Editor’s afterword

2019 ◽  
pp. 175-180
Author(s):  
Peter Dwyer
Keyword(s):  
Social Security ◽  
Welfare Reform ◽  
Core Element ◽  
Welfare Services ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
Social Security Benefits

As noted in the introductory chapter of this edited collection, welfare conditionality – which links recipients’ eligibility to collectively provided social security benefits and wider welfare services to compulsory, specified individual responsibilities and behavioural requirements, under threat of sanction for non-compliance – has become a core element of welfare reform in many nations since the mid-1990s. Within a diversity of national and regional settings across the globe, politicians of all hues from across the mainstream political spectrum have been happy to embrace and endorse the mantra of ‘no rights without responsibilities’ (...

Rewriting the contract? Conditionality, welfare reform and the rights and responsibilities of disabled people

2017 ◽  
pp. 135-148
Author(s):  
Peter Dwyer
Keyword(s):  
Social Security ◽  
Welfare Reform ◽  
Social Exclusion ◽  
Financial Support ◽  
Public Welfare ◽  
Disabled People ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Social Security Benefits

This chapter focuses on the rights and responsibilities of disabled people in the UK and the ways in which their rights to work and social security benefits have been subject to contestation and redefinition, particularly since the introduction of Employment and Support Allowance in 2008. In the past, both governments and citizens generally tended to support the claims of long-term sick and disabled people to social security benefits for two reasons. First, because disabled people fitted commonly held views about a legitimate need for provision of financial support and care through the public welfare system. Second, because the cause of their inactivity in the paid labour market was seen by many as being beyond their control. Disabled people have long challenged such discriminatory views and demanded the eradication of disabling attitudes and environments, so that they can realise effective rights to paid employment. Similarly, criticisms of the disabling welfare state and the role it has played in the systematic and entrenched social exclusion of disabled people in respect of their rights to work and welfare must be acknowledged.

scholarly journals The contribution of changes to tax and social security to stalled life expectancy trends in Scotland: a modelling study

2020 ◽  
pp. jech-2020-214770
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Richardson ◽  
Martin Taulbut ◽  
Mark Robinson ◽  
Andrew Pulford ◽  
Gerry McCartney
Keyword(s):  
Life Expectancy ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Tax Credits ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Group Sex ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Social Security Benefits ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Welfare Reforms ◽  
Detrimental Impact

BackgroundLife expectancy (LE) improvements have stalled, and UK tax and welfare ‘reforms’ have been proposed as a cause. We estimated the effects of tax and welfare reforms from 2010/2011 to 2021/2022 on LE and inequalities in LE in Scotland.MethodsWe applied a published estimate of the cumulative income impact of the reforms to the households within Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) quintiles. We estimated the impact on LE by applying a rate ratio for the impact of income on mortality rates (by age group, sex and SIMD quintile) and calculating the difference between inflation-only changes in benefits and the reforms.ResultsWe estimated that changes to household income resulting from the reforms would result in an additional 1041 (+3.7%) female deaths and 1013 (+3.8%) male deaths. These deaths represent an estimated reduction of female LE from 81.6 years to 81.2 years (−20 weeks), and male LE from 77.6 years to 77.2 years (−23 weeks). Cuts to benefits and tax credits were modelled to have the most detrimental impact on LE, and these were estimated to be most severe in the most deprived areas. The modelled impact on inequalities in LE was widening of the gap between the most and least deprived 20% of areas by a further 21 weeks for females and 23 weeks for males.InterpretationThis study provides further evidence that austerity, in the form of cuts to social security benefits, is likely to be an important cause of stalled LE across the UK.

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