Social Welfare and Social Insurance

Over the last three decades Britain has witnessed an unprecedented rise in the number of people receiving welfare benefits that has provoked fears of a growing underclass and mass welfare dependency. This book provides the first comprehensive analysis of the reasons for this growth and subjects notions of welfare dependency to empirical test.

This book maps out the contours of the European 'social investment' strategy, both at the ideational level and in terms of the policies implemented throughout Europe. It will appeal to both social policy scholars and policy experts.

In this timely book, the author, with his life-long experience of international social security, advocates reinstating social insurance by reducing the volume of income redistribution, increasing the transparency of money flows and improving citizen information.

"Understanding social welfare movements" is the first text to bring together social policy and social movement studies. The book provides a timely and much needed overview of the changing nature of social welfare as it has been shaped by the demands of social movements.

Addressing the rapidly shifting politics of the minimum wage in six English-speaking countries, Shaun Wilson analyses minimum wage policies within a political-economy narrative. Topical and poignant, this book identifies the success of living wage campaigns as central to both welfare state change and alternatives to the Basic Income.

This important book explores the meaning of social justice and examines how it translates into the everyday concerns of public and social policy.

Drawing on examples across a range of policy areas, this important new book examines the radically changing system of governance and delivery of social welfare in the UK and assesses how changes in social policy and governance interact in the delivery of social welfare.

This important text maps out ways in which the disadvantaged have been affected by legal responses to COVID-19. Contributors tackle issues including virtual trials, adult social care, racism, tax and spending, education and more. Offering an account of the damage, this book demonstrates positive and productive future responses.

One of the few resources available to provide an overview of human need as a key concept in the social sciences, this accessible and engaging second edition models existing practical and theoretical approaches to human need while also proposing a radical alternative.

A vital challenge to the internationally accepted policy and practice consensus that intervention to shape parenting in the early years, underpinned by interpretations of brain science, is the way to prevent disadvantage.

This classic text provides the first comprehensive examination of the social policy of New Labour. It compares and contrasts current policy areas with both the Old Left and the New Right and applies the concept of the 'third way' to both individual policy areas and broader cross-cutting themes.

Britain's New Labour government claims to support the cause of human rights. At the same time, it claims that we can have no rights without responsibility and that dependency on the state is irresponsible. The ethics of welfare offers a critique of this paradox and discusses the ethical conundrum it implies for the future of social welfare.