welfare reforms
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2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamie Harris ◽  
Ali Ladak ◽  
Maya B Mathur

There is limited research on the effects of animal welfare reforms, such as transitions from caged to cage-free eggs, on attitudes toward animal farming. This preregistered, randomized experiment (N = 1520) found that participants provided with information about current animal farming practices had somewhat higher animal farming opposition (AFO) than participants provided with information about an unrelated topic (d = 0.17). However, participants provided with information about animal welfare reforms did not report significantly different AFO from either the current-farming (d = -0.07) or control groups (d = 0.10). Although these latter effects on AFO were small and nonsignificant, they appeared to be mediated by changes in perceived social attitudes towards farmed animals and optimism about further reforms to factory farming. Exploratory analysis found no evidence that hierarchical meat eating justification or beliefs about how well-treated farmed animals currently are mediated the effect. Further research is needed to better understand why providing information about animal welfare reforms did not substantially increase AFO overall, whereas providing information about current practice did somewhat increase AFO.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (27) ◽  
pp. 9-31
Author(s):  
Noémi Lendvai-Bainton ◽  
Paul Stubbs

This article seeks to conceptualise time and temporality in the context of semi-peripheral social relations, with a particular focus on the transnational dimensions of policy translation. In particular, we show how, albeit within the co-existence of multiple temporalities, ‘policy time’ and ‘time in policy’ tends to enable and privilege particular kinds of policy processes over others. Revisiting a number of themes from our ethnographic work on social policy reform drawn, mainly, from the post-Yugoslav and Hungarian context and relating, mainly, to so-called ‘Europeanisation’ processes, allows us to foreground the spatio-temporal dimensions of policy processes. The text explores some key challenges in terms of how to treat time within critical policy studies.


Sociology ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 003803852110378
Author(s):  
Emma Mitchell

The narrowing eligibility and increasing conditionality of social security payments in Anglophone liberal democracies like Australia has been accompanied by growing attention to the ways benefit recipients navigate the personal and practical challenges of life amid welfare reforms. This article reorients the study of getting by on welfare benefits to focus on the material and affective investment in making life liveable. I argue that the generative dimension of getting by is suggested but submerged within the reactive orientation of much welfare scholarship on coping and resilience. This article takes up the challenge of telling sociological stories of hope in hardship without romanticising everyday struggle. It does so by focusing on the pleasures, pursuits and projects – however modest and muted – that sustain a liveable life in hardship but do not necessarily conform to normative ideas of ‘good resilience’.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Vedeler Johnsen ◽  
Kjell Vaage ◽  
Alexander Willén

Abstract This paper exploits the introduction of an early retirement reform in Norway to provide new evidence on interactions in public policies across programs and household members. The analysis generates four results. First, the reform decreased the employment of the directly affected individuals. Second, the introduction of the early retirement option caused program substitution away from alternative welfare programs. Third, it reduced employment among spouses of directly affected individuals. Finally, the reduction in spousal employment was driven by take-up of disability insurance. These results demonstrate that interactions in public policies can have a substantial impact on the effect of welfare reforms.


2021 ◽  
pp. 144078332110089
Author(s):  
Michelle Peterie ◽  
Greg Marston ◽  
Louise Humpage ◽  
Philip Mendes ◽  
Shelley Bielefeld ◽  
...  

Conditional welfare policies are frequently underpinned by pejorative representations of those they target. Vulnerable children, under physical or moral threat from their welfare-dependent parents, are a mainstay of these constructions, yet the nuances of this trope have received little focused attention. Through a discourse analysis of parliamentary debates at the introduction of compulsory income management (CIM) to Australia, this article explores the complexities of the vulnerable child trope. It shows how the figure of the child was leveraged to justify hard-line welfare reforms in Australia, and offers a deeper and more intersectional understanding of how social and economic marginalisation is reproduced through welfare discourse.


2021 ◽  
pp. 133-151
Author(s):  
Alessio Bertolini

Whilst the comparative political economy literature has regarded the UK as among the least dualised countries when it comes to non-standard employment, thanks to its flexible labour market and predominantly means-tested system of social pro-tection, scholars in the precariousness literature have highlighted the increased pre-carity and insecurity of many non-standard workers, highlighting the extreme con-ditionality and punitive policies typical of the UK welfare system as an important contributory factor. This paper aims to bridge the gap between these literatures. It analyses the experience of social protection of a specific category of non-standard workers, namely temporary agency workers, in accessing both active and passive unemployment policies. It finds how welfare reforms introduced in the past two decades in association with a general welfare discourse centred on the concepts of deservingness and dependency have created important barriers in accessing un-employment protection, not just based on institutional features but also on social perceptions.


Social investment policies have enjoyed prominence during recent welfare reforms across the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) world, and yet there is insufficient long-term strategy for their success. Reviewing labour market, family and education policies, this book analyses the emergence of social investment policies in both Europe and East Asia. Adopting a life course perspective and examining both public and private investments, the book addresses key contemporary policy issues including care, learning, work, social mobility and inequalities. Providing original observations, the book explores the roads and barriers towards effective social investment policies, derives practical social policy implications and highlights important lessons for future policymaking.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelly Veasey ◽  
Jonathan Parker

Purpose This study aims to explore homeless-support workers’ perceptions of homeless welfare recipients and their experiences of navigating new conditions placed upon them by UK welfare reform. It examines support workers’ views of the most punitive feature of the welfare system, sanctions, on those recipients.In 2012, the Conservative and Liberal Democrat Coalition Government introduced the largest and most radical overhaul of the UK benefit system, significantly increasing the level of conditionality and sanctions for non-compliance, part of a shift in welfare, suggesting that rights must be balanced by responsibility and the “culture of worklessness” and “benefit dependency” should be addressed. Design/methodology/approach Welfare reforms in the UK and the increased use of sanctions as part of welfare conditionality are reviewed. Data are collected from eight semi-structured interviews taking place in five housing support groups in the South East and South West of England in 2019–2020. The interviews followed an approach from interpretive phenomenological analysis. Findings Findings from this study indicate that the government’s reforms serve as a disciplinary measure for the poor, reinforcing inequality and social marginalization. To mitigate the effects would require a comprehensive review of universal credit prior to its full rollout to claimants. Data are analyzed thematically. Originality/value Welfare conditionality and welfare reform is well-researched in the UK. There is also a significant volume of research concerning homelessness. This paper, however, fills a gap in research concerning the experiences of those working in housing support agencies working with homeless people in the UK.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandre Afonso ◽  
André Mach

This chapter assesses institutional continuity and change in the varieties of capitalism in Austria and Switzerland. In the face of growing internationalisation, budgetary constraints and European integration, continuity and change have been determined by prevailing interest configurations and institutional limits in terms of public intervention and private governance. Hence, private employer dominance in Switzerland has fostered ra- pid change in areas where private regulation prevailed, such as corporate gover- nance, whereas institutional veto points have strongly limited change in areas where public intervention was necessary. By contrast, the larger scope of public intervention in Austria and its more majoritarian features have allowed more space for change in welfare reforms while the strong institutionalisation of corporatist institutions in labour market governance, for instance, has made it more resilient to change than Switzerland. In this respect, Austria and Switzerland provide good examples of how institutional change is dependent on the respective share of public regulation and private governance.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
ANDERS MOLANDER ◽  
GAUTE TORSVIK

Abstract This paper examines paternalism as a justification for welfare reforms making benefits conditional on participation in activation programs. We clarify different types of what we denote ‘throffer paternalism’ – a paternalism conjoining an offer with a threat – and ask whether there is a good case for any of them. We argue that hard but non-perfectionistic paternalism provides the most promising defense for mandatory activation but conclude that it does not give a convincing justification for this type of welfare policy.


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