Workfare: Why Good Social Policy Ideas Go Bad

2004 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 750-751
Author(s):  
Margaret Little
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Human Resource ◽  
Welfare Recipients ◽  
University Of Toronto ◽  
Organizational Behaviour ◽  
Policy Ideas ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Moral Arguments ◽  
Measuring Stick ◽  
Job Prospects

Workfare: Why Good Social Policy Ideas Go Bad, Maeve Quaid, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002, pp. 244This book begins with the premise that workfare, properly administered, is good social policy. The author dismisses the moral arguments surrounding this policy: i) that workfare distinguishes the deserving from the undeserving; ii) that workfare is a form of slavery, forcing the poor to work in order to survive; iii) that workfare creates important responsibility for the recipient; iv) that workfare safeguards welfare recipients' status as citizens able to fully participate in a democratic society. These are controversial moral assertions about the merits or demerits of workfare that the author refuses to address. Instead, the author, as an expert in organizational behaviour and human resource management, is interested in whether this policy meets the goals it establishes. If workfare is to lead recipients to greater job prospects then this is the measuring stick that should be used to assess the success of workfare, argues Maeve Quaid.

scholarly journals Two decades after Korpi and Palme’s “paradox of redistribution”: What have we learned so far and where do we take it from here?

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dimitri Gugushvili ◽  
Tijs Laenen
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Income Inequality ◽  
Critical Review ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Causal Chain ◽  
Empirical Literature ◽  
The Poor ◽  
History Of ◽  
Per Se

Abstract Over two decades ago, Korpi and Palme (1998) published one of the most influential papers in the history of social policy discipline, in which they put forward a “paradox of redistribution”: the more countries target welfare resources exclusively at the poor, the less redistribution is actually achieved and the less income inequality and poverty are reduced. The current paper provides a state-of-the-art review of empirical research into that paradox. More specifically, we break down the paradox into seven core assumptions, which together form a causal chain running from institutional design to redistributive outcomes. For each causal assumption, we offer a comprehensive and critical review of the relevant empirical literature, also including a broader range of studies that do not aim to address Korpi and Palme’s paradox per se, but are nevertheless informative about it.

scholarly journals Globalisation and older people: effects of markets and migration

2002 ◽  
Vol 22 (5) ◽  
pp. 647-663 ◽  
Author(s):  
GAIL WILSON
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Older People ◽  
Economic Restructuring ◽  
Older Men ◽  
World Trade Organisation ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The World ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Older Men And Women

This paper discusses the material aspects of globalisation and the effects of the movements of trade, capital and people around the world on older men and women. While some older people have benefited, most notably where pensions and health care are well developed, the majority of older men and women are among the poor who have not. Free trade, economic restructuring, the globalisation of finance, and the surge in migration, have in most parts of the world tended to produce harmful consequences for older people. These developments have been overseen, and sometimes dictated, by inter-governmental organisations (IGOs) such as the International Monetary Foundation (IMF), the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation (WTO), while other IGOs with less power have been limited to anti-ageist exhortation. Globalisation transfers resources from the poor to the rich within and between countries. It therefore increases social problems while simultaneously diminishing the freedom and capacity of countries to make social policy. Nonetheless, the effects of globalisation, and particularly its financial dimensions, on a nation's capacity for making social policy can be exaggerated. Political will can combat international economic orthodoxy, but the evident cases are the exception rather than the rule.

scholarly journals Welfare State Policy Model as A Poverty Reduction Strategy in the West Sumatra Districts and Cities

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 227
Author(s):  
Azwar Azwar Azwar ◽  
Emeraldy Chatra ◽  
Zuldesni Zuldesni
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
State Model ◽  
The West ◽  
Policy Model ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Social ◽  
West Sumatra ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Welfare State

Poverty is one of the social problems that the government can never completely solve. As a result, other, more significant social issues arise and cause social vulnerability, such as conflict and crime. As a province that is experiencing rapid growth in the last ten years, the West Sumatra find difficulty to overcome the number of poor people in several districts and cities.  The research outcomes are the models and forms of social policy made by West Sumatra regencies and cities governments in improving the welfare of poor communities. It is also covering the constraints or obstacles to the implementation of social policy and the selection of welfare state models for the poor in some districts and municipalities of West Sumatra. This research is conducted qualitatively with a sociological approach that uses social perspective on searching and explaining social facts that happened to needy groups. Based on research conducted that the social policy model adopted by the government in responding to social problems in the districts and cities of West Sumatra reflects the welfare state model given to the poor. There is a strong relationship between the welfare state model and the form of social policy made by the government.

scholarly journals Applying Regression Discontinuity Design to Social Policy: An Evaluation of the Welfare-to-Work Program in South Korea

2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Lee Seog-min ◽  
Kwon Huck-ju
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Minimum Cost ◽  
Security System ◽  
Welfare Recipients ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Welfare To Work ◽  
Cost Of Living ◽  
Livelihood Security ◽  
Work Program

Social policy studies focusing on poverty reduction attempt to measure poverty reductions rates and poverty gaps, but they do not provide criteria to determine whether a given social policy is a success or failure. In this study, we suggest using regression discontinuity design to establish evaluation criteria and validate estimation results in social programs. Using the dataset from the Korean Welfare Panel, first we conduct, first, a difference-in-differences comparison between welfare recipients under the National Basic Livelihood Security system and nonrecipients whose income falls under the minimum cost of living. Secondly, we establish the counterfactual effects of the program among nonrecipients whose income is below the minimum cost of living and among nonrecipients whose income is above the minimum cost of living. Last, we analyze treatment effects by comparing welfare recipients with income below the minimum cost of living and nonrecipients with income above the minimum cost of living using the regression distribution design method. We argue that the National Basic Livelihood Security system as a welfare-to-work program has positive effects on labor market participation, which has not been established by previous studies.

Some Useful Sources

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 691-694
Author(s):  
Michael McGann ◽  
Dina Bowman ◽  
Simon Biggs ◽  
Helen Kimberley
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Human Resource ◽  
Older Workers ◽  
Population Ageing ◽  
Age Discrimination ◽  
Retirement Age ◽  
Early Exit ◽  
Research Areas ◽  
Policy Debates ◽  
Working Lives

Issues related to population ageing and longer working lives span diverse research areas and are linked to a number of conceptual and policy debates. Here we provide details of texts which allow quick access to key debates in the different domains covered by the contributions. We focus first on social policy, retirement and pensions. We then provide key sources on the changing experiences and perceptions of retirement; age-discrimination, human resource management and older workers; and early exit, mature-age unemployment and activating older workers.

What Was Gained

2018 ◽  
pp. 286-310
Author(s):  
George R. Boyer
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Safety Net ◽  
Social Welfare Policy ◽  
The Road ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Great War ◽  
Welfare Reforms

This concluding chapter summarizes the book's major findings. The road to the welfare state of the 1940s was not a wide and straight thoroughfare through Victorian and Edwardian Britain. As the previous chapters have made clear, the story of British social policy from 1830 to 1950 is really two separate stories joined together in the years immediately before the Great War. The first is a tale of increasing stinginess toward the poor by the central and local governments, while the second is the story of the construction of a national safety net, culminating in the Beveridge Report and Labour's social policies of 1946–48. The prototype for the welfare reforms of the twentieth century cannot be found in the Victorian Poor Law. The chapter then offers some thoughts regarding the reasons for the shifts in social welfare policy from the 1830s to the 1940s.

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