A Multilevel Analysis of Mother"s Economic Participation and Child Poverty in the Welfare State : Focusing on the Family Policy

Before the welfare state, people were protected from disabilities resulting from illness, old age, and other infirmities by care work provided within the family. When the state assumes responsibility for care-work tasks, in effect it assumes parental roles, thereby becoming a form offamilial governmentin which the public provision of goods and services is analogous to care work provided in the family. My research pushes back the origins of the state’s obligation to care for people to a preindustrial form of government, hereditary monarchies—what Max Weber termed patrimonialism. It explicates how monarchs were cast as the parents of the people, thereby constituting kingship as a care work regime that assigned to political rulers parental responsibility for the welfare of the people. Using historical and quantitative analysis, I establish that retaining the legitimacy of monarchies as the first form of familial government in the course of Western European democratizing makes it more credible to the public and to political elites to accept the welfare state as the second form of familial government. That, in turn, promotes a more robust public sector supportive of social provision. The results reformulate conceptions of the contemporary welfare state and its developmental legacies.

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The Family, the Welfare State and Community Care: Political Rhetoric and Public Attitudes

Journal of Social Policy ◽

10.1017/s004727940001401x ◽

1984 ◽

Vol 13 (4) ◽

pp. 417-446 ◽

Cited By ~ 21

Author(s):

Patrick West

Keyword(s):

Political Parties ◽

Welfare State ◽

Community Care ◽

Public Attitudes ◽

New Right ◽

Political Arena ◽

The Family ◽

Left And Right ◽

Family State ◽

The Welfare State

ABSTRACTWithin the political arena, most sharply articulated by the new Right, the family and welfare state have been counterposed as ideological opposites with implications for the relative responsibility each should be accorded in respect of a policy of community care. On the basis of evidence from a survey conducted in three locations in Scotland, this paper examines the extent to which the ideological positions of Left and Right are reflected in public attitudes towards these issues. The results show that with the exception of certain groups of ‘ideologues’, individual citizens tend not to structure their attitudes in accordance with overarching ideologies, nor are their attitudes in any consistent way organized along partisan lines. In respect of the family/state polarity, there is only a faint echo of the broad rhetoric of political parties and on more concrete issues like care for dependent persons none at all. The overall picture supports the view that the family and welfare state as they are confronted by people in their everyday lives are much less ideological opposites than intermeshed in an overlapping complex of values, needs and interests.

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Book Review: Justice, Care and the Welfare State, Family Policy and Disability

European Journal of Social Security ◽

10.1177/138826271601800307 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 18 (3) ◽

pp. 324-327

Author(s):

Jackie Gulland

Keyword(s):

Welfare State ◽

Family Policy ◽

The Welfare State

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Välfärdsstatens logik? Erfarenheter från färäldrar med kognitiva och ekonomiska svårigheter

Socialvetenskaplig tidskrift ◽

10.3384/svt.2016.23.1.2332 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 23 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Stina Fernqvist ◽

Elisabet Näsman

Keyword(s):

Welfare State ◽

Social Workers ◽

Family Life ◽

Informal Support ◽

Financial Situation ◽

Individual Level ◽

Cognitive Difficulties ◽

The Family ◽

Family Based ◽

The Welfare State

The logic of the welfare state? Experiences from parents with cognitive and financial difficultiesPrevious research has shown that parents with cognitive difficulties (neuropsychiatric impairments and/or intellectual disability) often are at risk of poverty. The same is reported from the Swedish welfare state, and such financial hardship may have a profound effect on family life. How these parents experience poverty and how their experiences can be related to cognitive difficulties and notions of poverty is addressed in this article. Their ability to cope in everyday life partly relies on whether, or how, existing support caters to the specific needs of these individuals. This article draws on research on poverty, disability and family. Based on interviews with parents with cognitive difficulties, these questions are discussed: how does their financial situation affect family life? How do they experience support from relatives and professionals? What kind of support is available from the welfare state, and to what extent does this support comprise perspectives on family and children? How do the parents experience informal support from their own family? How can this problem complex be localized in legislation and practice? The findings discussed here suggest that these parents often associate their experiences of poverty with the limitations caused by their impairments. Parents further state that they often rely on their own agency to get proper support, which can be very difficult, and question how support for these parents could be handled differently, in terms of both legislation and practice. The findings also show that support from society is often mediated on an individual level through initiatives from social workers and other persons working near the family, which highlights the absence of systematic support directed towards these parents.

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Redesigning the Welfare State

Policy Quarterly ◽

10.26686/pq.v15i1.5289 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 15 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Jonathan Boston

Keyword(s):

Welfare State ◽

Poverty Reduction ◽

Child Poverty ◽

Policy Framework ◽

Consistent System ◽

Aotearoa New Zealand ◽

Consumer Prices ◽

Distributional Fairness ◽

Fiscal Implications ◽

The Welfare State

Since the beginnings of the welfare state, Aotearoa New Zealand has lacked a principled, comprehensive and consistent system for indexing social assistance to movements in consumer prices and/or wages. This deficiency applies not only to cash transfers but also to in-kind benefits. The absence of a robust and durable indexation regime is no accident. It reflects, among other things, an unwillingness of governments to determine an acceptable minimum standard of living for citizens and then protect, if not enhance, this standard over time. No doubt, the fiscal implications of a more consistent approach to indexation have loomed large in the political calculus. Yet if the current and future governments are to meet ambitious child poverty reduction targets and ensure greater distributional fairness, a new framework for indexation is essential. This article discusses the nature and purpose of indexation, the principles and other considerations that should inform the design of an indexation regime, the policy options available, and how a durable and defensible policy framework might be secured.

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The Reconstructed Welfare State and the Fate of Family Policy

Social Casework ◽

10.1177/104438948306400802 ◽

1983 ◽

Vol 64 (8) ◽

pp. 459-465 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Shirley L. Zimmerman

Keyword(s):

Welfare State ◽

Family Policy ◽

Family Members ◽

Economic Security ◽

Primary Objective ◽

Provision Of Services ◽

The Welfare State

The welfare state, undergoing a major restructuring, is forming alliances with families for the provision of services to family members. How can this be reconciled with the simultaneous weakening of the state's commitment to family economic security—once its primary objective?

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