Social welfare and social insurance

Demonstrating the relevance of theory to political and policy debates and practice, this dynamic and fully updated second edition helps students to grasp the real-life implications of social policy theory. It includes a new chapter featuring debates around disability, sexuality and the environment.

Drawing on a wealth of qualitative longitudinal evidence, this book casts light on women’s lived experiences of welfare and work. It uncovers the hidden gendered bias of conditional welfare reforms to challenge dominant political discourses, policy design and practice norms.

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.

This timely analysis sets out the full impacts of policy reform, austerity and marketisation on our country’s mental health services. Rooted in the experiences of service users and providers, it provides valuable perspectives on our evolving practical and organisational responses to mental distress.

From Margaret Thatcher’s first government to austerity politics, Ian Cummins traces changing attitudes to imprisonment and the social state. With fresh insights and critical thinking, he demonstrates how increasingly punitive approaches to crime and welfare have shaped the neoliberal economy and created stigma around those living in poverty.

Three leading sociologists examine Italy’s regime of poverty and the frequently misunderstood context of familialism in this in-depth study. With analysis of poverty’s roots and development and modern trends including the migrant ‘new poor’, it adds European perspectives for a better understanding of a persistent crisis.

This original collection analyses the global experience of health care support workers (HSWs) and examines their interface with the health professions, regulatory practice risks, employment challenges and the dilemmas of an ageing population. Crucial future policy recommendations are also made for a world becoming increasingly dependent on HSWs.

This is the first full-length biography of Richard Titmuss, a pioneer of social policy research and an influential figure in Britain’s post-war welfare debates.

The strengths, weaknesses and enforcement of concepts of international human rights receive a new social policy perspective in this insightful review of a pressing debate. Drawing on examples from around the world, it sets out the evolving role of universal rights in domestic and international policy and human welfare.

This inter-disciplinary study considers the past, present and future of mental health services and community care. From the origins of provision as we know it in the 1960s, it sets out the political, economic and bureaucratic factors behind recent crises and considers what the founding principles of community care tell us about the way forward.

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.

Drawing on a two-year multi-platform initiative, this book by award-winning journalist and author Mary O’Hara, asks how we can overturn the portrayal of poverty once and for all. Crucially, she turns to the real experts to try to find answers – the people who live it.