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AbstractThis paper argues that welfare state progress needs to be based upon support for "inclusive citizenship" – the right to care, work and earn. Comparative analyses of welfare have often focused on defamilization to capture these dimensions. But inclusive citizenship requires challenging gender roles in both work (public sphere)andcare (private sphere), and thus the paper argues that the concept of degenderization is a more suitable analytical tool. This paper adds to our understanding by operationalizing the concept of degenderization to compare how (far) 22 European countries degenderize. Indeed, it goes further to examine not just howmuchwelfare states degenderize buthow– whether they focus on degenderingbothwork and care, crucial for "inclusive citizenship". To examine how states degenderize, it uses a new way of classifying welfare states by examining policy packages using radar charts. It examines how much they degenderize against a yardstick, using the Surface Measure of Overall Performance approach. Seven welfare types were identified, but none fully supported inclusive citizenship. Indeed, the country clusters identified in this study differ from those found by previous studies, challenging commonly held views about which countries ought to be seen as key exemplars. This reflects the paper's distinctive focus on inclusive citizenship – capturing support for degendering care and work – and that it compares countries on the basis of their policy packages. It also examines how approach to and generosity of degenderization are related to gender equality outcomes.

"The New Labour government's election victory in 1997 marked a transition away from a 'familistic' regime towards a more 'individualistic' one. This involves the promotion of employment for all, and thus has extended the right of access to paid work, and the capacity to form and maintain an autonomous household, to women as well as to men. In March 1999, the government made a historic commitment to end child poverty in 20 years, thus recognising the economic rights of children. This article documents and analyses British family policy as supporting men, women, and children as citizens. It examines how New Labour and the Conservative governments before it have acknowledged and facilitated the economic rights of all citizens. It then discusses whether the state has extended citizenship to include and value care and ultimately seeks to determine to what extent the welfare state is built upon the breadwinner model of the family. To do this, it explores various policy areas, including the right (not) to have children; parental rights and obligations; childcare; leave from paid work to care for children and cash benefits and taxes for families." (author's abstract).

"The New Labour government's election victory in 1997 marked a transition away from a 'familistic' regime towards a more 'individualistic' one. This involves the promotion of employment for all, and thus has extended the right of access to paid work, and the capacity to form and maintain an autonomous household, to women as well as to men. In March 1999, the government made a historic commitment to end child poverty in 20 years, thus recognising the economic rights of children. This article documents and analyses British family policy as supporting men, women, and children as citizens. It examines how New Labour and the Conservative governments before it have acknowledged and facilitated the economic rights of all citizens. It then discusses whether the state has extended citizenship to include and value care and ultimately seeks to determine to what extent the welfare state is built upon the breadwinner model of the family. To do this, it explores various policy areas, including the right (not) to have children; parental rights and obligations; childcare; leave from paid work to care for children and cash benefits and taxes for families." (author's abstract)

Abstract The Labour government aims to increase the lone parent employment rate to 70 per cent by 2010. To achieve this aim, it has introduced a state subsidy for childcare in the form of the childcare element of the Working Tax Credit. So far this has been limited to formal childcare despite evidence that lone parents are more likely to use informal childcare. This article investigates the potential of a state subsidy to be extended to support informal childcare. Utilizing evidence from a study of 78 qualitative in‐depth interviews with lone parents, it explores preferences for informal care and the way that informal care is negotiated. On the one hand, we found that some lone parents held deeply embedded preferences for informal childcare based on trust, commitment, shared understandings and children's happiness. Thus it can be concluded that it is important for the government to support informal as well as formal care. On the other, we found that the way lone parents actually negotiated informal childcare involved complex notions of obligation, duty and reciprocity, suggesting that a subsidy could potentially intrude upon complex private family relationships. However, the evidence suggests that care was negotiated differently depending on whether it was provided by a grandparent or other family and friends, with lone parents tending to favour paying for childcare provided by other family and friends than grandparents. This has implications for a state subsidy, which needs further investigation.

Housing benefit is an important component of the tax/benefit package. This article compares the contribution that housing benefit makes to the structure and value of the package paid to families with children in 22 countries in July 2001. It describes the demand-side housing subsidies that exist. It then examines how the value of housing benefit varies by family type and earnings level, using the model family method. Compared with other countries families in the UK receive rather small reductions in their rent, and because child tax credits are taken into account in assessing housing benefit, it is restricted to families with the lowest earnings and tends to be smaller for larger families. Some suggestions are made for reforming housing benefit.

This article substantially extends the existing constitutional and legal critiques of the use of soft law public health guidance in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing upon the findings of a national survey undertaken during the first wave of the pandemic in June 2020, it shows how the perceived legal status of lockdown rules made a significant difference as to whether the UK public complied with them and that this effect is a product of the legitimacy that law itself enjoys within UK society. Based on this analysis, it argues that the problems with the government's approach to guidance, that have been subjected to criticism in constitutional and legal terms, may also be open to critique on the basis that they risk undermining the public's loyalty to the law itself.

Welfare states globally have been subjected to reform agendas that have stressed economic competitiveness but how has global competition reshaped welfare states in practice? Providing a new cross-national and international narrative this book captures the complexity of social policy reform process that have taken place over the past 25 years. Drawing on data relating to multiple countries the authors examine global, cross-national and local cases in order to shed light on the impact of international forces on social policy. The book addresses major theoretical debates about the direction of welfare state reform processes across the OECD and beyond, offering empirically rooted analyses of change and new perspectives on the impact of global competition on social policy

As the COVID-19 pandemic has unfolded, stark social inequalities have increasingly been revealed and, in many cases, been exacerbated by the global health crisis. This book explores these inequalities, identifying three thematic strands: power and governance, gender and marginalized communities. By examining these three themes in relation to the effects of the pandemic, the book uncovers how unequal the pandemic truly is. It brings together invaluable insights from a range of international scholars across multiple disciplines to critically analyse how these inequalities have played out in the context of COVID-19 as a first step towards achieving social justice

Recent social trends and policy developments have called into question the divide between the provision of income support and social care services. This book examines this in light of key trends.The book presents new evidence on the links between cash - whether from earnings from paid work, social security benefits, and payments for disabled people and carers - and social disadvantage, care and disability. It presents theoretical perspectives on the need for and provision of care, which some commentators have described as a 'new social risk' and offers new insights into traditional forms of risk, such as poverty, disability, access to credit and money management.It provides an analysis of childcare and informal support for sick, disabled or elderly people in the context of increasing female labour market participation and the introduction of cash allowances to pay for care and posits a new look at both disabled people and older people in their roles as active citizens, whose views and experiences should help shape both policy and practice.Cash and care is essential reading for students, lecturers and researchers in social policy, applied social science, social work, and health and social care