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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social welfare & social services > Welfare & benefit systems
Segregation: The Rising Costs for America documents how discriminatory practices in the housing markets through most of the past century, and that continue today, have produced extreme levels of residential segregation that result in significant disparities in access to good jobs, quality education, homeownership attainment and asset accumulation between minority and non-minority households. The book also demonstrates how problems facing minority communities are increasingly important to the nation 's long-term economic vitality and global competitiveness as a whole. Solutions to the challenges facing the nation in creating a more equitable society are not beyond our ability to design or implement, and it is in the interest of all Americans to support programs aimed at creating a more just society. The book is uniquely valuable to students in the social sciences and public policy, as well as to policy makers, and city planners.
The Nordic welfare states have found themselves in the firing line
of post-industrial developments, resulting in fundamental changes
in societal institutions at all levels. In particular, changes in
the labour market and family, reinforced by processes of migration
and international market integration, have presented the welfare
states with new social needs to attend to. This book critically
explores responses to changing social risks across areas such as
structural unemployment, entrepreneurship, immigration, single
parenthood, education and health. It explores critical changes in
the structure of the Nordic welfare states and the social policy
strategies for alleviating social risks. While the Nordic countries
are shining in most international comparisons, such changes and
their wider implications have often been overlooked in the
literature. The book raises the question whether certain risks are
even being evoked actively through new social policies instating
incentive structures concomitant with policy goals in order to
encourage certain behaviour among citizens.
Russell provides a groundbreaking critique of the orthodox position on the nature of New Deal reforms as well as an innovative analysis of the unraveling of those reforms. Russell argues that the success of the New Deal banking reforms in the post-war period initially produced a "pax financus" in which the competitive struggles amongst financial capital were moderated. However, the success of these reforms also produced incentives to undermine the New Deal regulatory framework via a regeneration of competitive struggles among financial capitalists. As these struggles intensified, financial innovations designed to circumvent regulatory restrictions changed the conduct of commercial banking and other financial capitalist activity. As these developments progressed, there has been a resurgence in the diversified financial conglomerates (financial holding companies) reminiscent of those that flourished just prior to the Great Depression. This exceptional work will appeal to historians, economists, and those interested in this vital period of American history.
This chronology explores the development of housing in the United States from the arrival of the first settlers through the present day. It traces America's growth from its rural beginnings to its present suburban sprawl and discusses how the nation has dealt with the three major issues of housing development: water supply, sanitation and, to a continually decreasing degree, defense. Additional topics include the effects of technological advances in the field of transportation; the influence of political issues such as the Civil War (especially emancipation); the entry of the government into housing finance; and the continued influx of immigrants.
Our changing cultural environment and societal attitudes are subtly but unmistakably altering the personality development of the individual and the functioning of the family. The increasing complexity of the emotional and social problems of their clients is requiring social workers to understand and meet the needs of the entire family group as well as of its individual members. Two nationally known experts in the field have collaborated in writing the first comprehensive work to deal with this new trend in social work. The authors' many years of experience in practice, teaching, and observation throughout the field are reflected in this lucid and systematic book, which introduces the reader to what is known about normal and deviant behavior in the context of family life, how families can be helped to lead normal lives, and how disrupted family structures can be rebuilt. In addition, the practitioner will find in this pioneering volume important new diagnostic insights and valuable guidelines for his work. The case material used throughout the book, in brief form, for illustrative purposes, is drawn from various social welfare agencies. In general, the cases were chosen because each has applicability to the work of different kinds of social agencies. Selected reading suggestions have been compiled with respect to each section for the reader interested in enlarging his knowledge about human behavior, our society, and the giving of help to troubled families and individuals. These reading suggestions include not only relevant nonfiction, but also fiction-old and new-that offers valuable insights into certain behaviors and circumstances of troubled individuals and families. Of immediate usefulness as a text in all courses in social work and sociology dealing with the family, this book will prove equally valuable to social workers in voluntary agencies as well as to those in public social agencies at local, state, and national levels, to teachers, and to the "helping professions" in general, including the clergy. "Frances Lomas Feldman" is distinguished professor emerita of social work at the University of Southern California. She has served on a number of state and national committees as well as commissions such as the Governor's Advisory Committee on Mental Health. She also helped start the first credit counseling service. Feldman has contributed widely to professional and scholarly books and journals. "Frances H. Scherz" received her B.A. from the University of Michigan and her M.S.S.W. from the Columbia University School of Social Work. She has directed seminars, workshops, and institutes for, among others, the Child Welfare League of America, Chapters of the National Association of Social Work and the Family Service Association of America, as well as for social work schools throughout the United States. She is a frequent contributor to professional journals, and has also edited and contributed to the "Casebook on F amity Diagnosis and Treatment and the recent Casebook on Families with Adolescents. "
Housing and construction have been at the heart of the rebuilding
and revitalization of the Japanese economy since 1945. At the
beginning of the 21st century, after a decade of economic
insecurity and stagnation, the government is taking a more radical
stance on social and economic policies and strategies. Housing is
again at the center of transitional initiatives to revive Japanese
cities, elevate the global status of the capital, and revitalize
the economy.
Professor Kriesberg explores in this book the many myths about the poor, the welfare dependents, and the husbandless mothers. The evidence marshalled does not support the idea that people continue on welfare generation after generation, that the children of broken families have disrupted marriages themselves, that the poor seek out public housing and public assistance because they prefer such dependency, or that husbandless mothers all have lower educational goals for their children than do married mothers. Beginning with major theoretical issues, Professor Kriesberg developed specific hypotheses about the life of the poor and the culture of poverty; the hypotheses were tested with data from a study of families in and around four public housing projects in Syracuse. Issues discussed in the book include the social worlds of the housing projects and the relations between the tenants and the residents of surrounding neighborhoods; the recruitment and selection of families into public housing; and the alternatives the female heads of families face in obtaining money for their families. Two chapters are devoted to an analysis of childrearing patterns that affect the child's later independence and educational achievements, focusing upon intergenerational processes and contemporary conditions such as housing, income, and family structure. Here the complex interplay of parental values, beliefs, and actual conduct is studied. Finally the sociological and policy implications of the findings are set forth with specific proposals concerning the reduction of poverty. This in-depth analysis of poverty with its emphasis on fatherless families will be of interest to sociologists and social workers and those concerned with poverty, employment, women's rights, civil rights, education, and urban development.
The Welfare State Reader has established itself as a vital source of outstanding original research since its original appearance in 2000. In the third edition, Pierson, Castles and Naumann have comprehensively overhauled the content, bringing it wholly up to date with contemporary discussions about this most crucial area of social and political life. The book includes seventeen new selections, all reflecting the latest thinking and research in welfare state studies. These readings are organized around contemporary debates, such as the current trajectories of, constraints on and challenges to contemporary welfare regimes, as well as evolving ideas and emergent forms that constitute the future of welfare. In particular, new readings focus on issues such as ageing populations and low fertility, climate change and global financial uncertainty, and nascent 'politics of happiness'. As in previous editions, the volume begins with a collection of readings that provide a grounding in core approaches to welfare, and each section is set in context by a new editorial introduction. As well as bringing together classic debates, The Welfare State Reader represents an invaluable guide to what is happening at the cutting edge of welfare research, giving the reader an unrivalled overview of debates surrounding the welfare state.
As the baby boomer generation approaches midlife, many dual-earner
couples are struggling with issues of simultaneously caring for
children while tending to aging parents. This timely book uncovers
the circumstances faced by these workers, known as the "sandwiched
generation," and identifies what they need in order to fulfill
their work and family responsibilities. Authors Margaret B. Neal
and Leslie B. Hammer suggest the workplace as an arena for change,
proposing that it adapt to the situations of today's workers by
providing flexibility and understanding the needs and priorities of
families.
Teenage parenting, particularly mothering, is commonly seen as both
personally and socially undesirable. Governments across the world
demonstrate concern about teenage pregnancy figures, setting
targets and sponsoring campaigns to lower rates of teenage
pregnancy and this view is reflected across society and throughout
the media.
First published in 1999, this book attempts to understand housing co-operatives in terms of their development over time and their relationships to other types of housing tenure. The book considers them within the framework of the broader co-operative movement and its role in society's overall system of production and exchange. There is an examination of the role of a form of ownership which is neither "private", nor "state" in six countries, and in some cases the fortunes of housing co-operatives seem closely to correlate with periods of political liberalization and crises, heralding a shift in ideological orientation.
This book is about the family lives of some 10,000 children and adults who live in an all-Negro public housing project in St Louis. The Pruitt-Igoe project is only one of the many environments in which urban Negro Americans lived in the 1960s, but the character of the family life there shares much with the family life of lower-class Negroes as it has been described by other investigators in other cities and at other times, in Harlem, Chicago, New Orleans, or Washington D.C. This book is primarily concerned with private life as it is lived from day to day in a federally built and supported slum. The questions, which are treated here, have to do with the kinds of interpersonal relationships that develop in nuclear families, the socialization processes that operate in families as children grow up in a slum environment, the informal relationships of children and adolescents and adults with each other, and, finally, the world views (the existential framework) arising from the life experiences of the Pruitt-Igoeans and the ways they make use of this framework to order their experiences and make sense out of them. The lives of these persons are examined in terms of life cycles. Each child there is born into a constricted world, the world of lower class, Negro existence, and as he grows he is shaped and directed by that existence through the day-to-day experiences and relationships available to him. The crucial transition from child of a family; to progenitor of a new family begins in adolescence, and for this reason the book pays particular attention to how each new generation of parents expresses the cultural and social structural forces that formed it and continue to constrain its behavior. This book, in short, is about intimate personal life in a particular ghetto setting. It does not analyze the larger institutional, social structural, and ideological forces that provide the social, economic, and political context in which lower-class Negro life is lived. These larger macro sociological forces are treated in another volume based on research in the Pruitt-Igoe community. However, this book does draw on the large body of literature on the structural position of Negroes in American society as background for its analysis of Pruitt-Igoe private life. "Lee Rainwater" is professor emeritus of sociology at Harvard University and research director of the Luxembourg Income Study. He was one of the original founders of Transaction. He has been associate editor of "Journal of Marriage and the Family" and on the review board of "Sociological Quarterly." He was written various books and in many professional journals.
This groundbreaking book shows how major shifts in federal policy are spurring local public housing authorities to demolish their high-rise, low-income developments, and replace them with affordable low-rise, mixed income communities. It focuses on Chicago, and that city's affordable housing crisis, but it provides analytical frameworks that can be applied to developments in every American city. "Where Are Poor People to Live?" provides valuable new empirical information on public housing, framed by a critical perspective that shows how shifts in national policy have devolved the U.S. welfare state to local government, while promoting market-based action as the preferred mode of public policy execution. The editors and chapter authors share a concern that proponents of public housing restructuring give little attention to the social, political, and economic risks involved in the current campaign to remake public housing. At the same time, the book examines the public housing redevelopment process in Chicago, with an eye to identifying opportunities for redeveloping projects and building new communities across America that will be truly hospitable to those most in need of assisted housing. While the focus is on affordable housing, the issues addressed here cut across the broad policy areas of housing and community development, and will impact the entire field of urban politics and planning.
Aging populations are creating tremendous pressures on social security systems throughout the world, lifting the need for reform to the top of policy agendas. Proposed reforms often have different implications for men and women. At the same time, traditional family and gender roles are changing with the decline in fertility rates and the rapid rise in women's participation in the paid labor force. While trying to adapt social security systems to the fiscal demands of aging societies, policymakers face the compelling challenge of how to design pension reforms that achieve fair outcomes for women. Gender and Social Security Reform examines how different countries are attempting to meet this challenge. Drawing on comparative studies of European and Latin American countries along with a series of case studies of individual countries, the book provides insights into the gender dimensions of alternative designs for reform. All of the countries studied have recently reformed or are about to reform their pension systems, with a clear trend towards tightening the link between contributions and benefits in order to secure the long-term sustainability of pensions. The book also alerts policymakers to other issues: Should pension systems be gender-neutral or compensate for inequalities in paid and unpaid labor? Does compensation preserve gender discrimination? Are unisex life tables a reliable or fair redistributive tool for women? Or should annuities be linked directly to life expectancy, differentiated by sex and potentially other factors? Does a minimum pension guarantee risk compromising the principle of individual responsibility and work? How can recognition for caring work be balanced with work incentives? What can be done to help social security systems preserve freedom of choice in terms of work-family balance for women, men or the modem family unit as a whole? In analyzing the gender implications of recent social security policies and practices this book reframes the conventional discourse of reform.
Drawing upon Foucauldian analyzes of governmentality, the authors contend that social housing must be understood according to a range of political rationalities that saturate current practice and policy. They critically address the practice of dividing social from private tenure; situating subjects such as the purpose and financing of social housing, the regulation of its providers and occupiers and its relationship to changing perceptions of private renting and owner-occupation, within the context of an argument that all housing tenures form part of an understanding of social housing. They also take up the ways in which social housing is regulated through the invocation and manipulation of obscure notions of housing 'need' and 'affordability', and finally, they consider how social housing has provided a focus for debates about sustainable communities and for concerns about anti-social behaviour. Regulating Social Housing provides a rich and insightful analysis that will be of value to legal scholars, criminologists and other social scientists with interests in housing, urban studies and contemporary forms of regulation.
This groundbreaking book shows how major shifts in federal policy are spurring local public housing authorities to demolish their high-rise, low-income developments, and replace them with affordable low-rise, mixed income communities. It focuses on Chicago, and that city's affordable housing crisis, but it provides analytical frameworks that can be applied to developments in every American city. "Where Are Poor People to Live?" provides valuable new empirical information on public housing, framed by a critical perspective that shows how shifts in national policy have devolved the U.S. welfare state to local government, while promoting market-based action as the preferred mode of public policy execution. The editors and chapter authors share a concern that proponents of public housing restructuring give little attention to the social, political, and economic risks involved in the current campaign to remake public housing. At the same time, the book examines the public housing redevelopment process in Chicago, with an eye to identifying opportunities for redeveloping projects and building new communities across America that will be truly hospitable to those most in need of assisted housing. While the focus is on affordable housing, the issues addressed here cut across the broad policy areas of housing and community development, and will impact the entire field of urban politics and planning.
One of today's most important national concerns is the projected bankruptcy of Social Security some time in the next few decades and its consequent inability to pay full benefits on time. Yet despite two decades of warnings about this, nothing is being done. The saying that Social Security is the third rail of American politics-touch it and you die-still holds true. In Social Security: False Consciousness and Crisis, John Attarian argues that the major cause of the current impasse is the misleading manner in which the program has been depicted to the public and the beliefs about Social Security which prevail as a result.Most Americans see Social Security as retirement insurance under which taxpayers pay premiums to buy benefits for old age, with their contributions being held in a trust fund which will pay guaranteed benefits which will be theirs as an earned right as America "keeps its compact between the generations." Attarian demonstrates that this false picture was deliberately fostered by Social Security officials to ensure the program's constitutionality while downplaying the power of Congress to eliminate, cut, delay, or tax benefits or deny them to certain classes of people. As the core of his argument shows, Social Security was structured and presented in this manner to the public as well so as to make it popular and politically invulnerable. While this strategy succeeded, it was inaccurate in crucial respects, and the inaccuracies have worsened as the program has aged. The resultant false consciousness about Social Security has decisively shaped the responses to the program's financial crises over the last two decades and helped preclude corrective action. Attarian attacks all of the misconceptions about Social Security point by point so that debate can proceed based on realities, not misunderstandings. He addresses as well issues surrounding Social Security reform, showing how numerous proposals now circulating have lethal faults. Most of these refuse to cut current benefits and are thereby saddled with the huge costs of transition to a new system. Others risk politicizing the stock market. Virtually all ignore the larger economic and political context that threatens to defeat their purpose. Attarian concludes with his own proposal to radically restructure the program from a universal entitlement to a floor of protection.Treating the Social Security crisis in unusually broad perspective, Attarian is critical of both the status quo and the privatization camps, and his recommendations offer an alternative to both. The book will be of interest to policy makers as well as citizens concerned about the future of Social Security.John Attarian is adjunct scholar at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Midland, MI. He is the author of Economism and the National Prospect."A contribution to the important discussion of Social Security's fragile future and our options to restore its health."--Dorcas R. Hardy, former Commissioner of Social Security and author of Social Insecurity: The Crisis in America's Social Security System and How to Plan Now for Your Own Financial SurvivalWell written and drawing on lots of research. Does a good job explaining the coming crisis in Social Security, particularly the often overlooked political aspects. Attarian is especially thorough in reporting how the program was misleadingly presented to the public, and on the discrepancies between the perceptions and the realities of Social Security."--A. Haewoth Robertson, The Retirement Policy Institute"As the United States (along with the rest of the developed countries) debates how to reform our pay-as-you-go retirement system and make it sustainable in an aging world, it is essential that we speak and think clearly about how we got here. We need to look critically at the dysfunctional mythology surrounding words 'trust fund,' 'social insurance,' 'earned rights,' and 'lock box.' That's just what John Attarian does in this comprehensive and critical overview of the hisotry of Social Security. It's a first rate peice of work."--Peter G. Peterson, The Blackstone Group"Nearly every historian who looks carefully at growth of Social Security both as a federal program and as a popular mythology comments at least in passing on how the artful or shall we say downright deceitful use of key terms like insurance and statutory right has to pave the way for the programs expansion. At last, John Attarian tells the full story. In comprehensive detail, he shows, blow by blow, of how Social Security's key leaders and advocates were compelled to describe the program in one way to the public and in an entirely different way to legislators and judges. America's understanding of Social Security remians confused today, even as discussion of far-reaching reforms are underway which makes this book timely indeed."--Neil Howe, Life Course Associates
The Possibility of Politics explores the power of political reform, specifically reform of the modern welfare state. Can reform be effective if limited to cautious and piecemeal interventions that avoid radicalism and revolution? Can it also avoid unwanted consequences? Will the welfare state survive in the future? Stein Ringen views the welfare state as a large-scale experiment in political reform. To ask if the welfare state works is to ask if political reform is possible at all. By its nature, the welfare state is reform on a grand scale, for it attempts to change the circumstances individuals and families live under without changing and disrupting society itself. But is it realistic to believe a population can get together, set goals and then try to meet these goals through collective actions, specifically public policies, without causing unintended consequences and destroying the state in the process? The welfare state attempts, idealistically, to redistribute welfare without reshaping the economic processes that cause inequities in the first place. Ringen considers how well redistribution has met the test in terms of political legitimacy, its intended effects on poverty and inequality, as well as its undesired and unintended effects on economic efficiency and the quality of private life. Ultimately, does the welfare state work? Further, is the welfare state a good thing? In considering these questions, The Possibility of Politics should be of particular value to academics and advanced students interested in political theory, public economics, social administration, and political sociology. Stein Ringen is professor of sociology and social policy at Oxford University and a Fellow of Green College. He teaches social and political theory and research methodology for graduates in social policy, sociology, politics, economic and social history and other subjects.
This accessible work provides a 'political sociology' of welfare states in industrial societies, with both historical and contemporary perspectives. Ellison focuses on the social and political underpinnings of a number of welfare regimes and looks at the transformations they have undergone and the challenges they face. This book assesses current debates about the role of 'globalization' in welfare state change, paying particular attention to contemporary views about the capacity of embedded institutional structures to limit the effects of global economic pressures. Ellison assesses the changing nature of social policies in nine OECD countries - selected to include 'liberal, 'social democratic' and 'continental' welfare regimes. Taking labour market and pension policies as the main areas of investigation, this volume provides 'snapshots' of welfare reform in each case, charting the ways in which different regimes 'manage' the range of challenges with which they are confronted. Ultimately, the book suggests that all contemporary welfare regimes are experiencing a level of 'neoliberal drift'. As yet, this trend towards liberalization remains constrained in those countries with more 'coordinated' economies and institutionalized forms of social partnership - but the question is for how long? This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of International Politics, Sociology and Social Policy.
This accessible work provides a 'political sociology' of welfare states in industrial societies, with both historical and contemporary perspectives. Ellison focuses on the social and political underpinnings of a number of welfare regimes and looks at the transformations they have undergone and the challenges they face. This book assesses current debates about the role of 'globalization' in welfare state change, paying particular attention to contemporary views about the capacity of embedded institutional structures to limit the effects of global economic pressures. Ellison assesses the changing nature of social policies in nine OECD countries - selected to include 'liberal, 'social democratic' and 'continental' welfare regimes. Taking labour market and pension policies as the main areas of investigation, this volume provides 'snapshots' of welfare reform in each case, charting the ways in which different regimes 'manage' the range of challenges with which they are confronted. Ultimately, the book suggests that all contemporary welfare regimes are experiencing a level of 'neoliberal drift'. As yet, this trend towards liberalization remains constrained in those countries with more 'coordinated' economies and institutionalized forms of social partnership - but the question is for how long? This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of International Politics, Sociology and Social Policy.
Modern families are economic institutions of great productivity.
They contribute as much to a society's economic well-being as does
worker productivity in formal markets. In "Citizens, Families, and
Reform," Stein Ringen shows how long-standing inequalities of
income and class are flexible and changing in post-industrial
societies. Such inequalities respond to structural changes such as
social mobility and to public policies such as those of the welfare
state. His book is a study of the process from careful statistical
analysis to specific policy recommendations.
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.
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.
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.
More than 900 million people currently live in urban slums and the number is growing as rapid urbanization continues in the developing world. A Home in the City urges countries to strengthen their focus on the growing urban crisis and improving the lives of slum dwellers. Proposed are specific investments and policy changes required at local and national levels to create a vibrant, equitable and productive urban environment. It underscores the need for close strategic partnerships between local authorities and organizations of the urban poor for slum upgrading and improved urban management. From adopting citywide strategies and establishing adequate and affordable infrastructure and services, to building effective public transport and constructing low-income housing, it offers valuable methods to prevent future slum formation and to improve the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020. |
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