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The measurement of the level of protection provided by minimum income programs has often focused on one of two dimensions: adequacy or coverage. The rankings of regions or countries in terms of the protection provided can be very different depending on the chosen outcome. In this paper, we adopt a social welfare approach for measuring welfare protection looking at the effects of adequacy and coverage on economic welfare. Based on standard assumptions of social welfare functions, we propose a parameterized family of indices that satisfy desirable properties. Our empirical illustration using Spanish data confirms that focusing only on standard measures of adequacy may introduce an important bias, making it difficult to properly identify real differences in terms of social welfare among programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few empirical studies have explored how microfinance institutions (MFIs) reach important social goals such as outreach to the poor. While MFIs have the dual goals of pursuing both social and economic values, the impact of their profitability on outreach can vary. Based on the institutional logics perspective, this study predicts that if MFIs follow commercial logic, they are more likely to pursue high profitability rather than to increase outreach; however, if MFIs follow social-welfare logic, they tend to tolerate relatively low profitability and try their best to extend outreach. Therefore, in the curve of distribution of MFIs' profitability, there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between MFIs' profitability and outreach to the poor. This relationship is further influenced by a state-level institution-the rule of law. For our empirical analyses, we use a data set of 3,785 organization-year observations from 1,129 MFIs across 98 countries. The results of multilevel mixed models are consistent with our predictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Different demand-side or supply-side instruments can be used in order to encourage the use of formal childcare. With the budgetary constraints of the last two decades, some countries have changed their childcare policy leading to the implementation of demand-side rather than supply-side instruments. The introduction of demand-side subsidies to encourage the use of formal childcare services was a major change in Belgium since, until 1988, subsidies were directly granted to childcare services providers in order to reduce their running costs. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of both demand-side and supply side subsidies on the use of formal childcare by low-income families. From this perspective, we analyzed, on the one hand, the effect of the tax deduction instrument implemented in Belgium and, on the other hand, the effect of an increase in the provision of childcare places on the use of formal childcare services. We found that the choice of policy instruments is not neutral in terms of access to formal childcare for families belonging to different income groups. Indeed, while a higher supply of childcare places increases the probability of access for low-income families, the tax deduction can have a mixed outcome as far as access to childcare is concerned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study examined the role of engaged parenting in explaining longitudinal associations between maternal perceptions of social network support and whether youth engage in delinquent behaviors during the transition into adolescence. The sample included 432 low-income, African American and Latino youth (49% female) and their mothers participating in “Welfare, Children, and Families: A Three City Study”. Results from longitudinal SEM analyses demonstrated that social network support was associated positively with mothers’ engaged parenting as youth transitioned into early adolescence. Engaged parenting, which functioned as a mediating variable, was associated with less youth delinquency during transitions into middle adolescence. Taken together, social network supports appeared to facilitate mothers’ abilities to remain engaged with their children and to deter youth from becoming involved in delinquent behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese Perceived Causes of Poverty Scale (CPCPS) was constructed to assess Chinese people’s beliefs about poverty. Four categories of explanations of poverty are covered in this scale: personal problems of poor people, lack of opportunities to escape from poverty, exploitation of poor people, and bad fate. Based on the responses of 1,519 Chinese secondary school students to the CPCPS, confirmatory factor analyses provided support for these four dimensions of the scale. By splitting the total sample into two sub-samples, further analyses showed that the CPCPS was invariant with reference to factor structure (configural invariance), factor loadings (construct-level metric covariance) and factor variances/covariances across different samples. The present findings are generally consistent with the previous findings based on exploratory factor analyses and they provide support for the use of the CPCPS for assessing beliefs about causes of poverty in Chinese people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996 dramatically transformed the structure and goals of the public welfare system in the United States. The vast body of research and evaluation generated by the 1996 welfare reforms largely overlooked nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) despite their substantial historical and contemporary involvement in the delivery of social services to low-income populations. Therefore, this paper presents a unique assessment of PRWORA's implications based on the perspective of 90 social service NGOs operating in the Detroit metropolitan area. Examination of their services, staffing, budgets, and clients reveals many changes experienced by NGOs between 1996 and 2000 related to the welfare reforms. Overall, the findings suggest an increased role for social service NGOs in the “public” welfare system as well as concerns regarding their capacity to adequately fulfill this growing responsibility in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses welfare reform. Welfare reform has contributed to an astounding decline in welfare use. There has been a great decline in welfare use even before most recipients reach a time limit. This decline has been seen by many as evidence of welfare reform's success. In the 1960s, the administration of welfare bureaucratized in reaction to the discretionary, sometimes discriminatory, practices of the past. Welfare became, in a phrase that grated on many people's nerves, an entitlement. Welfare reform explicitly eliminated any entitlement to cash assistance.

Outlines the range of policy choices that United States states have made to shift to a work-oriented assistance system. State efforts to help welfare recipients move from welfare to employment; Example of the state of Virginia; Finding that welfare recipients find employment, though the employment is entry-level and paying less than eight dollars per hour.

Current antipoverty initiatives have been given impetus by the rediscovery of an "underclass"--a social category widely considered to be a distinctive sub- set of the poor. In the ensuing discussion, this aggregate has been relabled the Estranged Poor after Hochschild (1989). Social interventions granted the imprimatur of success are most frequently presented and/or interpreted as if they are applicable to all of the poor. It is argued here that this is an unwarranted exaggeration of effectiveness. The concept of a helping mismatch is introduced suggesting an intrinsic lack of articulation between formal agents of social intervention and the Estranged Poor who are therefore bypassed by even the most successful programs. Strains to exaggeration are described and explained as consequences of structural aspects of the remedial action system. Sociologists involved in social intervention have largely ignored the selectivity of success and too often prescribed directions for remedial action, which are irrelevant to the Estranged Poor. To acknowledge the limits of success can only encourage a more rational pursuit of our humanistic goals through the development of different approaches and strategies and, not incidentally, contribute to the credibility of our profession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the prevalence of street children in Brazil in 1992. Their population is 30 million. These children travel down the hillsides to the wealthy beach districts of downtown Rio de Janeiro, where they sell candy, beg, steal, or prostitute, to get food. They are living indicators of the big number of poor people among the country's population of 150 million. Income distribution in the country was classified by the World Bank as the world's third most inequitable. A 115 billion dollar foreign debt and years of rampant inflation have gutted social welfare programs.

This article examines the influence of the underclass on political and social culture in the U.S. Whether public opinion is rallied to address the plight of the underclass, whose problems resist conventional efforts at social engineering, or the predicament of the working poor, has significant implications for future directions of social policy. The problems of the working poor do not usually require intensive program; to change norms and behaviors. Measures such as extending health insurance coverage of Medicaid to low income families, increasing the federal Earned Income Tax Credit and introducing state Earned Income Tax Credits and revising the mortgage interest deductions to incorporate a refundable mortgage tax credit would do much to promote the security of the working poor. These are costly measures, but they do not involve the creation of new bureaucracies manned by trainers, counselors, therapists and other change agents--the benefits go directly to the working poor. Of course, social policy can move on more than one front at the same time. However, if society cannot ensure a modicum of security and material well-being for those who work and play by the rules, how can any policies be designed to bring the underclass into the mainstream?

Comments on the paper "The Evolving Welfare System," by Sar A. Levitan, published in the January 1986 issue of "Society." Claim that the poor are supported in a greater way by private charities than by the U.S. federal government; Assertion that bulk of the welfare state consists of transfers of funds back and forth within the middle class; Opinion the U.S. welfare system under the New Deal government makes it easier for the middle class to get transfer payments from the federal government.