Welfare & benefit systems

This book provides an overview and comparative analyses of the arrangements for the care of children, disabled and older people in Europe, within the context of changing labour markets and welfare systems. Gender, family change, social integration and citizenship are all explored in a report based on original empirical, cross-national research.

During the consolidation of the Welfare State in the 1940s, and its reshaping in the 2010s, the boundaries between the state, voluntary action, the family and the market were called into question. This book explores the impact of these ‘transformational moments’ on the role, position and contribution of voluntary action to social welfare.

Exploring the untold experiences of family members and friends caring for the children of female prisoners in England and Wales, this book analyses the complex challenges of the ‘family sentence’ they serve and the realities of their disenfranchised status in society, policy and practice.

This book analyses fresh empirical evidence which demonstrates the gendered impacts of the new conditionality regime within Universal Credit. Drawing on in-depth interviews with mothers, it offers a compelling narrative and policy recommendations to make the social citizenship framework in the UK more inclusive of women.

This book offers Ireland’s introduction of a welfare-to-work market as a case study that speaks to wider international debates in social and public policy about the role of market governance in intensifying the turn towards more regulatory and conditional welfare models on the ground.

The political and economic landscape of UK social security provision has changed significantly since the 2008 financial crisis. This fully revised, restructured and updated 3rd edition of a go-to text book covers all the key policy changes and their implications since the elections of 2010 and 2015.

Child welfare, state welfare and parenting issues are high on the UK policy agenda; this timely book examines recent policy developments, parental perspectives about parenting and child-rearing and parental rights to 'welfare state support'.

This original book offers a critical overview of the role of religious values, actors and institutions in the development of social welfare provision in Britain, combining historical discussion of the relationship between religion and social policy in Britain with a comparative theoretical discussion covering Europe and North America.

'An offer you can't refuse' compares, in depth, international 'work-for-welfare' (workfare) policies objectively for the first time. It considers well-publicised schemes from the United States alongside more overlooked examples of workfare in Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, The Netherlands and Norway.

There have been major shifts in the framework of social policy and welfare across Europe. Adopting a multi-level, comparative and interdisciplinary approach, this book develops a critical analysis of policy change and welfare reform in Europe.

Through eleven country studies, this book challenges the common view that social protection is exclusively a national concern with EU social policy fragmented and merely symbolic.

This is the classic assessment of the state of child well-being in the UK. This fourth edition has been updated to review the latest evidence, including the impact of the economic crisis and austerity measures since 2008. An essential resource.