Reference
- Social WelfareOrganized educational, cultural, medical, and financial assistance to those in need. Measures of assistance include care of destitute adults; treatment of the mentally ill; rehabilitation of criminals; care and relief of the sick, the handicapped, the young, and needy families; and educational activity for children. Access to such programs is considered a basic or inalienable right of those in need. Nations that provide social welfare programs are known as welfare states.
In the 16th century, the English poor laws made local authorities responsible for the collection of voluntary contributions to employ paupers on the one hand and provide direct relief to needy citizens on the other. The poor laws demonstrated a progression from private charity to a welfare state whereby the care and supervision of the poor were embodied in law. The laws further helped the destitute by guaranteeing a minimum level of subsistence. Relatives were simultaneously expected to assume responsibility for their poorer kin... - Welfare ReformThe debate over welfare in America for much of the twentieth century was characterized by variations of two opposing arguments: the progressive or liberal concern of collective responsibility versus the conservative resistance to individual dependency. These two positions on the topic of public assistance have continued to be debated in America's culture wars, despite evolving social understandings of motherhood, family, and the government's role in the economy.
Prior to the New Deal, state-sponsored pensions for mothers were largely premised on the idea of providing stable homes for children of widows. Yet even these popular programs, implemented in forty-four states by 1930, faced the criticism that cash assistance inevitably corrupts its recipients by destroying their work ethic and, in turn, their children's work ethic. Even during the Great Depression, cash relief was limited out of a concern, expressed even by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, that its fostering of dependency undermines individual integrity and self-sufficiency.... - Social IndicatorsSocial indicators are aggregate data that describe the status of society. Social indicators usually attempt to assess well-being, quality of life, or standard of living in a society, country, or community. Social indicators address social welfare issues such as health and illness, social mobility, the environment, income and poverty, public safety and crime, and education.
Social indicators are derived from economic indicators such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Gross National Product (GNP), and Consumer Price Index (CPI). While these economic indicators have become important in their own right, their original purpose was to “indicate” the status of an entire nation’s economy. Prior to the 1960s, these economic indicators also served as social indicators. The popularity of development theory and its modernization thesis reinforced the belief that underdeveloped countries needed to modernize to become richer and that increasing a country’s wealth (as measured by GNP or GDP calculated on a per capita basis) would translate directly into a higher standard of living...
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Credo Reference is an easy-to-use tool for starting research. Gather background information on your topic from hundreds of full-text encyclopedias, dictionaries, thesauri, quotations, and subject-specific titles, as well as 500,000+ images and audio files and over 1,000 videos.
Perspectives
Encyclopedia of Social Welfare History in North America
The Encyclopedia of Social Welfare History in North Amercia is a unique reference book that will provide users with basic information about the history of social welfare in North America, including Canada, Mexico, and the United States. Since many themes and issues are similar in the three nations, entries will provide comparative information about common as well as distinctive concerns and developments. Significant events, influential persons, legislation, social problems, and societal responses are described in detail. Editors include specialists in the social welfare history of each nation, and they have collaborated with scholars from a variety of academic disciplines to prepare entries of varying length addressing these issues. Included in each entry are suggestions for further reading that will guide readers to the rich resources available for learning about the history of North American social welfare. The encyclopedia also provides cross-references for important topics. This volume will be a unique reference tool for students at all levels, for teachers, and for libraries serving anyone with an interest in the history of North American social welfare. Topics covered include: - Canada - Charity - Child welfare - Economic conditions and social welfare - Economics/tax policy - Health/Mental Health Policy - Landmark social welfare legislation - Mexico - Poverty - Race and social inequality - Social problems - Social security and income maintenance - Social welfare reform - Social welfare reformers - Social work - United States - Women and social welfare.
American Social Welfare Policy
For courses in Social Welfare Policy. This package includes the Enhanced Pearson eText and the bound book. Comprehensive, current coverage of the history, issues, and forces that shape American social welfare policy. American Social Welfare Policy, Eighth Edition cultivates an understanding of both national and international social welfare policy. Using a policy analysis framework, the authors give students the background needed to grasp the social, political, and economic forces that shape social welfare policy, analyze the major programs that make up the U.S. welfare state, and discuss basic social welfare concepts. Updated throughout, the Eighth Edition examines the dramatic domestic and international events occurring since the previous edition that have impacted social welfare policy worldwide. The Enhanced Pearson eText* is: Engaging. The new interactive, multimedia learning features were developed by the authors and other subject-matter experts to deepen and enrich the learning experience. Convenient. Enjoy instant online access from your computer or download the Pearson eText App to read on or offline on your iPad® and Android® tablet.** Affordable. Experience the advantages of the Enhanced Pearson eText along with all the benefits of print for 40% to 50% less than a print bound book. *The Enhanced eText features are only available in the Pearson eText format. They are not available in third-party eTexts or downloads. **The Pearson eText App is available on Google Play and in the App Store. It requires Android OS 3.1-4, a 7" or 10" tablet, or iPad iOS 5.0 or later. 0134303199 / 9780134303192 American Social Welfare Policy: A Pluralist Approach with Enhanced Pearson eText - Access Card Package, 8/e Package consists of: 013454501X / 9780134545011 American Social Welfare Policy: A Pluralist Approach, Enhanced Pearson eText -- Access Card 0134628128 / 9780134628127 American Social Welfare Policy: A Pluralist Approach, 8/e
The Reluctant Welfare State
Your students will find discussion of these issues and more in this comprehensive, scholarly introduction to social welfaare policy in the United States. This book challenges readers to think critically about issues, developments, anad policies aboth in paast eras and in contemporary society. Throughout the book,a Jansson invites students to become policy practitioners anad advocates anad to develop their own "policy identities." Designed to show readers taht social policy history is powerfully relevant to social workers when used to stimulate critical thinking about issues, developments, and policies in prior eras and in contemporary society. The Third Edition of Jannson's highly respected text offers a comprehensive and scholarly introduction to social welfare policy in the United States.
The Crisis of Caregiving
This book discusses the crisis of caregiving as it affects parents seeking to provide good care for their children and people who care for their aged or disabled relatives. Discussed are alternatives to the present welfare system, a description of the current safety net programs, and an analysis of the privatization of social services.
Summoned: Frances Perkins and the General Welfare
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Exploring the history of women in politics, Social Security, and attitudes toward immigration, poverty, Socialism, and the role of government, the heroic story of Frances Perkins enriches and informs our current debate.
A Day's Work, A Day's Pay
- Kanopy This link opens in a new windowWhen forced to work at city jobs for well below the prevailing wage and deprived of the chance to go to school, these individuals decide to fight back, demanding programs that will actually help them move off of welfare and into jobs. A DAY'S WORK, A DAY'S PAY traces the personal and political evolution of its three main characters. Juan Galan successfully organizes WEP workers while battling the demons of his own poverty-stricken childhood...
Welfare
- Kanopy This link opens in a new windowWELFARE shows the nature and complexity of the welfare system in sequences illustrating the staggering diversity of problems that constitute welfare: housing, unemployment, divorce, medical and psychiatric problems, abandoned and abused children, and the elderly. These issues are presented in a context where welfare workers as well as clients struggle to cope with and interpret the laws and regulations that govern their work and life.
Online Resources
- Social Welfare Programs and Trust: Evidence from Six Latin American CitiesUsing individual-level data that are representative at the city level for six Latin American capital cities (Bogota, Buenos Aires, Caracas, Lima, Montevideo, and San José), we find that participation in government social welfare programs is negatively associated to trust, a result that is robust to the inclusion of individual risk measures and a broad array of controls. Our findings support the notion that low take-up rates may be linked to stigma and not to high transaction costs as commonly suggested (JEL D01, O12, O10).
- Social work matters: Californians' perceptions of social welfareThis article reports on findings from a representative survey of Californians (N = 946) and their perception of social work and its professionals. Analysis of the survey data indicates that the public holds a generally positive view of social work and its "helping" nature, although social work is considered one of the least prestigious professions. Respondents primarily associated social work with child protection and behavioral health roles, and less often with tasks such as community organizing, promoting social justice, and crafting social policy. Implications are considered for renegotiating the identity of social work and foregrounding social justice.
- Quantity, quality, equality: introducing a new measure of social welfareIn this essay I propose a new measure of social welfare. It captures the intuitive idea that quantity , quality , and equality of individual welfare all matter for social welfare. More precisely, it satisfies six conditions: Equivalence , Dominance , Quality , Strict Monotonicity , Equality and Asymmetry . These state that (i) populations equivalent in individual welfare are equal in social welfare; (ii) a population that dominates another in individual welfare is better; (iii) a population that has a higher average welfare than another population is better, other things being equal; (iv) the addition of a well-faring individual makes a population better, whereas the addition of an ill-faring individual makes a population worse; (v) a population that has a higher degree of equality than another population is better, other things being equal; and (vi) individual illfare matters more for social welfare than individual welfare. By satisfying the six conditions, the measure improves on previously proposed measures, such as the utilitarian Total and Average measures, as well as different kinds of Prioritarian measures.
The Welfare State: From Bismarck to Obama
- Kanopy This link opens in a new windowGround the ongoing fierce debate about social-welfare programs in economic history. Here, you'll explore the origins of state-sponsored social welfare, the important role played by British economist and social reformer William Beveridge, the genesis of the welfare state during the Great Depression, the welfare race.