Suchergebnisse

In the context of a seminar seeking to canvass public administration responses to the topic 'A Generation Unemployed' the paper canvasses the extent of hidden unemployment and where the burdens of unemployment are falling.Some of the future implications for social policy, including potential effects on social cohesion and the possible policy responses to that, and potential effects on economic dependency and likely policy implications are examined.

AbstractThis article focuses on one particular and under‐investigated dimension in the study of social policy – crisis events and their special function in promoting and shaping social protection programs. Crises are usually regarded as negative social events that tempestuously challenge the pre‐existing socio‐economic order, triggering social conflicts and disruption, either temporarily or in a more enduring fashion. However, social crises may also foster new opportunities for social investment, public finance expansion and welfare state building after the outbreak of a crisis and even during the post‐crisis period. This article first examines the SARS pandemic and analyzes its developmental trajectory, reconstructing the national debates and discourses on the negative consequences and lessons learned in the SARS and post‐SARS period. I argue that this crisis event revealed many loopholes in the Chinese public health system, constituting a powerful driving force for rebuilding the medical insurance system and health governance in China, and strengthening public discourse on welfare state responsibility. Second, I explore how, during the COVID‐19 pandemic, scholars and experts have constructed the 'short board' of Chinese social policy, calling for further social policy reforms to narrow the gaps in health protection resources among social classes and to eliminate the fragmentation of health resource distribution.

In this study the authors examine the impact of social incomes on social inequalities and social integration in the post-2010 populist welfare system in Hungary. A detailed quantitative analysis reveals the structure and distribution of social incomes among different groups in contemporary Hungarian society. This analysis includes factors such educational attainment, demographic structure and income of households, number of children, and deprivation index. The results of the research show that welfare redistribution has lost its ability to reduce inequalities and instead serves as a means of perpetuating social disparities.

The economic crisis that broke out in Korea in December 1997 has had a chilling impact on social development in the country. Today unemployment is the highest that Korea has experienced in the past thirty years. This paper aims to examine the impact of the economic crisis on social development and the role of public policy to mitigate the problems caused by the crisis. The economic crisis has hit vulnerable groups harder, increased the proportion of part‐time and daily workers, and reversed the trend of steady improvement of income distribution. The economic crisis along with the trend of aging population, globalization, and competition calls for an expanded role of social policy, which the Korean government has neglected for a long time. The main targets of social policy reform in Korea include the expansion of government programs and safety nets for the unemployed and redesigning the national pension and health insurance scheme to provide adequate income security as well as to improve the system sustainability.

The increase in religious diversity produced by the global movement of people and cultures and the proliferation of internal difference within religious communities raises social policy issues. Consideration of these issues is facilitated by understanding that religious groups intersect with social policy in four basic ways: as objects, sources, critics and implementers of policy. A major issue is the challenge societies face in respecting freedoms of religion and belief on the one hand and providing services to all citizens on the other. Resolving these issues requires an awareness of the religious profile of a society and sensitivity to its religious diversity and to the ways services are delivered. Research into the current status of freedom of religion and belief in Australia is used as a case study to identify issues and potential ways to address them. This research reveals that there is a lack of mechanisms for considering and resolving these issues.

The (European) welfare state, as well as the political space of "the social," is currently being reorganized in a fundamental way. This has major implications for any attempt to contribute to a more just or even emancipatory way of shaping "the social." This book discusses what the Capabilities Approach may contribute to the attempt. Rather than assessing the philosophical foundation of this approach, the book critically discusses the potentials and pitfalls of analyzing social and labor-market policy and, in particular, social services from a capabilities perspective. --Provided by publisher