood security and care provision. This book will appeal to scholars and students with an interest in social policy, welfare economics and gender studies, as well as Japanese politics and society.
This reference book provides information on the family planning rights of minors in eleven countries in North America and Western Europe. The Adolescent Dilemma covers a minor's legal rights to abortion services and birth control. In addition, this comprehensive resource discusses sex education, sexual behavior, and the nature and extent of contraceptive practices. The introduction presents a framework for discussing minors' rights and the conclusion draws on the information provided in the book to take a brief, comparative look at the topic. Both a reference resource on family planning and a data source for cross-cultural comparisons, this book will be of interest to social service professionals at all levels.
This text is aimed at fathers who want to do a better job raising children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, mothers of ADHD children who want to understand the special needs that fathers have in parenting these children, and professionals who have the challenging task of involving the fathers of ADHD children in their treatment, as well as facilitating cooperation between fathers and mothers. This book should help fathers deal with the assessment process; understand their child's emotional, learning and behavioural needs; work more effectively with their spouses; and cope with their own struggles and uncertainties in dealing with this confusing diagnosis.
I commend this book to you and urge you not only to read about the excellent programs contained herein but also to work to bring these and other high quality prevention programs into your community. Share this information with your elected officials, business leaders, parent groups, and anyone who holds a stake in your community's well-being. With so many pressing problems confronting children and families in America, we must act now to begin to reduce the tragedy of needlessly wasted lives. --from the Preface by Rosalynn Carter Although mental disorders cost our nation $72.7 billion each year in treatment, related support, and lost productivity, the funding for prevention of mental disorders has been inconsistent, due in some part to a lack of confidence regarding the effectiveness of specific prevention programs. This book highlights some of the most effective prevention programs in the United States and offers readers a common set of principles to reduce maladaptive behavior in ourselves, our children, and society. Divided into five parts, the book begins with an overview of prevention history in this country and next shows ways to operationalize George W. Albee's incidence formula. Part 2 focuses on successful programs that increase parent-child interaction and parenting ability. Part 3 explores preschool programs, some of which use parents as teachers, others of which describe quality child care programming and programs that develop problem-solving abilities in early childhood. Part 4 examines school-age programs ranging from interventions in school settings to developing social competency and job readiness. And, Part 5 focuses on prevention interventions in adulthood, specifically unemployment and depression. With contributions form the leading researchers in the prevention field, this book provides readers with the best information available about effective prevention programs and the knowledge to develop these preventive services at both state and local community levels. Primary Prevention Works will be of interest to policymakers and to researchers and practitioners in developmental psychology, clinical psychology, family studies, social work, counseling, human services, nursing, and public health.
Minimum income protection provides the last social safety net for people in need. The book provides a systematic comparative and longitudinal analysis of minimum income protection systems in 17 EU countries based on a newly developed dataset. Country-specific chapters providing institutional overviews are combined with comparative quantitative indicators on issues such as benefit levels, expenditures and beneficiaries. The book will be of major interest to researchers, scholars and experts in income protection, poverty and the welfare state.
Originally published in 1988, this book offers the first comprehensive and critical analysis of the privatisation of public housing in Britain. It outlines the historical background to the growth of public housing and the developing political debatea surrounding its disposal. The main emphasis in the book, however, is on the ways in which privatisation in housing links to other key changes in British society. The long trend for British social housing to become a welfare housing sector is related to evidence of growing social polarisation and segregation. Within this overall context, the book explores the uneven spatial and social consequences of the policy.
In recent decades, the problem of unemployment has generated fierce political and academic discussion on how national governments should address this issue. This book sheds light on a key debate in unemployment policy - that of whether unemployment benefits should be insurance-based or means-tested. It carefully compares the impact of the British and German benefit systems on poverty, the duration of unemployment and the spread of workless households during the 1990s. In Germany unemployment is regarded as a risk which individuals insure themselves against through the state, whereas in Britain compensation for the unemployed is allocated primarily through means-tested benefits paid for from tax revenue. These contrasting welfare scenarios make this study of the differences in welfare provision and the effect on the lives of the unemployed especially valuable. The author combines an in-depth study of unemployment policies with extensive statistical analysis, to examine the experience over time of unemployed individuals and the households in which they live. In particular, she focuses on the important interactions between the state, labour markets and household structures. This book presents a large amount of new empirical material and employs an innovative methodology by applying event history analysis to social policy questions. Academics and policymakers working in the fields of unemployment, comparative welfare analysis and labour market sociology will welcome this rigorous and highly rewarding volume.
Research on poverty in rich countries relies primarily on household
income to capture living standards and distinguish those in
poverty, and this is also true of official poverty measurement and
monitoring. However, awareness of the limitations of income has
been heightening interest in the role that non-monetary measures of
deprivation can play. This book takes as starting-point that
research on poverty and social exclusion has been undergoing a
fundamental shift towards a multidimensional approach; that
researchers and policy-makers alike have struggled to develop
concepts and indicators that do this approach justice; and that
this is highly salient not only within individual countries
(including both Britain and the USA) but also for the European
Union post-enlargement. The difficulties encountered in applying a
multidimensional approach reflect limitations in the information
available but also in the conceptual and empirical underpinnings
provided by existing research.
Why did slums and suburbs develop simultaneously? Did the capitalist system produce these, and were class antagonisms to blame? Why did the Victorians believe there was a housing problem, and who or what created it? What housing solutions were attempted, and how successfully? These are amongst the central questions addressed by social and urban historians in recent years, and their arguments and analyses are reviewed here. The history of housing between 1780 and 1914 encapsulates many problems associated with the transition from a largely rural to an overwhelmingly urban nation. The unprecedented pace of this transition imposed immense tensions within society, with implications for the urban environment and for local and national government. Housing is central to an understanding of the social, economic, political and cultural forces in nineteenth-century history; this book is an ideal introduction to the topic.
The breakdown of the family has been blamed for many of today's societal ills. Are there effective ways to support a family with problems (neglect, substance abuse, terminal illness, etc.), prevent its break up, and make a positive change? How effective has the Intensive Family Preservation Services (IFPS) been at solving these kinds of family problems and situations? What about families that don't respond to IFPS programs? Do the programs differ in their effectiveness? Through an exploration of these issues, knowledgeable contributors offer their own experiences as a basis for tracing the evolution of IFPS and of the advances that have been made in the field. Advancing Family Preservation Practice covers such topics as the evolution of family preservation and the theories that guide it, child protective services, clinician-support worker teams, and the relative effectiveness of family preservation services with neglectful families. Aimed at helping evaluators, practitioners, and administrators incorporate what has been discovered in IFPS practice, Advancing Family Preservation Practice is an important resource for those involved in the development, implementation, and evaluation of family programs. "The issues [covered in Advancing Family Preservation Practice] are very relevant to the debates that are going on across the country among administrators, advocates, and legislators, as states are struggling to balance budgets with fewer federal dollars and skyrocketing costs for mandated health and social welfare programs. Support for "preventive services" will only continue to be available if these programs can be shown to be both successful in preventing family dissolution and cost-effective. Advancing Family Preservation Practice provides the most extensive documentation to date on potential program benefits of intensive family preservation services using program descriptions and research findings from established practice centers across the country. Policymakers and practitioners need to read this book. Faced with the task of providing a safe alternative to foster care for children who have been abused or neglected, the material compiled in this text is essential to a realistic assessment of potential outcomes for children and families at high risk." --Linda Heisner, Director Office of Family & Children's Services, Maryland Department of Human Resources, Baltimore "This is a scholarly, down-to-earth book for all those who serve children and their parents. Bold, imaginative and practical, this volume crosses those disciplinary lines that separate social work, medicine, nursing, psychology, law, and education; and it captures how paraprofessionals function as supervised "experts" in transmitting the hands-on knowledge from all these disciplines into front-line, state-of-the-art, home-centered services for children at risk of losing their parents and their vitality. This book is a vital resource because it packs hard-earned empirical knowledge into an upward spiral of rediscovering and innovating community-based, home-centered services for disadvantaged children and their parents; and for those dedicated adults who have the competence and the passion to serve them." --Albert J. Solnit, M.D., Sterling Professor Emeritus, Yale University and Commissioner, Department of Mental Health, Connecticut
The European Union's (EU) fundamental principles on free movement of persons and non-discrimination have long challenged the traditional closure of the welfare state. Although EU-wide free movement and national welfare appeared largely unproblematic before Eastern enlargement, the increased differences among EU member states in economic development and welfare provision have resulted in fears about potential welfare migration. Because rights of EU citizens were shaped to an important extent by jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice, these are often not very clearly delineated, and easily politicised. This comprehensive volume shows the normative limits of a strict non-discriminatory approach to EU citizens' access to national welfare and analyses how the Court developed its jurisprudence, partly reacting to politicisation. Although, empirically, free movement negatively impacts national welfare only under extreme conditions, it is notable that member states have adjusted their social policies in reaction to EU jurisprudence and migration pressure alike. Their heterogeneous institutions of national welfare, administration and labour markets imply for member states that they face very different opportunities and challenges in view of intra-EU migration. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of European Public Policy.
In this volume, Lena Sommestad explores the significance of rural womanhood in the formation of Sweden's gender-egalitarian welfare state in the early 20th century. Drawing on a rich array of documents, photographs, and interviews with women and men, she analyzes the changing gender division of labor in dairying and illuminates the dynamic processes and debates that shaped industrial workplaces. The book demonstrates the importance of rural women's gainful labor and organized activism to Sweden's citizenship-based social policies, which enabled married women to combine childrearing with breadwinning.
This book provides a major new examination of the current dilemmas of liberal anti-racist policies in European societies, linking two discourses that are normally quite separate in social science: immigration and ethnic relations research on the one hand, and the political economy of the welfare state on the other. The authors rephrase Gunnar Myrdal's questions in An American Dilemma with reference to Europe's current dual crisis - that of the established welfare state facing a declining capacity to maintain equity, and that of the nation state unable to accommodate incremental ethnic diversity. They compare developments across the European Union with the contemporary US experience of poverty, race, and class. They highlight the major moral-political dilemma emerging across the EU out of the discord between declared ideals of citizenship and actual exclusion from civil, political, and social rights. Pursuing this overall European predicament, the authors provide a critical scrutiny of the EU's growing policy involvement in the fields of international migration, integration, discrimination, and racism. They relate current policy issues to overall processes of economic integration and efforts to develop a European 'social dimension'. Drawing on case-study analysis of migration, the changing welfare state, and labour markets in the UK, Germany, Italy, and Sweden, the book charts the immense variety of Europe's social and political landscape. Trends of divergence and convergence between single countries are related to the European Union's emerging policies for diversity and social inclusion. It is, among other things, the plurality of national histories and contemporary trajectories that makes the European Union's predicament of migration, welfare, and citizenship different from the American experience. These reasons also account in part for why it is exceedingly difficult to advance concerted and consistent approaches to one of the most pressing policy issues of our time. Very few of the existing sociological texts which compare different European societies on specific topics are accessible to a broad range of scholars and students. The European Societies series will help to fill this gap in the literature, and attempt to answer questions such as: Is there really such a thing as a 'European model' of society? Do the economic and political integration processes of the European Union also imply convergence in more general aspects of social life, such a family or religious behaviour? What do the societies of Western Europe have in common with those further to the East? This series will cover the main social institutions, although not every author will cover the full range of European countries. As well as surveying existing knowledge in a manner useful to students, each book will also seek to contribute to our growing knowledge of what remains in many respects a sociologically unknown continent. The series editor is Colin Crouch.
Because housing is a multidisciplinary, fragmented field of research, investigators are faced with the difficult task of pulling together information scattered in a wide variety of narrowly focused sources. In this volume, comprehensive, current knowledge encompassing the field as a whole is offered for the first time. Twenty-eight specialists in the major subdisciplines provide up-to-date information on the social, economic, environmental, policy, and architectural dimensions of housing and the built environment, together with extensive bibliographies for each topic. Creating a comprehensive framework for study and research in the field, this handbook will be helpful to planners, architects, developers, and citizens groups in addition to academics in promoting better understanding of the broader issues of housing.
One would expect a welfare state such as Sweden to compare favorably with the United States regarding implementation of public policies and programs. Surprisingly, the author comes to quite different conclusions: in studying the treatment of battered, raped and sexually-harassed women in the two countries, she has found that, contrary to conventional expectation, the ability of the decentralized American state to innovate effectively has been consistently underestimated, whereas Sweden's ability to do the same has often been exaggerated.
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.
This 1997 book examines the income distributional experience of fifteen developed economies - representing a wide range of social and economic strategies - over the past two decades. Experts from each of the countries have carefully documented the pattern of distributional change in individual earnings and household income in their countries and analysed the driving forces behind these changes. Separate chapters are devoted to the experiences of Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, West and former East Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. The authors examine the effects on the inequality of household income of the development of individual earnings, unemployment, inflation, public sector transfers and taxes, and demographic changes.
Current debates concerning the future of social security provision in advanced capitalist states have raised the issue of a citizen's basic income (CBI) as a possible reform package: a proposal based on the principles of individuality, universality and unconditionality which would ensure a minimum income guaranteed for all members of society. Implementing a CBI, would consequently entail radical reform of existing patterns of welfare delivery and would bring into question the institutionalized relationship between work and welfare. Ailsa McKay's book makes a unique and positive contribution to the CBI literature by examining the proposal from a feminist economics perspective. Gender concerns are central to any debate on the future of social security policy, in that state intervention in the field of income redistribution has differential impacts on men and women. By drawing attention to the potential a CBI has in promoting equal rights of freedom for men and women this book serves to open up the debate to incorporate a more realistic and inclusive vision of the nature of modern socio-economic relationships. |
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