Welfare & benefit systems

Based on ethnographic fieldwork and the author’s own experience, this book explores how diverse welfare users navigate the personal and practical hurdles of Australia’s social security system.

Based on in-depth interviews with over 80 precarious workers in Korea, this book introduces the concept of ‘melting labour’ and provides a real depiction of how workers lose control over their lives and experience precariousness in labour markets.

This book uses qualitative longitudinal data, from repeat interviews with people subject to compulsion and sanction in their everyday lives, to analyse the effectiveness and ethicality of welfare conditionality in promoting and sustaining behaviour change in the UK.

Focusing on three key areas: prevention, support and investment, this book argues that tackling poverty and financial insecurity through well-designed social security systems could offer a new focus for improving our collective mental health.

Experts from around the world review the complex and rapidly changing politics and policies of austerity in this comprehensive collection of essays. The book details the many different means and expressions of austerity since the financial crisis of 2008, as well as backlashes and emerging political alternatives.

Providing original observations, this seminal text analyses the emergence of social investment policies in both Europe and East Asia. Experts explore the roads and barriers towards effective social investment policies, derive practical social policy implications and highlight important lessons for future social policymaking.

Anna Tarrant’s revealing research explores the dynamics and diversity of men’s caring roles in low-income households at various stages of their lives. It sheds light on men’s participation in care and the factors that affect it, including class, culture, work and the impact of austerity.

This book explores the relationships between parents and the social workers making judgements about children involved in child protection cases. It is a powerful tool for students, practitioners and researchers to evaluate future policy and practice models, aiming for the best possible outcomes for families.

This reissued classic contains a selection of Richard Titmuss (1907-1973) most famous writing on social issues. It covers subjects from the position of women in society, changes in family life to the problems of an ageing population, pensions, social security and taxation policy, and the development of the national health service.

The issue of Child Sexual Exploitation is firmly in the public spotlight, but how well is it understood? This much-needed book makes the case for a more thoughtful approach to CSE prevention and a greater use of different theoretical perspectives in the development and delivery of strategies and interventions.

Brings the regional and local to the forefront of social investment debates by showcasing original, evaluative evidence from ten European countries, and provides practical, accessible illustrations of good practice, routes to success, and lessons learned.

Placing children’s experiences, needs and concerns at the centre of its examination of contemporary policies and political discourses surrounding poverty in childhood, this book examines a broad range of structural, institutional and ideological factors common across developed nations and forges a radical new pathway for the future.