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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social welfare & social services > Welfare & benefit systems
In this third edition of Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia, Amitav Acharya offers a comprehensive and critical account of the evolution of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) norms and the viability of the ASEAN way of conflict management. Building on the framework from the first edition, which inspired the establishment of the ASEAN Political-Security community, this new edition has been extensively updated and revised based on new primary sources that are not publicly available. Updates for this edition include: Expanded and updated coverage of the South China Sea Conflict and how it affects regional order and tests ASEAN unity Analysis of new developments in the US role in the region, including ASEAN's place and role in the US pivot/rebalancing strategy and the evolution of the East Asian Community, the newest summit-level multilateral group Extensive analysis of the ASEAN Political-Security community An examination of US-China relations and China-ASEAN relations Coverage of ASEAN's institutional development and the controversy over reform of the ASEAN Secretariat. An updated outlook on ASEAN's future as a security community and the issue of ASEAN Centrality in the regional security architecture. The new edition will continue to appeal to students and scholars of Asian security, international relations theory and Southeast Asian studies, as well as policymakers and the media.
This book explores the incentives and effects of modern welfare policy, contrasted with outcomes of global basic income pilots in the past seventy years. The author contends that paternalistic and counterproductive eligibility rules in the modern American welfare state violate the human dignity of the poor and make it nearly impossible to escape the "poverty trap." Furthermore, these types of restrictions are absent from expenditures aimed at middle and upper-income households such as mortgage interest deductions and tax-sheltered retirement accounts. Case examples from the author's years as a front-line social worker and interviews with basic income pilot recipients in Ontario, Canada, are woven throughout the book to better illustrate the effects of the current system and the hidden potential of more radical alternatives such as a universal basic income.
A History of the German Public Pension System: Continuity amid Change provides the first comprehensive institutional history of the German public pension system from its origins in the late nineteenth century to the major reform period in the early twenty-first century. Relying on a wide range sources, including many used for the first time, this study provides a balanced account of how the pension system has coped with major challenges, such as Germany's defeat in two world wars, inflation, the Great Depression, the demographic transition, political risk, reunification, and changing gender roles. It shows that while the pension system has changed to meet all of these challenges, it has retained basic characteristics-particularly the tie between work, contributions, and benefits-that fundamentally define its character and have enabled it to survive economic and political turmoil for over a century. This book also demonstrates that the most serious challenge faced by the pension system has consistently been political intervention by leaders hoping to use it for purposes unrelated to its mission of providing the insured with secure and adequate retirement income.
First published in 1992, this book explores the efforts to counteract the high maternal and infant death rates present between the end of the nineteenth century and the Second World War. It looks at the problem in five different continents and shows the varying approaches used by the governments, institutions and individuals in those countries. Contributors display how policy and practice have been shaped by the structure of maternity services, nationalism, the conflict of colonization and cultural factors. In doing so, they illustrate how welfare policy and funding were moulded throughout the world in the times considered.
In all advanced Western nations, policy-makers have implemented encompassing welfare state reforms in recent decades breaking with past welfare arrangements. In particular, social democracy engaged in significant policy change under the Third Way paradigm and broke with its traditional reputation on welfare that had built the ties with the core constituency in the 20th century. The Electoral Consequences of Third Way Welfare State Reforms: Social Democracy's Transformation and its Political Costs provides a comparative study of the electoral consequences of Third Way welfare state reforms. The book demonstrates that Third Way reforms went against the social policy preferences of social democracy's core voters and indeed produced an electoral setback for social democrats at the ballots. Moreover, and accounting for cross-national variation, the analysis shows that the nature of the setback is contingent on the electoral system and the party competition social democrats face when reforming the welfare state.
This book provides a study of the rise of private sector providers in the welfare state. It compares for-profit firms as providers of hospital services and pensions and investigates the new private actors in social policy provision, whether they become political actors, and the extent of their power in welfare state politics. Focusing on Germany and the UK, the author's analysis includes, amongst others, the surprising role of private sector firms in the National Health Service and the halting integration of financial sector companies in the German pension system. The book develops a novel measure of power resources with which to capture two dimensions of provider power: instrumental and structural resources. This important book sheds new light on the increasingly dominant role of markets in public policy provision by focusing on the supply side of these markets. Readers will learn about the drivers and contents of social policy reform, the interaction between business and politics and the politics of privatization. It will appeal to scholars and practitioners with an interest in public policy, comparative politics, welfare state reform and privatization.
Originally published in 1979, The Idea of Welfare critically reviews the concepts of egoism and altruism as they are expressed in residual and intuitional models of social welfare. The book describes the way in which the scope and limits of obligation and entitlement are determined in practice by the interplay of familial, communal, national and international loyalties. It also looks at the similarities and differences between economic and social forms of exchange and mutual aid. These major themes are developed in a comparative review, which explores the effects of social change on the ways in which people seek to preserve and enhance their welfare through self-help and collective action. The book focuses on Britain, the USA and Russia, it challenges conventional definitions of welfare, largely concerned with formal social policies sponsored by government and uses historical material to illustrate the dominant forms of a mutual aid which were practised before the development of modern welfare states.
How to overcome barriers to the long-term investments that are essential for solving the world's biggest problems There has never been a greater need for long-term investments to tackle the world's most difficult problems, such as climate change and decaying infrastructure. And it is increasingly unlikely that the public sector will be willing or able to fill this gap. If these critical needs are to be met, the major pools of long-term, patient capital-including pensions, sovereign wealth funds, university endowments, and wealthy individuals and families-will have to play a large role. In this accessible and authoritative account of long-term capital investment, two leading experts on the subject, Harvard Business School professors Victoria Ivashina and Josh Lerner, highlight the significant hurdles facing long-term investors and propose concrete ways to overcome these difficulties. Presenting the best evidence in an engaging way by using memorable stories and examples, Patient Capital describes how large investors increasingly want and need long-run investments that have the potential to deliver greater returns than those in the public markets. Yet success in such investments has been the exception. Performance has suffered from both the limitations of investors and the internal structure of their fund managers, often resulting in the wrong incentives and a lack of long-term planning. Yet the challenges facing long-term investors can be surmounted and the rewards are potentially large, both for investors and society as a whole. Patient Capital shows how to make long-term investment work better for everyone.
All too often the experience of those who receive family therapy is
neglected in family therapy theorizing and literature; this in turn
affects practice. The authors of "Introducing User-Friendly Family
Therapy" describe in practical detail the results of an action
research project in which all the professionals involved began to
modify their practice on the basis of feedback from users. They
draw out the implications of what they discovered for providing a
genuinely user-friendly service and set the arguments for a more
humanistic approach in the wider context of contemporary social
policy.
As the state withdraws from welfare provision, the mixed economy of welfare - involving private, voluntary and informal sectors - has become ever more important. This second edition of Powell's acclaimed textbook on the subject brings together a wealth of respected contributors. New features of this revised edition include: * An updated perspective on the mixed economy of welfare (MEW) and social division of welfare (SDW) in the context of UK Coalition and Conservative governments * A conceptual framework that links the MEW and SDW with debates on topics of major current interest such as 'Open Public Services', 'Big Society', Any Qualified Provider', Private Finance Initiative (PFI) and 'Public Private Partnerships' (PPP) Containing helpful features such as summaries, questions for discussion, further reading suggestions and electronic resources, this will be a valuable introductory resource for students of social policy, social welfare and social work at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.
This volume explores questions about narrative frameworks in disability research. Narrative is a omnipresent meaning-producing communication form in social life that is both cultural and personal. Public understandings of disability tend to follow a medical storyline in which disability is a personal tragedy to be treated through professional intervention - a frame that disempowers and fails to resonate with many disabled people. Scholars in disability studies and the social sciences have proposed an alternative that portrays social structures, forces, and attitudes as the problems to be resolved - a frame that, while empowering, may neglect, or even repress, some kinds of personal disability stories. This volume seeks to answer the call for richer, more diverse understandings of disability. We explore how narrative inquiry can broaden perspectives on disability to include pain, suffering, chronic illness, and episodic disability, as well as the perspectives of family members and caregivers, while also serving as a platform for dismantling prejudice and discrimination in order to promote positive social change.
Over recent years it has become increasingly clear that the European Union is falling short of its promise to enhance social cohesion across the continent. Welfare state modernization has been at the centre of divisive debates over the redistribution of wealth and imbalances between a wealthy European core and its peripheries. Some see the policies and governance of the EU as part of the problem, others rather as the solution. This book examines the key issues facing the EU's social policy-making. Each chapter focuses on a single challenge and explores the arguments and considerations that coalesce around it. The book helps students and researchers alike to understand how the EU operates and shapes social policy on multiple levels, and to better assess the EU's role in supporting social cohesion.
The volume is divided into three parts: A: Economic Growth and Related Problems (covering international trade and economic integration, including a comparative study between Europe and America) B: Theoretical Welfare Economics (welfare propositions in economics, profit maximization and its implications and the Theory of Tariffs) C: Practical Welfare Economics (the price of economic progress, equity and international payments).
Written by a top scholar on social security in Latin America and the Caribbean, this book assesses the effects of the world economic crisis on social security and welfare in the region. Drawing on the impact of and lessons from previous crises, Carmelo Mesa-Lago identifies the strengths and weakness of Latin American social security before the current global crisis. He evaluates the event's actual and potential effects on pensions, health care, and social assistance programs, based on a taxonomy of three groups of countries. The book ends with a summary of policies adopted by some countries and the author's own recommendations on social policies to lessen the adverse outcomes of the financial crisis. Latin America's pioneering social-welfare reforms make this book important for other regions of the world, both developed and developing.
Research teams from Great Britain, Japan, the Netherlands, Germany, former East Germany and the United States of America examine the transition from paid employment to retirement in each country. The work is based on empirical data of the relevant actor systems: the states, collective organisations, firms and workers. Demographic trends and labour market dynamics, tight government finances and company budgets however give rise to fundamental changes in industrial work and social welfare regulation modes.
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.
In 2000, the first social agenda in the history of the European Union was launched, and the endeavor to combat poverty came increasingly to the forefront as a specific area for EU policy cooperation and coordination. Regrettably, however, little progress has been achieved so far, either at the national or European level. On the contrary, the EU's social fabric is under major stress: convergence in national living standards has halted or reversed while progress in terms of poverty reduction in the last decades has been disappointing in most EU Member States. In Europe, despite high social spending and work-related welfare reforms, poverty often remains a largely intractable problem for policymakers and a persistent reality for many European citizens. In Decent Incomes for All, the authors shed new light on recent poverty trends in the European Union and the corresponding responses by European welfare states. They analyze the effect of social and fiscal policies before, during, and after the recent economic crisis and study the impact of alternative policy packages on poverty and inequality. The volume also explores how social investment and local initiatives of social innovation can contribute to tackling poverty, while recognizing that there are indeed structural constraints on the increase of the social floor and difficult trade-offs involved in reconciling work and poverty reduction. Academics and graduate students in comparative social policy, inclusion and anti-poverty policy, sociology, and public economics will find the book to be a particularly helpful resource in their work.
The changing nature and significance of housing provision within welfare states is considered in this timely book. With housing playing an increasingly important role in welfare provision, the new welfare state emerging in different parts of the world is being developed in the context of individual asset accumulation and the private ownership of housing. Housing and the New Welfare State shows that housing is becoming critical to asset-based welfare not only in Western Europe but also in the six East Asian housing systems that are a major focus of the book. Chapters by leading East Asian scholars provide analysis of housing policies in Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, China and Taiwan. Also examined are the 'four worlds' of welfare and housing; the causes and consequences of the shift from tenants to home owners in the old welfare states of Britain and other parts of Western Europe; and the growth of the property-owning welfare state as a theme running through contemporary policy in both East Asia and Europe.
What is humanitarianism? This authoritative book provides a comprehensive analysis of the original idea and its evolution, exploring its triangulation with war and politics. Peter J. Hoffman and Thomas G. Weiss trace the origins of humanitarianism, its social movement, and the institutions (international humanitarian law) and organizations (providers of assistance and protection) that comprise it. They consider the international humanitarian system's ability to regulate the conduct of war, to improve the wellbeing of its victims, and to prosecute war criminals. Probing the profound changes in the culture and capacities that underpin the sector and alter the meaning of humanitarianism, they assess the reinventions that constitute "revolutions in humanitarian affairs." The book begins with traditions and perspectives-ranging from classic international relations approaches to "Critical Humanitarian Studies" -and reviews seminal wartime emergencies and the creation and development of humanitarian agencies in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The authors then examine the rise of "new humanitarianisms" after the Cold War's end and contemporary cases after 9/11. The authors continue by unpacking the most recent "revolutions"-the International Criminal Court and the "Responsibility to Protect"-as well as such core challenges as displacement camps, infectious diseases, eco-refugees, and marketization. They conclude by evaluating the contemporary system and the prospects for further transformations, identifying scholarly puzzles and the acute operational problems faced by practitioners.
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.
Learn how to develop and teach effective courses on the vital issues of family life The Craft of Teaching About Families presents a variety of course designs, evaluation methods, and teaching techniques and strategies that can be used to address the complexities of family life. This unique book prepares students for the challenges they'll face as they leave the campus for the classroom, providing them with the problem-solving skills they'll need for success. The book's contributorsa distinguished panel of family scientists, sociologists, public policy analysts, psychologists, and extension specialistsexamine a range of topics, including family law and policy, advocacy, parenting skills, international families, and diversity. One of the few books geared to teaching family studies, particularly family policy and family law, The Craft of Teaching About Families reaffirms the importance of teaching in a time when controversial family issues receive constant attention from the media, the courts, and the legislatures. In addition to articles on family policy, family law, marriage and the family, family interaction and dynamics, and cultural diversity, the book addresses empirical assessments of internships and service learning activities in family-oriented courses, the effectiveness of various teaching strategies, including role-playing, classroom simulations, and Web-based assignments. Divided into three sections for ease of use, The Craft of Teaching About Families examines: Family Law and Family Policy how to build writing skills through the preparation of court briefs and policy memos how to use cooperative learning research teams to teach family law how to design better courses by understanding students' perceptions of family policy issues how cooperative extension can help involve families in the policymaking process Family Dynamics how to develop a course in father-daughter relationships how to incorporate parenting education workshops into a parent-child relationship course how to prepare students to become competent multicultural educators how to develop a course on international families from a family strengths perspective how to develop a new framework for teaching family resources management Teaching Techniques in Family Science how to incorporate effective role-playing into the syllabus how to use small-group work to create a positive experience in the classroom how to educate future teachers about psychological abuse how to teach students about forgiveness toward those who have hurt them how to analyze the results of service-learning assignments in family diversityThe Craft of Teaching About Families is an essential resource for professionals who teach about individuals and families at any level, in any settingformal or informal.
Dixon examines the social security systems of 172 countries. Focusing on the diverse array of approaches existing today, he explores global social security patterns, recent developments, and future issues, and he assesses and ranks social security programs and systems. By providing a global perspective on social security, Dixon enables scholars, students, and social security administrators to place national and perhaps regional social security policy debates into their larger, regional and global settings. The volume is intended for scholars and graduate students in the broad fields of social work, social welfare, and social security.
Address the issues vital for women and their families To be most effective, family therapists need to understand precisely what policies are in place and how they influence families and their relationships. The Politics of the Personal in Feminist Family Therapy: International Examinations of Family Policy provides an interdisciplinary look at family public and social policies and the influence they have on families around the globeall from a feminist perspective. Diverse international family policy experts discuss policies family therapists need to know covering gender, ethnicity, religion, and age, and the effects on women and their families. As international family public policy shifts and changes, women and their families' lives are altered in substantial and very personal ways. The Politics of the Personal in Feminist Family Therapy gives therapists a clear view of policies and diverse issues involving family policy, family relationships, and mental health. The book reveals the interaction between policy and practice, interdependence as a principle of child and family policy, ways to increase women's labor force participation without causing a fall in birth rates, and intergenerational equity debates around the world. Qualitative studies are presented detailing women's experiences of family policies' effects on their lives, including their resiliency in times of disruption and their viewpoints on life-altering events that are used to disempower them. Topics in The Politics of the Personal in Feminist Family Therapy include: the interaction of British social policy with feminist practice supportive rather than punitive interventions in the lives of families an examination of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's Babies and Bosses report evaluation of international family policies of elder care research into women's roles and the way they are shaped in areas of conflict research on Puerto Rican and Dominican women's perceptions of divorce The Politics of the Personal in Feminist Family Therapy is timely, stimulating reading for psychotherapists, family therapists, psychologists, social workers, counselors, feminists/womanists, sociologists, educators and students in family studies, women's studies, gender studies, and war studies, and professionals in family policy and family law.
When discussing inequality and poverty in Hong Kong, scholars and politicians often focus on the failures of government policy and push for an increase in social welfare. Richard Wong argues in Fixing Inequality in Hong Kong that universal retirement support, minimum wage, and standard hours of work are of limited effect in alleviating inequality. By comparing Hong Kong with Singapore, he points out that Hong Kong needs a new and long-term strategy on human resource policy. He recommends more investment in education, starting with early education and immigration policy reforms to attract highly educated and skilled people to join the workforce. In analyzing what causes inequality, this book ties disparate issues together into a coherent framework, such as Hong Kong's aging population, lack of investment in human capital, and family breakdowns. Rising divorce rates among low-income households have created a shortage of housing, driving rents and property prices upwards, and enlarging the wealth gap between those who own housing and those who do not, thus causing intergenerational upward mobility. This is the third of Richard Wong's collections of articles on society and economy in Hong Kong. Diversity and Occasional Anarchy and Hong Kong Land for Hong Kong People, published by Hong Kong University Press in 2013 and 2015 respectively, discuss growing contradictions in Hong Kong's economy and current housing problems as well as their solutions.
In 1945 the Labour Government set out to enable everyone to have a decent home, where people from all walks of life could live together. This dream was destroyed by a succession of avoidable mistakes and almost everyone now seems to believe that it is impossible to re-discover that vision, and that we must live in divided communities of unequal wealth and opportunity. that have caused this inequitable state: the folly of mass housing, the forces of nimbyism, planning failures, inadequate new homes, the collapse of affordable housing programmes, and the unfair tax privileges of many home owners. development, planning, economic structures, social reform, and political re-assessment to narrow the gap between rich and poor and enabling people in all housing tenures to finally have a choice. |
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