This is the first book to examine debates about, and the practice of, state supplementing of wages. It charts the historical development of such policies from prohibition in the 1830s and how opposition to it was overcome in the 1970s, thereby allowing the increasing supplementation of the wages of poorly paid working people.

The idea of "competitive flexibility" fostered by open market economics has deeply eroded the established social security systems of the developed nations. The confidence of wage-earners, who depend on an administrative "safety net" to protect them from loss of income, has virtually disappeared. Social exclusion and poverty have become inescapable threats for the average worker. It was to tackle this important issue that the European Institute of Social Security (EISS), a leading multidisciplinary research group dedicated to exploring the frontiers of social security, met in June 2000 in Goteborg in Sweden. Twenty members of the Institute prepared papers for delivery at the conference, all of which are now printed in this book. These papers include discussion of such elements as the following: the shift in emphasis from compensation for loss of income to a more preventive approach based on income security; measures against social exclusion enacted by the European Union; the meaning of the term "employability" as revealed in EU Member States' National Action Plans (NAPs); the growing pressure on beneficiaries to "perform" rather than "conform"; the interplay in international law between human rights and social security; labour market participation according to gender and educational level; labour market participation among families with young children; the promise of a "federal" social security system in Europe; and objective standards versus "moral hazard" in labour market insurance. Various reform initiatives (including the controversial debate on private sector funding) are also covered.

Welfare is commonly conceptualized in socio-economic terms of equity, highlighting distributive issues within growing economies. While GDP, income growth and rising material standards of living are normally not questioned as priorities in welfare theories and policy making, there is growing evidence that Western welfare standards are not generalizable to the rest of the planet if environmental concerns, such as resource depletion or climate change, are considered. Sustainability and the Political Economy of Welfare raises the issue of what is required to make welfare societies ecologically sustainable. Consisting of three parts, this book regards the current financial, economic and political crisis in welfare state institutions and addresses methodological, theoretical and wider conceptual issues in integrating sustainability. Furthermore, this text is concerned with the main institutional obstacles to the achievement of sustainable welfare and wellbeing, and how these may feasibly be overcome. How can researchers assist policymakers in promoting synergy between economic, social and environmental policies conducive to globally sustainable welfare systems? Co-authored by a variety of cross-disciplinary contributors, a diversity of research perspectives and methods is reflected in a unique mixture of conceptual chapters, historical analysis of different societal sectors, and case studies of several EU countries, China and the US. This book is well suited for those who are interested in and study welfare, ecological economics and political economy.

This volume focuses on the necessity of family health counseling in providing effective, efficient health care in our technologically advanced, diverse, and complex society. Clinicians must have a broad understanding of all factors that affect individuals and families at all levels to provide culturally competent, collaborative care. Theoretical framework/paradigms are presented that guide clinical practice. A postmodern perspective provides skills for dialogical conversations and collaborative relationships with families. The book widens the health-care perspective by providing a foundational view incorporating both the family within its cultural/ethnic context and the multiple systems with which they interact as resources for health. The goal is to provide a foundation in the concepts and skills of health-related counseling with families from diverse cultures, to learn how these concepts are used in clinical practice, to learn how to work with families and communities during and after disasters, and to see how these concepts affect political decisions at the local, state, and federal level, as well as how these concepts drive family social policy or predict the future of family health care.

The book also provides information on common psychiatric medications, the types, ranges, uses, side effects, interactions with other drugs, effects on counseling, and the collaboration needed among health professionals. This will be a valuable resource for those in the fields of counseling, clinical and family psychology, family therapy, psychiatry, family and primary-care medicine, social work and nursing.

This book analyzes how recent welfare state transformations across advanced democracies have shaped social and economic disparities. The authors observe a trend from a compensatory paradigm towards supply oriented social policy, and investigate how this phenomenon is linked to distributional outcomes. How - and how much - have changes in core social policy fields alleviated or strengthened different dimensions of inequality? The authors argue that while the market has been the major cause of increasing net inequalities, the trend towards supply orientation in most social policy fields has further contributed to social inequality. The authors work from sociological and political science perspectives, examining all of the main branches of the welfare state, from health, education and tax policy, to labour market, pension and migration policy.

Housing, Care and Inheritance draws on the author's long-standing research into housing issues surrounding the ageing society, a phenomenon which is now a concern in many mature economies. If an adult child provides care for their elderly parent, should that person be rewarded? If so, should they inherit their parent's house or a larger share of the assets? The 'generational contract' is often influenced by cultural norms, family traditions, social policy and housing market, so it is negotiated differently in different societies and at different times. Such generational contract is however breaking down as a result of socio-economic and demographic changes. Drawn from the two-part study funded by the UK Economic & Social Research Council, Misa Izuhara explores the myth and the changing patterns of the particular exchange of long-term care and housing assets between older parents and their adult children in Britain and Japan. Highly international and comparative in perspectives, this study addresses important sociological as well as policy questions regarding intergenerational relations involving housing wealth, long-term care, and inheritance.

During the 1990s Francis Fukuyama announced the end of history. The 2000s showed how it is an illusion to imagine a peaceful world without conflict. In this book the authors explore how six major constraints are set to fix the trajectory of the global economy. Three of them are new: the aging population, the failure of technical progress, and the scarcity of savings. The other three have been at work for some time: the explosion of inequality, the mass transfer of activities from one end of the world to the other, and the limitless financialization of economy. They suggest that like seismic activity which depends on pressure between tectonic plates, the political and social tensions will be exacerbated in the coming years by these major forces. They propose that authorities will be incapable of preventing neither the date nor the intensity of the coming earthquakes, and ask the question: Are we able to cope with these future shocks and the violence they are sure to cause?

As editors Morris and Hansan make clear, the United States is truly the reluctant welfare state. Unlike other industrialized nations, the United States has never adopted a universal policy to support a minimum economic standard for children and their families. And, with the passage of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, the United States became the first industrialized nation to shift primary responsibility for cash welfare to subordinate units of government.

In this collection of essays by leading experts on welfare policy, the major issues of personal responsibility versus dependence, child development, and federal versus state, local, and private responsibility are examined in the light of the 1996 Act. By objectively analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of current welfare reform, the volume provides significant objective insights for federal, state, and local policy makers. It will also be of interest to students, academic researchers, and the general public concerned with the nature of quality of public welfare policy.

While society may applaud middle and upper class women who decide to stay home to raise their children, there exists a decided abhorrence for single mothers, welfare queens, who collect public funds but do not work. Here, Hart challenges traditional notions of welfare mothers by providing first-hand accounts of poor urban mothers and revealing the life-affirming and moral aspects of their motherwork--a form of subsistence work, involving many tasks that incorporate the physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of life. Though the mothering work these women do is vilified in public discourse as unnecessary and unwanted, the author contends that the ethical and epistemological dimensions of life-affirming work--a key component of motherwork--not only structure social-political activism but also educational efforts that are oriented towards radical change. Concrete experiences of motherwork, policy analyses regarding welfare reform, efforts oriented towards educational and epistemological border-crossings, and collective struggles for social change are examined here in a larger theoretical, political-economic framework.

Pulling together the many strands of different theoretical fields addressing issues related to critical/transformative pedagogy, community activism, and forms of unpaid work, this unique work calls for the unlearning of ways of thinking and feeling which uphold prejudices and life-threatening social-political hierarchies. While the public may sneer at women who choose to accept welfare in order to stay home to raise their children, these mothers must continue to perform this invisible work in order that their children may break the cycle of poverty in which they are entrenched. The author examines ways in which these mothers organize and carry out educational efforts and political work in the context of extreme poverty and against the harsh criticisms of an unforgiving public. Ultimately, Hart hopes to convince the public of the inherent importance of motherwork and break down the prejudices that have worked against the urban poor and single mothers.

Food Stamps, now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), has endured and expanded in recent years. The program has been preserved and in some cases enhanced as a result of its inclusion in the Farm Bill, being characterized as a safety net of last resort and as a program for the deserving poor.

This book analyzes the impacts on peoples' lives of the largest antipoverty social program in the world: the Brazilian Bolsa Familia Program. Created by the government of former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Bolsa Familia has been for a time the largest conditional cash transfer program in the world, serving more than 50 million Brazilians who had a monthly per capita income of less than USD 50. The program is regarded as one of the key factors behind the significant poverty reduction Brazil experienced during the first decade of the 21st century. Bolsa Familia is neither a credit scheme nor a loan. It is a program of civic inclusion: it aims to help citizens meet their most basic needs and sometimes just to survive. Its goal is to create citizenship, not to merely train the entrepreneurial spirit. Having this in mind, the authors of this book spent five years (2006-2011) interviewing more than 150 women registered in the program to see how the cash transfers impacted their everyday lives. The authors concluded that the program produces significant social impacts in the beneficiaries' lives by increasing their levels of moral, economic and political autonomy, promoting citizenship. Money, Autonomy and Citizenship - The Experience of the Brazilian Bolsa Familia will be of interest to both academic researchers and public agents involved with the study, development and implementation of public policies aimed at reducing poverty and promoting social justice.

Zarembka's one-volume analysis and synthesis of four major aspects of the current housing crisis (financing/affordability, inadequate supply of lower-priced housing, discrimination, and displacement) provides, for each of the areas discussed, historical background, a review of alternative methods of problem resolution, and concrete proposals for new housing policies. Few, if any, books in the field investigate all four topics in such detail. Drawing on her legal training and experience, Zarembka also summarizes and interprets key legal concepts and court decisions that are relevant to the housing issue in terms the non-lawyer can understand. In addition, the work proposes a comprehensive platform for resolving the housing crisis. Chapter 1 summarizes the present housing crisis in the United States and reviews the federal government's response to that crisis. Issues arising in capitalist, socialist, and mixed economies in devising an equitable housing system are discussed in Chapter 2. Chapters 3 through 7 provide detailed analyses of the problems of financing, production and preservation, discrimination, and displacement, and give concrete proposals in each of those areas. The book concludes with a chapter discussing constitutional considerations that apply to the housing proposals, as well as mechanisms for financing them. Public policy makers, housing experts, urban planners, housing and community activists, professors and students in the social sciences, minorities, and those interested in critiques of the existing social and economic structure will find the keen insights, systematic analysis, and proposals for change provided here important reading. The volume could well be used as a primary or supplemental text for courses in urban studies, public policy, sociology, political science, economics, social work, law, Afro-American studies, and history.

The nation's $200 billion public assistance system is a fragmented array of policies, programs, and organizations that often serves its clients poorly. In this book, experts from universities and think tanks and practitioners from all levels of government analyze serious coordination problems in the system. Cutting through the plethora of agency programs and regulations, these authorities offer practical reforms to make the system more effective, accountable, and efficient. They provide widely sought recommendations that will be useful to managers, students, scholars, experts, policymakers, and activists concerned with welfare reform and the future of public assistance programs. The essays in the book address the coordination problem for all types of public assistance programs for all age groups and types of problems. The book provides specific analyses of the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills program under the Family Support Act, job training and employment programs under the Job Training Partnership Act, programs for youth-at-risk, and particular efforts to integrate the delivery of services to public assistance recipients. The authors provide essential information about institutions, processes, and policies at the federal, state, and local levels. They define critical issues and formulate policy and administrative recommendations to improve such critical features as executive leadership, Congressional decision-making, agency management, state government planning and policy development, and local service delivery operations.

In Formal and Informal Social Safety Nets , Ashraf analyses the role of social safety nets in a time when our global economy threatens our way of life, as entire cities such as Detroit are declared bankrupt.

The author aims to develop conceptual refining and theoretical reframing of the productivist welfare capitalism thesis in order to address a set of questions concerning whether and how productivist welfarism has experienced both continuity and change in East Asia.

Though the importance for social outcomes of improved local coordination of social and employment policies is widely acknowledged, it has to date been the object of only limited research in comparative welfare state studies. Based on detailed and systematic empirical research in 18 localities across six European countries, this innovative volume begins to redress this imbalance. The novel insights it offers into the complex determinants of effective policy coordination in contrasting national and local contexts will be of great interest to scholars and policy makers alike.' - Daniel Clegg, The University of Edinburgh, UK'This edited volume, based on internationally comparative research, provides a valuable contribution to the growing body of academic literature on the local governance of social and employment policies. Through national case study as well as comparative chapters, the book takes up the challenging task of investigating the complex processes of coordinating various politico-administrative levels, a variety of private and public actors, and diverse policy fields, focusing specifically on how these processes take shape at the local level.' - Rik van Berkel, Utrecht School of Governance, the Netherlands 'Activation has been the latest leit motiv of labour market policies since the Nineties. Activation measures require extensive coordination across levels of government, service providers and administrative agencies operating in different sectors. This volume provides an excellent empirical analysis of six European countries, highlighting the light and shadows of real-world activation experiences at the local level. The authors provide precious insights not only for welfare state scholars, but also for policy makers faced with the challenge of modernizing work and welfare through a more effective governance.' - Maurizio Ferrera, Universita degli Studi di Milano, Italy A central goal of European activation policies is to provide coherent and actively inclusive employment and social services. This book offers new insights on the effective governance and implementation of such policies. Utilizing empirical studies from six European welfare states, expert contributors explore how different institutional contexts influence localized service delivery and how local authorities deal with the associated coordination challenges. Acknowledging that neither decentralization nor provider networks necessarily prevent fragmented service provision, Martin Heidenreich and Deborah Rice illustrate that an understanding of the European budgetary context, as well as individual network brokerage, is vital for a successful integration of employment and social policies at the local level. Timely and engaging, this innovative book will provide new theoretical perspectives and invaluable empirical materials for academics and students in the field of comparative social policy. Policy makers and officials will also appreciate the editors' practical approach. Contributors: P. Aurich-Beerheide, M. Bassoli, T. Berthet, C. Bourgeois, S.L. Catalano, V. Fuertes, C. Garsten, P.R. Graziano, M. Heidenreich, K. Hollertz, K. Jacobsson, S. Mandes, R. McQuaid, D. Rice, K. Sztandar-Sztanderska, K. Tourne Languin, K. Zimmermann

We must quickly learn how to live well in the world as it is today, including the realm of work. We need to learn a new vocabulary of economics and markets that is more suitable to understand the present world and that is likely to offer us the tools to act, and perhaps improve it as well.

Countries that have suffered ethnic or religious conflict and become segregated societies reflect these divisions in education provision for their children. Northern Ireland is a case study in point where a parallel system of schools offers education in Catholic maintained schools and Protestant (de facto) controlled schools. While school segregation is the most obvious manifestation of Northern Ireland's fractured society, there are more important issues of 'educational inequality' with respect to schools and pupils. This book analyses three issues in some detail: segregation, educational performance and inequality in educational outcomes between schools and between pupils from deprived and affluent family backgrounds. Thus far public policies to tackle these issues have been met with limited success. The authors consider an alternative approach, which they term 'shared education', the aim of which is to improve school performance and, in so doing, to dismantle some of the barriers between maintained and controlled schools.

The Housing Outlook discusses the major factors affecting housing activity, housing demand, supply responses, and housing costs. This book: establishes benchmarks for evaluating national housing performance; suggests goals for public policy; and provides a core of information for both the public and private sectors on decisions affecting housing. The authors examine housing demand and changes in inventory over the decade, and isolates the specific effects of new construction, rehabilitation and conversion, and losses on the decrease of the housing supply.

This book provides the first comprehensive analyses of the challenges all European welfare systems have been facing since 2007, combining in-depth country-based studies and comparative chapters. It focuses on: 1) the economic and financial crisis, 2) demographic change, and 3) the balance between avoiding risks and opening up opportunities in social policy. The results show that European welfare systems tend to face the same challenges in different ways and that also their responses to those challenges differ considerably. Although the EU also plays a part in shaping national welfare systems, it becomes evident that European welfare systems are by no means converging: in terms of social policy, national diversity within Europe is still a major factor that will shape future developments in European welfare systems.

For human resource professionals, labor law specialists, and others involved in the practice of labor-management relations, Lencsis provides a concise, easily-accessed description of the workers compensation system in the United States, its governing laws and also its insurance aspects. Covering all major facets of workers compensation legislation and the insurance and risk management techniques used to comply with them, his book will have equal benefits for the staffs of insurance companies and brokerages, compensation and claims professionals, and for workers compensation executives in governmental agencies.

Lencsis explains that workers compensation laws were enacted on the federal and state levels in the early part of the century and have endured in the same basic form to the present. They represent a radical departure from common law concepts of negligence and damages in that they provide for statutory medical and wage-loss benefits regardless of who is at fault. Lencsis explores how insurance mechanisms in the public and private sectors are used to fund benefits and to make their delivery as secure and certain as possible. He also notes that workers compensation insurance is a major part of the property-casualty insurance business, and as such has recently become one of its most profitable areas. Lencsis' book helps readers to understand these concepts and to work with them in the day-to-day conduct of their business.

What has been the impact of the rise of new social risks and of the recent economic crisis on social cohesion of contemporary cities in Europe? Based on original research carried out in twenty cities in ten different countries, this book provides a new, extensive, empirically-based analysis of social and economic transformations driving the emergence of new social risks in European cities in the last two decades. What are the main factors and mechanisms contributing to the rise of social vulnerability in urban contexts? What are the material conditions and coping strategies adopted by vulnerable groups to deal with these risks? And, finally, what is the role played by local welfare systems in times of welfare retrenchment at the national level? The focus of the book is on urban contexts: it is in cities that most of the new social risks are concentrated and welfare policies face the most dramatic tensions in times of austerity.

There was a time when it was clear what risks social security policy was meant to protect: unemployment, sickness, and occupational disability. For many decades-although true equity remained elusive - a focus on these 'external' risks seemed to be enough. It is to the credit of more recent policy that such previously 'hidden' but all-important matters as excluded minorities, inadequate income, and obstacles to personal development are now on the agenda. Yet, with the globalization of the economy, new and unprecedented risks proliferate, most of them being of the 'manufactured' kind that stem from technological and economic factors that are largely independent of time and place and that do not lend themselves easily to regulation. Social Security in Transition surveys and analyses the forces affecting social security policy today as understood by twenty-one, mainly European, authorities in the field. Although each author focuses on specific issues (such as poverty, migration, retirement schemes, access to health care), a consensus emerges that social security can no longer be viewed as a distinct theoretical entity, but that it must be considered in a broad context of social policy that encompasses employment, education, and health care. That the state will remain the last resort for the resolution of dangerous social disparities seems inevitable; yet some transnational standards of fairness (including concerted action for the prevention of and combating the worst evils, such as poverty and social exclusion of migrants) are crucial if we are to develop meaningful state and collective arrangements - arrangement that will not only support all individuals as they take responsibilities inlife, enhance their opportunities, and make meaningful choices, but also safeguard the necessary level of social cohesion in society. Social Security in Transition builds on papers that were originally presented at a June 2001 symposium in The Hague to mark the centenary of the Dutch Occupational Accidents Act 1901 and at the same time of Dutch social security. The symposium was an initiative of the Social Security 2001 Foundation, which was set up by a group of Dutch ministries, administrations and supervisory agencies, and social partners.

This is the first comprehensive and up-to-date study of how inmates and their wives cope with incarceration and to what extent conjugal visit programs help their marriages. The findings of a family support program in upper New York State compares different groups and has implications for social welfare and corrections professionals. The authors review the historical background of family support programs for prison inmates, the related literature, and raise questions about the kinds of policies, programs, and services that affect inmates and their families. They point to the effects of clinical intervention on different ethnic groups and make recommendations for the future to help the couples better cope.