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The association of societal-level structural factors with stereotypes and stigma can be examined using the stereotype content model (SCM). The main aim of the current study was to review and synthesize all available research data of SCM dimensions of Warmth and Competence perceptions of welfare recipients, and compare the ratings in different types of social welfare regimes (Nordic, Conservative, and Liberal). To do this, we reviewed all published literature using the SCM methodology to assess stereotypes of welfare recipients and perfomed a cross-national meta-regression of 17 datasets (total N = 1797) drawn from six countries representing three types of welfare regimes. In each of the studies, participants were asked how others in their country viewed welfare recipients on the dimensions of warmth and competence. We predicted and found support for the hypothesis that countries with a Nordic welfare regime have a warmer cultural stereotype of welfare recipients than countries with a Liberal or Conservative regime. However, the expected association between Liberal welfare regime and incompetence stereotypes was not found. Supplementary analyses showed that the type of welfare regime better explained country differences in welfare stereotypes than country differences in income inequality. This study demonstrates how stereotypes of warmth and competence vary across welfare regimes, adding to knowledge about how societal-level factors are related to cultural stereotypes.

In the founding document of the British welfare state, the Beveridge Report, ‘ignorance’ was identified as one of the ‘five giants on the road of reconstruction’. Dealing with ignorance meant developing education and greater equality of education to all children, with local authorities having a vital role to play. This paper focuses on the development of education policy in the UK by analysing legislative provision related to the role played by central and local government, and equality of opportunity. It argues that there have been notable changes across all phases of education. In England, central government plays a greater role than previously, and has created enduring state-controlled markets in which education institutions operate; local authorities have a reduced role. This contrasts with Scotland and Wales. Ideas about equality of opportunity have also shifted over time and vary not only between different phases of education, but also between the countries of the UK. Whilst equality of access has increased, equality of educational outcome remains elusive.

The international criminology and social policy literature have long explored possible connections between social welfare and crime. However, existing studies tend towards high‐level comparisons of crime versus total aggregate welfare spend, overlooking sub‐national contextual differences between and within countries. There are also few studies that deeply explore this link in the Antipodes, including in Australia: a settler colony and (neo)liberal welfare state with a recent strong coupling of punitive social and penal policies that disproportionately impact Indigenous populations. This paper attends to these gaps by examining the welfare‐crime link in remote Indigenous Queensland (Australia). We use crime‐report data and an interrupted time series design to explore the effects of dynamic social welfare policies during 2020–2021: a period that saw a temporary shift away from a strict neoliberal welfare model (i.e., heavy conditionality, low benefit rates) to more supportive and decommodifying social welfare in response to the COVID‐19 induced economic recession. Our findings align with previous studies that suggest more supportive and decommodifying policies are associated with lower crime. We also bring greater nuance to how the crime‐welfare link is understood within the ‘structural complexity of [Australian] settler colonialism’ (Wolfe. Journal of Genocide Research. 2006;8:392), by illuminating how a politics of race animates social policies that can either produce or reduce criminogenic strains and, thus, socially construct crime in the image of the Indigenous ‘Other’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Social Policy & Administration is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article reviews the claim that economic policymakers in the post-COVID UK should learn the lessons of the 1940s. Post-1945 policies relating to delivering full employment, levelling up, upgrading social security, dealing with the public debt legacy, and addressing the productivity puzzle are considered. The article finds many reasons to criticise the policies of the 1940s. Although, superficially, outcomes look good, a closer examination reveals significant failings notably concerning design of the welfare state and supply-side policy for growth. The 1940s do not provide a good way to address the productivity slowdown or twenty-first-century social insurance.

Care occupations are gendered and remain relatively poorly paid, particularly in the United States. Prior research on the ‘care penalty’ primarily points to individual, relational, and market-valuation factors in explaining the relative earnings of care workers. This study integrates these explanations with a comparative institutional perspective. Using higher-quality data and methods than previous comparative research in the field—that is, harmonized micro-data from the Current Population Survey and EU-SILC from 2005 to 2016, country and year fixed effects models, and a counterfactual analysis—we find that national variance in labour market and welfare state institutions explains most of the difference in the relative earnings of reproductive care workers between the United States and European countries. Higher rates of collective bargaining coverage, stronger employment protection and welfare state spending contribute to higher relative earnings for reproductive care occupations, and lower relative earnings for high-status nurturant care occupations. Differences in the relative earnings of care workers appear to be mostly a construct of social policy and labour market institutions rather than individual, relational, and market-valuation factors.

Nordic countries are known for having extensive welfare services, a highly compressed wage structure owing to strong social partners, as well as effective regulation and governance in public administration. Various typologies capture aspects of the institutional features of families of nations across various policy areas, showing that there is a specific Nordic variant of political economy. While there is an extensive literature focusing on socio-economic outcomes in the Nordic countries, there is less scholarly focus on the linkages between the regulatory processes, and their policy output, in response to various challenges. This volume examines how exogenous challenges (market liberalization promoted by EU integration and the gig economy, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic) and endogenous challenges in the welfare state (regulation of child-care quality and retirement ages) are tackled in a selection of Nordic countries. After a bibliometric analysis on the state of the literature, features of the Nordic model are presented. Then, the contributions of the articles to the special issue are summarized, after which lessons for other models of political economy are pinpointed. We find that although there is high variation within the Nordics in the studies of the special issue, there is a trend whereby, over time, a broader range of actors involved in the policy and regulatory process. Although not perfect, challenges are solved incrementally and often at an early stage. In other words, the Nordic regulatory model is highly adaptable to different challenges. Thus, the Nordic model does present crucial lessons for other types of political economy.

The Beveridge Report listed ‘Squalor’ as one of the ‘five giants on the road to reconstruction’, with the use of the term pointing to a broader concern than individual houses ‘unfit for human habitation’. ‘Squalor’, said Beveridge, ‘arises mainly through haphazard distribution of industry and population’ indicated anxiety about pollution and the ‘mean’, dark streets in cities and industrial towns. Apart from these references, the Beveridge Report made no other mentions of ‘Squalor’ but in later publications, Beveridge advocated New Towns and the involvement of voluntary housing associations in housing supply as remedies to the problem. This article reviews the context and history of Beveridge's Giant of Squalor, considering how Beveridge dealt with the ‘problem of rent’ the attempts by governments to tackle the issue, examines the contributions made by New Towns and housing associations, records progress in improving minimum housing standards and investigates potential policies to overcome these challenges that might be included in a ‘New Beveridge’ Report.

This paper explores the changes to social security and health proposed in the Beveridge Report through the lens of the framework proposed by Mahoney and Thelen for exploring the relationship between political and institutional contexts, change-agents, and types of institutional change. We find that, in terms of social security, the Beveridge Report led to 'layering' in that it both built on an inherited legacy of institutions from the earlier Liberal Reforms. Although Beveridge assumed the existing of a national health service for his social security plans to work, he did not specify what form such a service could take. Bevan had the advantage of being a Minister of Health with a large government majority, but had to deal with both internal (in Cabinet) and external (primarily from the medical profession) attempts to veto his reforms. Bevan's changes to healthcare have to be seen in that context, as well as in relation to his own pragmatism, in converting the wartime Emergency Medical Service into the National Health Service. By utilising the full Mahoney and Thelen framework in two cases that were near-contemporary with one another, but when contrasted with one another, we show the potential of the framework in cross-case analysis in illuminating the relationship between political and institutional context, change-agents, the type of change that results.

In the history of social policy in advanced industrial societies, the 1942 Beveridge Report stands as one of the most influential government-sponsored reports ever published. In this article, we explore how the principles and the policy proposals formulated in the report diffused to other countries and how domestic actors adapted them to their local context through policy translation processes. The social policy ideas that Beveridge put forward in his 1942 report influenced post-war policy debates in ways that varied greatly from country to country. To illustrate this claim, we analyse the reception and policy impact of this report over time in three different welfare states: Canada, Denmark, and France. This comparison shows how Beveridge's ideas influenced policy debates in different countries through translation processes that adapted these ideas to each country's institutional and political context.

Debt has become an essential part of many people's daily lives. This paper develops a new comparative political economy perspective on the relationship between welfare states and household borrowing. I argue that the ways in which welfare states distribute benefits and credit regimes provide access to credit affect how individuals address social risks and, as a consequence, shape patterns of indebtedness. Permissive credit regimes substitute for social policies in limited welfare states, pushing economically disadvantaged groups into debt. Alternatively, credit markets complement social policies in the provision of financial liquidity in comprehensive welfare states, protecting vulnerable groups through government benefits while allowing less-protected affluent groups to borrow money. In restrictive regimes, people instead rely on savings, expenditure cuts, and family support. I test these arguments using an original measure of credit regime permissiveness, cross-national survey data, and full-population administrative records from Denmark and panel data from the United States.

Critics of the modern American welfare state allege that safety net benefits discourage work by providing sufficient resources to replace earned income. Yet, research in social policy has long depicted the US safety net as parsimonious and inadequate relative to its European counterparts, even when considering benefits from programs that reward favorable work histories. Other theories predict variability across states and regional clustering even amid low overall spending. Moreover, the recent COVID-19 outbreak has exposed the insufficiency and lack of resilience of the major US safety nets in the face of unprecedented unemployment. This study examines the benefit expenditures on three safety net programs available to American families with recently unemployed breadwinners—Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and Unemployment Insurance—as a proportion of median annual income for a given state-year between 1997 and 2017. We examine the overall spending as well as variability and clustering across states. We find that the average benefit expenditure comprises only 42% of median income, and while there is substantial variability around this average, only one state is above 78%. We also find that spending levels appear to be regionally clustered. We conclude that safety nets for the recently unemployed and their families are weak relative to earned income and that the extent of this weakness varies by state, with some regional patterning. © 2021 Policy Studies Organization

This article focuses on bodily care as the basis of economy. Drawing on Luther and Scandinavian Creation Theology, with an emphasis on shared situatedness and society, I discuss contemporary threats to welfare states. Conservative arguments in favor of family and small communities, combined with charity, provide a cultural/religious alibi for a global “neoliberalism,” where citizens are replaced by customers, and where power and resources from professions are transferred to controllers, due to the logic of NPM. In a critical discussion with Hannah Arendt, I argue that we need a politics that reinforce and develop new social contracts, national as well as international, based on an inclusive demos. A pre-political Lutheran ethos can give inspiration to act for the common good, transcending any homogenous ethnos. The local and national are crucial for sustaining body and mind. However, this is increasingly combined with global and planetary entanglements. Interdependency reveals itself as planetary, where disappearing rain forests, melting icebergs, and the ongoing extinction of species are threats to our shared future. Therefore, rather than emphasizing the individual as a consumer on a global market with neutral administrators administering control and obedience, new kinds of contracts are needed. Core values of the pre-political, such as care for bodily life and minds, may, in collaboration with national and international political assemblies, develop a planetary consciousness able to act for the common good, for a global demos with structures of solidarity.

ispartof: NATIONS AND NATIONALISM status: Published online

How have welfare states responded to the coronavirus pandemic? In this introductory article, we provide a synopsis of papers that comprise this special issue on social policy responses to COVID-19, an overview of some of the key questions they raise, and some provisional answers to these questions. Our conclusions are threefold: first, these social policy responses, while entailing new developments in many countries, nonetheless reflect, at least in part, existing national policy legacies. Second, these responses can be understood as a form of "emergency Keynesianism," which is characterized by the massive use of deficit spending during economic crises, with the aim of to supporting rather than challenging core capitalist institutions. Third, there are clear differences in terms of the nature of the reforms enacted during the initial phase of the COVID-19 crisis as compared to reforms enacted as a response to the 2008 financial crisis.

The past decades saw the expansion of the geography of comparative welfare state research beyond the three worlds embracing a heterogeneous set of mainly middle-income countries. In response, two leading state-of-the-art tools for measuring welfare states through social rights, Social Citizenship Indicators Program (SCIP) and Comparative Welfare Entitlements Dataset (CWED), integrated many new countries into their datasets. Comparative welfare state research has yet to address the extent to which these measurement tools originally developed for measuring classic welfare states work equally well for measuring welfare states beyond the three worlds. In this article, we explore a number of challenges these datasets face in measuring these new cases. These challenges, we believe, stem from a set of key institutional characteristics widely prevalent in these welfare states. These characteristics are overt and hidden conditionalities, unconventional instruments, informal practices, nature of changes in statutory pension age and labour market characteristics of the representative worker. We propose a set of solutions to refine these datasets for comparing all cases, old and new. We conclude by drawing lessons for comparative research focusing not only on welfare states beyond the three worlds but also on the three worlds themselves.

This note describes how research on the link between economic openness and government size has changed over time. Early interpretations suggested that countries develop welfare states to compensate for volatility caused by economic openness (the compensation hypothesis). Recent findings have cast doubts on this interpretation. For example, more open economies are on average not more volatile, and economic openness does not unambiguously increase the social security demands from voters. Some recent studies suggest that economic openness is particularly beneficial for countries with high taxes and high-income equality. A re-interpretation of the compensation hypothesis is thus possible: Through trade, the citizens in large welfare states enjoy some of the benefits associated with cheap labour and high wage dispersion despite their domestic economy being characterized by high real wages, high taxes and a compressed wage distribution. (Less)

Previous studies have suggested that Europeans' support for introducing an EU minimum-income scheme would be determined by a hope-or-fear reasoning. Where Northern/Western Europeans may fear that their generous benefits are levelled out, Southern/Eastern Europeans may be critical of their country's welfare policies and therefore have hopes for a higher level of benefits and services coming from Europe. We tested this expected mediation effect in 18 EU member states. Results show that both performance evaluation of social benefits and expectations about EU interference predict support for an EU minimum-income scheme, following expected regional dividing lines. However, against theoretical expectations, there has been no substantial mediation effect. Where support for an EU minimum income scheme is based mostly on social dividing lines, expectations of the EU are related more to contextual differences. Citizens from countries that are net-receivers of the EU have higher hopes that EU interference will lead to higher benefits and services.

In line with previous research, we confirm that welfare programs in Hungary are poorly targeted in terms of socio-economic status (SES). However, by adding age to our models, we demonstrate that even if the status is irrelevant in explaining access to social benefits and services, age is not. Applying simple regression techniques, we compare both the theoretical importance (based on regression coefficients) and the dispersion importance (using Shapley-value decomposition of the R2) of age and SES in explaining the receipt of and contributions to both in-kind and in-cash benefits at the level of the general government in Hungary. We conclude that what appears to be a dysfunctional instrument in alleviating poverty and inequality in a univariate model is actually a channel of resource reallocation that connects working-age people to children and to the elderly when the model includes two predictors.

Political theories of the modern state describe a rise of the regulatory healthcare state, balancing the imperatives of cost control and quality assurance and welfare norms such as solidarity. This paper analyses the unique case of Switzerland, where the rise of the regulatory healthcare state occurred late and incompletely, with the adoption of the Federal Health Insurance Law in 1994. The Swiss federal state pursues the social objective of universal access to healthcare through social health insurance regulation. This paper demonstrates that economic efficiency has not been the primary goal of healthcare coverage within the Swiss regulatory healthcare state despite rising costs. As another exceptional feature, Switzerland has diverged from the traditional path of judicial behavior in the regulatory state. This paper critically dissects how the Swiss Federal Court has become a crucial actor, imposing limits on access to healthcare and shaping decision-making criteria for social regulation, such as cost-benefit and cost-impact analysis. Through this judicialization of limit-setting, the judiciary engages in an ongoing constitutional dialogue on the limits of the regulatory welfare state and its sustainability for the future.

The social investment perspective has become a prominent topic in both social policy discussions and theoretical considerations regarding welfare state change. Empirical evidence on how this perspective has affected welfare state provision is much scarcer—and sometimes contradictory. This article aims to assess whether welfare state benefits increasingly have incorporated elements of social investment, and what has triggered the reforms made to the benefits. To achieve these aims, we examined two poverty relief benefits in Austria, namely, unemployment assistance and social assistance. We scrutinized changes made to these benefits from 2000 onwards. To identify their (potentially changing) contributions towards social investment, we applied a framework that considers the economic aims of the paradigm (while neglecting other aims). According to this framework, a social investment benefit intends to improve the human capital of its recipients, enhance their employability, and/or enhance their employment integration. The findings suggest that the three elements of social investment were particularly relevant in reforming social assistance. However, the changes implemented were incoherent and do not support the hypothesis of an ever-increasing significance of social investment. The main triggers for reform were the political ideologies of (changing) governments. These ideologies determined the direction of changes made to both social assistance and unemployment assistance. If social investment thus ought to be more than just a theoretical concept or a nonbinding policy recommen dation, modifications made to welfare state benefits would need to follow a more coherent path. Regarding poor relief benefits, Austria has not pursued such a track (yet).

In this paper we examine whether refugee flows are associated with an increase in electoral support for populist-right parties. The empirical evidence on this so far remains mixed. We argue that refugee inflows alone are an inaccurate predictor of the success of populist-right parties. Rather, refugee inflows can lead to a rise in electoral support for populist-right parties where traditional welfare states are expansive —the so called ‘welfare chauvinism’ argument, wherein natives already dependent on high levels of social welfare are likely to see refugees as interlopers who free-ride on welfare and thereby threaten the welfare of locals. Using panel data on 27 OECD countries during 1990–2014 period (25 years), we find no evidence to suggest that refugee inflows per se increase electoral support for populist-right parties. However, a positive effect of refugee inflows on electoral support for populist-right parties is conditional upon a higher degree of social welfare and unemployment benefit spending, which supports the propositions of 'welfare chauvinism.' Moreover, support for populist-right parties increase when the degree of labor market regulations and welfare spending is high. Our results are robust to alternative data, sample and estimation techniques.

Welfare-state transformation and entrepreneurial urban politics in Western welfare states since the late 1970s have yielded converging trends in the transformation of the dominant Fordist paradigm of social housing in terms of its societal function and institutional and spatial form. In this article I draw from a comparative case study on two cities in Germany to show that the resulting new paradigm is simultaneously shaped by the idiosyncrasies of the country's national housing regime and local housing policies. While German governments have successively limited the societal function of social housing as a legitimate instrument only for addressing exceptional housing crises, local policies on providing and organizing social housing within this framework display significant variation. However, planning and design principles dominating the spatial forms of social housing have been congruent. They may be interpreted as both an expression of the marginalization of social housing within the restructured welfare housing regime and a tool of its implementation according to the logics of entrepreneurial urban politics.

The aim of this study was to determine whether the effects of work and family reconciliation policy on the gender wage gap are moderated by institutional contexts of production and welfare regime. Using time‐series analysis for 13 countries from 1981 to 2015, the study revealed a strong association between childcare and a lower gender wage gap in the Coordinated Market Economies (CMEs)/social democratic welfare states but not in Liberal Market Economies (LMEs)/liberal welfare states. The study also found that the impact of leave generosity on the gender wage gap in CMEs/social democratic welfare states is less salient than in CMEs/continental welfare states. This study highlights the extent to which family policy affects the gender wage gap hinges on how each country organises its market coordination and welfare institutions and pushes the current literature forward to a question of ‘what kinds of’ family policy matters in ‘which’ production and welfare regimes.

Unprecedented numbers of Indigenous peoples in Canada and Australia are working in the mining industry. This study explores the proposition that Indigenous mining employment is a form of local development for these peoples. We establish links between the literatures on Indigenous work in the mining industry with development theory. For employment to be considered a form of local development we maintain that it must be understood through the framework of self-determination, as this applies within a colonial context. A range of potentially enabling requirements is identified, including effective regional governance, career progression, gender equity and equality, and free prior and informed consent. We argue that, where such conditions are not in place, Indigenous peoples in settler states, such as Australia and Canada, risk swapping one kind of dependency for another: the welfare state for the mining economy. It is important that future research test the legitimacy of these conditions, while exploring alternative value propositions when mining companies seek to negotiate access to Indigenous peoples land and resources.

Active labour market policies (ALMP) are important tools that welfare states utilise to influence the labour market. This study analyses whether different types of active labour market policies ar ...

Despite extensive attention being paid to the effects of the Universal Basic Income (UBI) on society at large, little critical analysis has been developed on the relationship between gender inequality and UBI. The purpose of this article is to first reflect on the feminist arguments in favour of UBI and then problematises some of these points by also reflecting on other available policies. By looking into the role of women’s work in both productive and reproductive activities, it is argued that UBI should not be disregarded as a social policy. However, its transformative capacity to empower women and to strengthen their role in society should not be overestimated. In order to address this gap, policymakers should address misconceptions around gender norms and acknowledge the multiple forms of women’s work across the social relations of production and reproduction.

This article argues that child protection agencies must provide mandatory training about the Aboriginal experience within the welfare state and the resultant trauma that exists in Australian Indigenous communities. This article highlights the areas of curriculum to be included in training for welfare practitioners working with Aboriginal families in the New South Wales child protection system. The training content explores the Stolen Generations' trauma experiences of child loss and examines the dichotomy between past child welfare laws and present child protection laws and intergenerational racism. Another key component of the training comprises information about the impacts of trauma on brain development.

Non‐take‐up of means tested benefits is a widespread phenomenon in European welfare states. The paper assesses whether the reform that replaced the monetary social assistance benefit by the minimum income benefit in Austria in 2010/11 has succeeded in increasing take up rates. We use EU‐SILC register data together with the tax‐benefit microsimulation model EUROMOD/SORESI. The results show that the reform led to a significant decrease of non‐take‐up from 53 to 30% in terms of the number of households and from 51 to 30% in terms of expenditure. Following the three‐t's (threshold, trigger, and trade‐off) introduced by Van Oorschot, estimates of a two‐stage Heckman selection model as well as expert interviews indicate that the taken measures include both threshold and trade‐off characteristics. Elements such as the higher degree of anonymity within the claiming process, the provision of health insurance, binding minimum standards, the limitation of the maintenance obligations, new regulations related to the liquidation of wealth, as well as the general coverage of the benefit reform in the media and in public discussions led to an improved access to the benefit.

Conditionality in Australia's welfare state has sustained a significant academic critique, including the critique published in this journal. In this Special Issue of the Australian Journal of Social Issues, we contribute to the existing critical literature on welfare conditionality. This Special Issue aimed to provide empirical scrutiny into welfare reform and conditionality in Australia. The articles extend our understanding of welfare conditionality's underpinnings and its lived effects. These case studies illuminate the aspects of welfare conditionality that have not received enough attention: the role of technology, the question of mobility, the relationship with housing and the little thought given to the state's role in mutual obligation. What is clear is that the individualisation of structural problems is not just a theoretical and political misstep ripe for critique, but leads to the formulation of policies that impact marginalised people's capacity to shape life on their own terms. Through different empirical foci, all papers in this Special Issue demonstrate how welfare conditionality is put forward as a solution to address the consequences of structural disadvantage.

The dual threat of a US-China confrontation and the rise of populism in the West due, in part, to the gradual decay of the welfare state, paint an ominous picture for the future of the post-war status quo of ever-expanding prosperity. Hegemonic competition between the incumbent superpower (the USA) and the challenger (China) framed as the Thucydides’ Trap and adverse demographic and financial trends are the main causes behind both crises. In this paper we argue that amidst deteriorating demographics, the sustainability of the Western welfare state could be significantly enhanced by positioning Western institutional investments in the regions across India and South East Asia - areas with strong modernization dynamics and the world’s nascent most populous middle class. Such a policy could generate long-term higher risk-adjusted returns for Western pension funds, especially if Western investors look for complementarities with China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The proposed geographical calibration in Western institutional investments could lead to a relationship of strong reciprocal dependence between economic and social growth in the target regions, exports of Chinese construction and financial capacity, and Western welfare state viability. We call the suggested policy the “welfare state dependence” hypothesis. The key objective of the hypothesis is the promotion of peaceful economic and geo-political co-existence in Eurasia through rational re-alignment of the incentives of Western polities with Eurasian growth. But to make this new approach feasible a number of BRI policy reforms that supports its multilateralization are required.

Promoting fathers' parental leave has recently become of major policy interest in many welfare states. The Korean Government also introduced paid parental leave for working fathers in 2001 and has increasingly strengthened such incentive schemes. However, despite its rapid advancement, fathers' utilisation of parental leave is increasing slowly and most fathers still opt out of their responsibilities for childcare. As sociocultural norms are a primary cause of this low take-up behaviour pattern, this study focuses on the Confucian relational ethics deeply embedded in Korean society. Through in-depth interviews with 15 Korean working couples, this article demonstrates how Confucian relational ethics constrain fathers from enjoying their individual right to parental leave by designating them as last-resort caregivers within families and as forefront workers in the workplace. This study shows the importance of the sociocultural grounding of a society to ordinary citizens when they utilise a social policy in their daily lives. (Less)