Search

Substantial heterogeneity in effects of social policies on health across subgroups may be common, but has not been systematically characterized. Using a sample of 55 contemporary studies on health effects of social policies, we recorded how often heterogeneous treatment effects (HTEs) were assessed, for what subgroups (e.g., male, female), and the subgroup-specific effect estimates expressed as Standardized Mean Differences (SMDs). For each study, outcome, and dimension (e.g., gender), we fit a random-effects meta-analysis. We characterized the magnitude of heterogeneity in policy effects using the standard deviation of the subgroup-specific effect estimates (τ). Among the 44% of studies reporting subgroup-specific estimates, policy effects were generally small ( 0.1 SMDs. For 26% of study-outcome-dimensions, the magnitude of τ indicated that effects of opposite signs were plausible across subgroups. Heterogeneity was more common in policy effects not specified a priori. Our findings suggest social policies commonly have heterogeneous effects on health of different populations; these HTEs may substantially impact disparities. Studies of social policies and health should routinely evaluate HTEs.

The income of citizens reflects the degree of economic development of the country, and in the regional aspect – the degree of economic development of each region. Canada is very similar to Russia in its geographical location, nature and climate, so the standard of living of the population in this country is of interest. One of its indicators is the income of citizens. The state’s approach to personal income taxation reflects the general socio-economic policy in the country. The study analysed the tax burden on personal income in the provinces of Canada in 2000–2022, determined the dynamics of this indicator for the period under review, and identified the existence of correlation between the amount of income and the tax burden on it in the regional aspect. The results obtained found that in Canada, there is a conditional division into eastern provinces with a traditionally high tax burden, western provinces with a national average tax burden, and northern territories with a relatively low tax burden. A certain inverse relationship between the amount of citizens’ income and the tax burden on it has been established. In regions with high incomes, the tax burden is usually lower, and in regions with low incomes, it is generally higher. However, there are regions that are exceptions, which shows the relative financial independence of regional authorities in Canada. The dynamics of the tax burden on personal income in the analysed period reflected the impact of the crises of 2008 and 2020 when it decreased. This fact demonstrates the sensitive response of regional governments to the changing economic situation.

ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to address how household debt and contemporary credit markets seem to be the defining elements in the reshaping of social policy both in developing and developed countries. We start off by recalling how the implementation of income policies as the core of a new social protection paradigm has contributed to promote market-based finance. We take Brazil as a case study to illustrate how this new connection between state guaranteed income policies and credit markets has unfolded resulting in increasing household debt. We show evidence that the connection between household debt and state-provided monetary benefits is effective and significant.

The Federal Republic of Germany has been one of the historically remarkable countries socially and economically. In this context, one of the outstanding issues is undoubtedly the correlation between unemployment and inflation, which is at the intersection of economy and social policy. Therefore, in the study, the unemployment-inflation trade-off in Germany was examined with the help of macroeconomic data in the context of the Modified/Original Phillips Curve, which explores the unemployment-inflation relationship. The empirical study method is time series analysis, and the monthly data set covers the period from January 1992 to April 2023. According to the study's findings, no causality relationship could be detected between unemployment and inflation variables in Germany in the period, neither in the long run nor in the short run. Therefore, it shows that the German economy does not have to put up with the inflation problem in the fight against unemployment and the unemployment problem in the battle against inflation. In this respect, it would be beneficial to thoroughly examine the German labour market structure and monetary policy strategy in the literature.

The article discusses the legal aspects of digital rubles being introduced into the monetary system of Russia in the near future. The author, analyzing current legislation, existing studies, foreign practice on the introduction of similar monetary units and statements of Russian practitioners in the field of public finance, comes to the conclusion that the introduction of a new type of Russian banknotes is a response to sanctions from the so-called “unfriendly states” that create certain risks for the development of the Russian financial system. The author comes to the conclusion that the digital ruble is the next step towards the development of the principles of targeting, efficiency and the purpose of budget funds. In addition, the author comes to the conclusion that the introduction of the digital ruble contributes to the solution of issues such as the effectiveness of social policy and anti-corruption.

he new coronavirus infection, general uncertainty and constant variability of the post-pandemic world influenced transformations in the understanding of age and aging, as well as the emergence of new perspectives in aging research and understanding of this process in the social sciences. Defining age boundaries, understanding the activities of elderly people in the post-pandemic reality and the prospects for researching such activities are important issues for the domestic and foreign scientific community. The article examines the latest publications on the sociology of aging, social policy, health of elderly people and their necessary activities. In total, the author analyzes 1,000 publications released in 2022 and 2023 and devoted to the peculiarities of elderly people’s life after the pandemic. The author uncovers important factors for better integration of elderly people into social life and overcoming the problems caused by the pandemic: activating the social life of elderly people; developing the integration of elderly people into social life; understanding the employment of elderly people as a multi-vector direction, which may include hobbies and their monetization, non-permanent employment or employment for pleasure and communication.

The concept of the social state is one of the elements of the constitutional identity of Ukraine. In the context of the Constitution of Ukraine, the social state is endowed with a number of important legal features and characteristics that can be distinguished on the basis of a systematic analysis of constitutional norms, where the concept of the social state is directly mentioned. This concept is included among the fundamental legal characteristics of the Ukrainian state and, at the same time, among the defining characteristics of the Ukrainian constitutional system. It is presented in the Constitution of Ukraine in an extremely generalized form, without specifying the manifestations of the social state, its features, functions, tasks, etc. The characteristics of the Ukrainian state as a social state cannot be changed in any other way than by amending the Constitution of Ukraine in a particularly complicated constitutional procedure. Any changes in the constitutional and legislative organization of state power or in its implementation should not take place if they are inconsistent with the legal nature of Ukraine as a social state, or directly or indirectly contradict the essence and purpose of the social state as such. The characteristic of the Ukrainian state as a social one is used in the constitutional text as independent, separate, self-sufficient next to other similar, but not identical in the legal sense, characteristics of the same state, such as “democratic” and “legal”. At the same time, the concept of a social state cannot be identified with the concepts of a democratic or legal state, nor can it be defined through them, through their signs, features, and manifestations. The simultaneous application in relation to Ukraine of its constitutional definition as a social state and, next to it, as a democratic and legal state leads to the presence of complex relationships between these characteristics, where each of them acts as an independent manifestation of the current and prospective state existence of Ukraine, but at the same time, all these manifestations have a constitutional and legal character and reflect a certain section of the essence of this state. It should be emphasized that there is an essential connection between the existence of the social state and the functional purpose of the Constitution of Ukraine: the latter, as follows from its preamble, is aimed, in particular, at the development and strengthening of the social state in Ukraine. The concept of the development and strengthening of the social state indicates the constitutionally defined context of its dynamic existence: the existing model of the social state, being a constant and defining legal characteristic of the state of Ukraine, is nevertheless not stable in the constitutional sense, it needs its development and strengthening, first, in the interests of the Ukrainian people, secondly, in a direction that should not lead to distortion of the essence and purpose of the social state, distortion or emasculation of its essence and purpose, thirdly, such development and strengthening should take place within the framework defined by the Constitution of Ukraine.

The article is devoted to the theoretical and legal study of the role and place of the pension system in the mechanism of the social state on the example of the modern Ukrainian legal experience. Based on the analysis of legislation, doctrinal positions and practice of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, the author has formulated the own vision of the substantive and ontological core of pension provision. It is demonstrated that pension provision as a set of legal relations and a real legal phenomenon in the substantive and ontological dimension cannot be identified either with the process of providing an individual with a set of certain social and material services (procedural approach), or with a set of measures taken by the State to meet the needs of an individual for adequate material security upon reaching retirement age or due to adverse social circumstances which exclude their opportunities for active participation in economic and social life. According to the human-centred paradigm, the substantive and ontological essence of pension provision is not only the right (legal possibility) to demand from the state a certain level of pension payments in accordance with certain objective criteria, but also the real possibility to receive such payments in the amount that allows a person to maintain a decent existence, to ensure their key needs in life and social environment, avoiding poverty and social isolation. The importance of the State’s guarantee of the right to pension as a component of the constitutional right to social protection is substantiated. It has been revealed that the social state implements such a social policy which guarantees not only pension payments, but also their amount, frequency of receipt and indexation in accordance with the established procedure, which ensure that every person entitled to a pension has an adequate standard of living, the stability of the established standards of pension provision, the guarantee of this provision, the predictability of the legislative policy of pension provision (in accordance with the concept of legitimate expectations), and the appropriate law enforcement policy of pension provision. It has been proved that in the context of the social state concept, the problem of legislative fixation of the optimal model of pension provision (which would take into account the issues of determining the amount of pension provision, their ranking in various, including special, laws, methods and pace of pension indexation, etc.), taking into account the economic situation of the State and the compliance of such provision with the task of realisation of basic human needs for decent living conditions, requires careful consideration (in accordance with the concept of “space for consideration”). The article emphasises that compliance with the constitutional principles of the social state requires legislative regulation of pension provision on the basis of equity and proportionality, taking into account the State’s obligation to ensure decent living conditions for every citizen of Ukraine.

The research focuses on analyzing and reviewing of corporate social responsibility and social policy. The authors studied the works of domestic and foreign authors who were engaged in the analysis of these problems. The authors identified the factors that influence social policy, such as: political, demographic, medical, social, and others and categorized the typical descriptions of social policy research in the public and private sector. Special attention is paid to the authors’ interpretation of the concept of social and political involvement of the corporation. The authors determined the basic principles of development and implementation of social policy in accordance

The study examines the features of state policy in the field of demography and health care, special attention is paid to the analysis of the main indicators of the quality of life of the population, as well as the results already achieved within the framework of the national projects “Demography” and “Health Care”. The problems of low life expectancy of the population and a decrease in the birth rate have been identified. Based on the results of monitoring of the national projects “Demography” and “Health Care”, it was concluded that they are interconnected and it is possible to achieve the targets only through the successful implementation of both national projects. Based on this, the research suggests measures aimed at improving state policy in the field of demography and health, including the need to strengthen measures aimed at combating neoplasms, including malignant ones, which in turn will have a positive impact on the quality of life of the country’s population.

This study analyzes data on cultural and patriotic events that took place in the city of Belgorod in the period from 2022. The study identified the main trends in the development of such events in the conditions of Special Military Operation. It is concluded that despite the alarming situation that occurred after the shelling, the city of Belgorod continues to show determination and perseverance in organizing mass events based on mechanisms of cooperation between authorities and residents.

Domestic migrant workers living with their employers is one of the major causes of cases of high inequality globally. To ease this problem, the Indonesian government has attempted to empower women ex-migrant workers by prohibiting them from returning to work in the domestic sector abroad. This empowerment program was implemented through the sustainability training program of the Community of Migrant Worker's Families (KKBM) from 2017 to 2019. The government hoped that by focusing on entrepreneurship, former migrant laborers would be able to achieve financial independence. Most of them, however, decided to return to their previous jobs or to work overseas after completing the training. By using a qualitative case study method, this study sought to assess communication strategies and offer solutions; it was focused on the period from March 2019 to October 2019, after the program had ended. The results showed that the bottom-up communication strategy for the empowerment program through KKBM did not work well because the government's communication in the program implementation was conducted vertically and one-way without fully involving women ex-migrant workers or emphasizing the program goals. In addition, the sustainability of the program was not carried out appropriately. Instead, it was only focused on low-power community organizers. Keywords: Women ex-migrant workers, Indonesia, Empowerment program, KKBM, Communicative action, Introduction Since the 1980s in Indonesia, becoming a migrant worker has been a tradition, with the primary motivation being to increase family income (Mulyana & Octavianti, 2018). Most Indonesian women [...]

This article examines the contested impact of financial sanctions on Australian employment services, with government evaluation relying on job‐search theory to justify sanctions while research from sociological and psychological perspectives suggests they exacerbate labour market disadvantages and poverty. The division in perspectives reflects both methodological differences and ethical stances within scholarship. Welfare conditionality scholars propose value pluralism as an approach to reach consensus on shared policy goals across disciplines. This article engages in a simulation of the value plural approach to identify evidence gaps in the research and evaluation of sanctions and conditionality in employment services. The article identifies a research and evaluation agenda for conditionality policy, emphasising the importance of reaching a consensus to advance ethically robust policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Constitutional scholars have long construed the Equal Protection Clause as containing two dueling visions: anticlassification and antisubordination. Scholars advancing the first view contend that the Clause prohibits the government from racially classifying people. But scholars promoting the second view argue that racial classifications are permissible--provided that the government does not engage in racial subjugation. On no issue have these competing perspectives clashed more intensely than affirmative action. Where the anticlassification view deems those policies unconstitutional for exhibiting race consciousness, the antisubordination view finds them permissible because they do not racially subjugate anyone. Conventional antisubordination scholars portray the concept's support for affirmative action as one part of its larger intellectual program that inexorably champions racial egalitarianism. This Article challenges that conventional account by demonstrating that antisubordination's career has been far more protean, complex, and--above all--strange than scholars typically allow. Some of the most reviled opinions in Supreme Court history were predicated upon antisubordination rhetoric, as that concept has been used both to challenge and to maintain racist regimes. Legal luminaries from across the ideological spectrum, moreover, have often contended that affirmative action marks Black and brown people as substandard. Indeed, it is impossible to understand last Term's decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College without foregrounding antisubordination's multiplicity. That decision introduced "antisubordination" into the U.S. Reports, reframed how affirmative action subjugates racial minorities, and witnessed the Justices talking past each other by wielding the concept in divergent fashions. Grappling with antisubordination's complexity remains urgent today because the theory has been exported to an ever-growing, astonishingly diverse array of legal domains. This Article contends neither that antisubordination must be abandoned nor that affirmative action should have been invalidated. To the contrary, it explores arguments designed to shore up antisubordination and to provide alternate grounds for affirmative action's constitutionality. It will no longer do, however, simply to ignore antisubordination's considerable complexity. By tracing the winding, peculiar path of antisubordination, this Article not only recasts Justice Clarence Thomas's much-debated jurisprudence but also clarifies our nation's garbled constitutional discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The National Council of Italian Women (CNDI) was an internationally-oriented confederation of women's associations founded in Rome in 1903, which was affiliated with the International Council of Women (ICW). Previous studies on the Italian Council have considered its origins and the biographical aspects of its members in the first half of twentieth-century Italy, while the Council developments and action during the democratic regime of the second half of the twentieth century have been less studied. First, this article aims to understand the impact of female associations on Italian social policy developments by examining the CNDI between 1958 and 1963. The study makes a historical reassessment of an emancipatory narrative, addressing the participation and social demands of Italian women in the context of the 'economic miracle'. Second, this article reflects on the role of NGOs and voluntary activism in shaping welfare state developments in the post-war period. The analysis will use primary and edited sources from the CNDI and the Ministry of Labour held at the Central Archive of the State in Rome. The CNDI represents a significant case study that aids in our understanding women's social demands from below. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does inclusion in social policy programs strengthen individuals' support for redistribution, and lead to spillovers in support for future social policy programs? We study a unique dataset of 1,300 Moscow residents to estimate the effect of participating in a government-sponsored redevelopment program on preferences for redistributive social policy. Our design exploits features of the program designed to foster institutional trust by engaging citizens in the policy design process. We report a positive effect: individuals in buildings slated for redevelopment are more likely to agree that the government should reduce income differences between rich and poor, provide for the unemployed, and provide public housing. Our findings suggest that increased trust in the government is a channel through which program participation affects redistribution preferences, show how programs can be used strategically to promote a redistributive agenda, and suggest a pathway for the co-persistence of redistribution preferences and redistributive state policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indonesia is among the countries with the highest exposure to natural disasters, and risks are expected to increase due to climate change. Natural disasters and other shocks require well‐developed social protection systems that can cushion the economic consequences for those most vulnerable to these events. International stakeholders advocate for 'Adaptive Social Protection' which links social policy with strategies on disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. This article uses the tax‐benefit microsimulation model INDOMOD to analyse the adaptiveness of the Indonesian social protection system by simulating an income shock caused by a natural disaster and testing reforms to the existing social protection system. We find that the existing system generally performs well in lifting people out of poverty in normal times but does not sufficiently help them to prepare for and cope with shocks. This is especially the case for large households, households with more than two children, people in their 20s and 80s and individuals with a disability. The tested hypothetical reforms reduce the impact of the shock and better target those identified as needing more support but require a substantial increase in social spending. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars commonly link citizens' broader ideological views to their preferences for two opposing approaches to fighting crime: conservatives are believed to support punitive approaches, while progressives support preventative solutions. Yet, other studies indicate that citizens across the ideological spectrum support punitive approaches, often due to instrumental factors such as experiences with and perceptions of crime. This study examines how instrumental factors interact with ideology and determines under what circumstances progressives support punitive candidates. The results of a conjoint experiment fielded in Argentina and Brazil demonstrate that among progressives, the effect of ideology on preferences for punitive candidates is moderated by three instrumental factors: perceptions regarding 1) insecurity, 2) the ineffectiveness of social policy, and 3) gang-driven crime; there are null results regarding the role of victimization. The findings also provide evidence that conservatives prefer punitive candidates regardless of instrumental explanations. The results are validated through an analysis of AmericasBarometer data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Fordist era, trade unions promoted welfare state expansion and coverage against risks for the broader workforce. With the shift to the post-industrial economy, however, new economic groups have been left without representation. This is particularly evident for women: despite a rapid increase in female employment since the 1980s, unions' membership base remains anchored in the male, old and industrial working class. Without the crucial pressure of labour, welfare systems have failed to enhance the reconciliation of work and family life. Under which conditions do unions support the expansion of work-family policies? Marshalling evidence from 20 OECD countries in the 1980–2010 period, this paper investigates the role of political actors in family policy reform. Findings suggest that unions promote the expansion of work-family packages when they are gender-inclusive and have institutional access to policy-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective Background Method Findings Conclusion Implications The goal of this research was to map and identify service and social policy needs, gaps, barriers, and enablers for Western Australian custodial grandparent carers.Grandparents are increasingly providing custodial kinship care for their grandchildren, yet there is substantial inconsistency in policy frameworks, systems, and services that offer support to grandfamilies across Australia.This mixed‐methods research project synthesized micro‐ to macro‐level data, including grandparent carer respondents to an online survey, qualitative interviews with stakeholder organization representatives, focus groups with key agency frontline staff, and service, social policy, and legislative mapping.Current focused and generic services do not meet the complex needs of many grandparent carers and their families, particularly informal grandparent carers and those with diverse, intersectional needs.Grandparent carers are an often hidden and marginalized population, with many struggling within a complex policy and service delivery framework that may encompass multiple sectors. There are service, policy, and legislative gaps, particularly for informal grandparent carers and those who may already be experiencing intersectional disadvantage.Holistic, culturally competent, individualized, and flexible service and social policy responses need to be developed to support grandfamilies, as well as further funding, support and legislative recognition for informal grandparent carers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the population ages and supportive services are increasingly delivered in home- and community-based settings, greater demands are placed on family caregivers. This essay introducing the special issue of the Journal of Aging and Social Policy discusses signs of progress on policies to ease the burden on family caregivers. It introduces a series of articles that reflect the growing body of research on caregiver-related policy actions. These actions range from expanding access to paid family leave and payment for providing care, to ensuring access to better data about family caregivers and improving the post- hospital discharge experiences of rural and underserved caregivers. It also explores a major conundrum around caregiving policy – why progress on family caregiving policy has been so slow, despite its clear importance to the health and welfare of those who receive supports, as well as to those providing supports. In addition, the essay discusses developments, such as Biden administration actions and the RAISE Family Caregiver Advisory Council, indicating that the political dynamic around caregiving has changed, concluding that this is a uniquely hopeful time for family caregiver-related policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People with innate variations of sex characteristics (also known as intersex traits or disorders or differences of sex development) have any of a wide range of innate physical traits that differ from medical and social norms for female and male bodies. Responses to these physical differences create experiences and risks of stigmatisation, discrimination, violence, and harmful medical practices intended to promote social and familial integration and conformity with gender stereotypes. As is evident globally, the Australian policy response to the existence and needs of people with innate variations of sex characteristics has been largely incoherent, variously framing the population as having disordered sex development in need of "fixing", and a third sex/gender identity group in need of recognition, with only recent engagement by intersex community-controlled civil society organisations. This paper presents an overview of the context and goals of the intersex human rights movement in Australia. Australian intersex community organisations have sought to apply human rights norms and develop new infrastructure to address key health and human rights issues, and necessitating new ways of resolving policy incoherence. Together with human rights, mental health, and public health institutions, they have called for significant changes to medical models of care and reform to research and classification systems. Intersex community organising and resourcing have made a tangible difference. The Australian Capital Territory is the first jurisdiction in the country to move ahead with reforms to clinical practice, including a legislative prohibition of certain practices without personal informed consent, oversight of clinical decision-making, and investment in psychosocial support. A national community-controlled psychosocial support service has also commenced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work presents some of the findings from a Teacher Innovation Project undertaken by faculty members at Universidad Pablo de Olavide in Seville (Spain), entitled 'Humanising the policies and (re) creating the applicability of rights.' The purpose of this project was to promote Social Work students' learning about the praxis of human rights from a critical perspective and the applicability of social policies in society. For the final product of the project, we collected narratives through the use of techniques such as group discussion and interviews with professionals and excluded groups, to create videos that presented an approach to basic concepts and the opinions of teachers and students. Once the project ended, we continued the investigation in order to evaluate the impact of the lessons using the material we created. We developed a questionnaire to find out the perceptions of the next year's students on subjects related to the initial project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental, social, and governance ("ESG") philosophy is the zeitgeist of our time. The rise of ESG investments came against the perceived failure of the government to adequately promote socially important goals. And so, corporations are now being praised and credited for stepping up where the government has fallen short. In this Essay, we contend that the standard narrative of ESG suffers from a major flaw. The reason for this discrepancy is taxes. The companies that are widely perceived as saviors of the ESG era are in fact the cause of some of the main deficiencies ESG seeks to redress. Astoundingly, public corporations--many of which have the highest ESG scores and are the largest recipients of ESG fund investments--are also the biggest tax avoiders. As this Essay shows, through the exploitation of legal loopholes and other grey areas, these companies increasingly deprive governments of the funding needed for the provision of public goods and the promotion of important societal policies, exacerbating administrative inefficiencies and deepening societal inequality--outcomes that are starkly at odds with ESG principles. To address this paradox, this Essay advocates incorporating tax-avoidance behavior into ESG ratings. It also argues that tax considerations should be accorded considerable weight not only by ESG rating agencies but also by institutional investors who shoulder part of the fault for the existing state of affairs. Implementation of this proposal would not only rectify incongruities within ESG investment but also provide the public with a more robust and accurate representation of a company's genuine ESG standing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary nationalism in the West tends to be understood in ethnic terms and associated with a bottom-up reaction to disliked effects of globalization, in particular migration. But there is also a top-down nationalism that is inherent in states' boundary-policing and – constituting membership policies. This paper draws the contours of a state-level neoliberal nationalism. Its imprint can be found in social policy, citizenship policy, and – the focus of this paper – immigration policy, in particular for the highly-skilled. Neoliberal nationalism combines diversity and meritocracy, and thus a modicum of cultural and economic liberalism. The prefix 'neo' flags the refashioning of political community from solidarity-based to contract-based, conditional on individual contribution and strict reciprocity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is concerned with the emotional effects of homelessness on women who are mothers. It develops a multi-disciplinary conceptualization of “haunting” to bring understanding to the ongoing grief and trauma associated with losing a home and children. It explores how women’s embodied and affective experiences are not just responses to deeply distressing events, but inextricably intertwined with the unfurling of housing and child protection policies, sometimes long after a policy decision (eviction, child removal). Drawing on biographical research with 26 women, the article contributes new insights into both our limited understanding of women’s homelessness but also scholarly work that recognizes the diffuse power of social policy and its harms. The article advances a novel understanding of women’s lived experience of homelessness by conceptualizing and empirically investigating the emotional effects of policy decisions as hauntings that permeate past, present and anticipated futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic growth is commonly seen as the main driver of poverty reduction in a global perspective, but its impact varies substantially across cases. Meanwhile, the literature has been relatively silent regarding the role of social policy in explaining this variation. In light of an emerging attention to redistribution and social protection in promoting inclusive growth, this article analyses how government cash transfer systems moderate the effect of economic growth on both relative and absolute child poverty across low- and middle-income countries. The empirical analyses compare trends within 16 countries, using data from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), by means of descriptive analyses and multivariate regression techniques. Findings show that both economic growth and the expansion of government transfer schemes were associated with falling absolute child poverty rates. While the association between growth and relative child poverty was on average more muted, the analyses found growth to be related to reductions in relative child poverty when combined with sufficiently extensive government transfers, while the opposite effect was found in the face of inadequate levels of transfers. The study provides a framework for studying interrelated effects of national institutions and economic processes, with the findings highlighting the fruitfulness of including indicators on social protection policies when inquiring about enabling conditions for inclusive growth in a development context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have motivated an unprecedented level of global advocacy for gender-responsive and gender-transformative social protection systems that buffer individuals from shocks and vulnerabilities. This turn to a systems approach reflects growing recognition that the presence of one or two social protection programmes targeting women does not guarantee that they are protected throughout the course of their lives and over a wide range of contingencies. Relative to the high levels of interest, however, very little empirical evidence exists about what a gender-responsive or transformative social protection system entails in practice. This article departs from existing literature that focuses on the design and impact of discreet social protection instruments, to present a 'state of the evidence' on gender and social protection systems. Drawing on the results of a phased scoping review of academic and policy literature spanning various fields, the article charts the defining features of the existing evidence base, summarizes what is known and identifies pathways for future research. In addition to scholarly analysis, the article offers a comprehensive view of the evidence for policymakers, practitioners, movement leaders and funders working on policy problems from a gender perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As interest in universal basic income (UBI) policy has peaked in recent years, the study of public support for such a policy is rapidly developing. While recent studies recognise the multidimensionality of the UBI proposal, we still know little about to what extent support for UBI is unambiguously supported or rejected. We show that the public holds distinct but related opinions towards three dimensions of UBI: universalism, redistribution and unconditionality. The higher and lower educated are equally ambivalent towards the policy, suggesting a lack of political entrenchment towards UBI in Dutch society. Post hoc comparisons show that key demographics and constituencies support some dimensions while rejecting others, enabling both compromise and division on the issue. Despite these distinct controversies, however, the strong correlation between attitudinal dimensions suggests that survey experiments tend to overstate the degree of multidimensionality by ignoring the strong commonalities in support for policy aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the social policy implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for adolescents and young people with disabilities in Ethiopia and Jordan. The article draws on qualitative research interviews carried out in person between November and December 2019 and by phone between April and June 2020 with 65 young people with hearing, visual and physical impairments in urban settings in both countries, complemented by interviews with key informants in government and civil society organisations working with young people. Whilst in Jordan social policy on disability is more developed, and in Ethiopia, systems are still embryonic, the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the marginalisation of adolescents and young people with disabilities in both contexts as health, education and social protection systems have been slow to mobilise targeted support and address social exclusion. This article identifies social policy gaps in Ethiopia and Jordan that must be addressed in order to support young people with disabilities during crises. Adolescents and young people with disabilities in lower- and middle-income countries are at high risk of both contracting COVID-19, and being harmed by efforts taken by governments to mitigate the spread of the virus. Our evidence shows that the COVID-19 pandemic response has negatively affected access to education, health care, employment and social protection support for adolescents and young people with disabilities in Ethiopia and Jordan, and magnified social exclusion within the community. In both contexts the pandemic has highlighted the limitations of current social policies for addressing disability-related inequalities quickly and effectively. Support that is targeted to the most marginalised adolescents and young people with disabilities, across education, health, labour and social protection sectors, should be at the forefront of social policy responses in line with the Sustainable Development Agenda 2030 to 'leave no one behind'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the United States after the Great Recession, despite growing attention to low-income households' homeownership vulnerability, the existing works tend to take specific angles and produce only piecemeal evidence. By placing liquid assets' function of mediating financial hardships in the context of homeownership dynamics, I establish a synthesized conceptual framework. Based on data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), I put this framework to a test and find that liquid assets not only reduce the risk of homeownership exit in general but play a pivotal role in accounting for low-income borrowers' elevated rates of exit. I discuss policy implications of the findings at the end of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To what extent, and under what conditions, have workfare reforms shaped public opinion towards the unemployed? This article unpacks the punitive and enabling dimensions of the workfare turn and examines how changes to the rights and obligations of the unemployed have influenced related policy preferences. To do so, it presents a novel dataset on these reforms across a diverse set of welfare states and investigates potential feedback effects by combining our data with four waves of survey data from Europe and North America. Results suggest that while enabling measures generate more lenient attitudes towards the unemployed, punitive measures have no clear effect on public opinion – but they do accentuate the gap between the preferences of high- and low-income individuals. This leads us to conclude that the trend towards punitive and enabling measures since the 1980s has not broadly undermined solidarity with the unemployed, though it has increased income-based polarization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Codesign is an increasingly common term in Indigenous education policy settings. However, it is unclear exactly what it means and how it is enacted. This systematic review examined 15 papers relevant to codesign in the context of Indigenous education, clearly distinguishing between codesign as a process and a method. These papers provide a snapshot of the various ways codesign is conceptualised, enacted as a process and evaluated in Indigenous education settings. In this paper, we respond to these three areas of codesign to inform a more nuanced framework to help policymakers and practitioners in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores officials' perspectives on Swedish policies for rural digital transformation (RDT). Through the lens of Social Acceleration and systems thinking, employing Critical Systems Heuristics collecting empirical data, we explore how officials perceive that Swedish digitalisation policies impacts inclusive RDT. We investigate whether the possibility to implement Swedish digitalisation policies support or hinder inclusive RDT. Our results emphasize the importance of Social Acceleration based on the aspirations of rural residents, encompassing technical acceleration, social change, and the pace of life. The rapid societal acceleration driven by digitalisation impacts the implementation of digital services in rural areas. Policies do not address the needs of tailored digital services; officials strive to manage this through creative methods despite inherent challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Better data are fundamental to improving the effectiveness of policies. Drawing on examples from nutrition, education, criminal justice and income support, I discuss how data access has contributed to policy improvements. Data linkage across departments can also help ensure that policymakers are focussed on the right policy goals, rather than merely those that are easiest to measure. As governments increase the rigour of evaluation, quality data will be crucial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws attention to how markers of adulthood linked to education and employment form an influential social narrative and argues that these help to construct teenage motherhood as problematic. Social policies, informed by this narrative, reinforce the idea of a "correct" path through education and into employment from which young mothers deviate and must be realigned to. This paper draws on a sample of former young mothers who had largely progressed into higher education and sheds light on how their pathways were possible and what challenges they encountered. It therefore joins others in challenging common conceptualisations of teenage motherhood as inevitably leading to educational failure. This paper seeks to open a further avenue to this debate however, in that it questions the wisdom of utilising predetermined markers of success to measure the achievement of young mothers. As the accounts discussed here show, a later data collection point enables us to see how "outcomes", but also priorities, change. Furthermore, by highlighting stories of pride and joy outside of markers of adulthood, it also encourages us to reflect on the effects of a normative social narrative which depicts divergence as failure. The paper therefore seeks to strike a note of caution in the ways in which we define success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Middle-income countries experience various types of migration: transients, emigrants, refugees, and returnees. Their domestic economy is especially influenced by refugees and returnees. Since returnees and refugees vary in access to social policy programs and in skill composition, different types of migration should vary in "threat potential" for social policy demands, with the low-skilled responding more negatively to refugees, while the high-skilled face greater competition from returning natives. We test our argument with original survey data from Mexico, distinguishing respondents' concerns about two distinct streams of migration: Central Americans seeking refuge in Mexico and Mexicans returning from living in the United States. Surprisingly, we find that the low-skilled's welfare preferences suffer neither type of migration concern, whereas high-skilled Mexicans oppose expanding social welfare when concern about returnees is high. Social solidarity in the welfare state is most depressed by returning natives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review comprehensively analyzes the contemporary Greek legislative foster care system according to N4538/2018, exploring all the relevant international agreements such as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the European Union's Charter of Fundamental Rights, that influenced its enactment. It highlights the rights and protection afforded to children in foster care, detailing provisions from the Hague Convention on the Rights of the Child and European legislation. It explores thoroughly the recent legislative reforms in Greece, including the establishment of the National Council for Foster Care and Adoption. It emphasizes the development and adherence to National and Special Registers for minors in the modern Child Protection System, as well as the implementation of Individual Family Rehabilitation Plans. It reveals that the recent legislation framework has many advantages but also a few weaknesses that could be amended. The legal procedures and criteria for placing minors in fostering in Greece, and the required criteria to ensure that foster parents meet the necessary guidelines to protect the best interests of children are discussed. This paper also examines the legal and procedural steps required to link children to foster families, the arrangements for supervision of foster parents and the consequences of fostering in cases of noncompliance. It is also proven that social workers play a key role in all stages and procedures of the application of the institution of foster care since they have taken up the main responsibilities for its implementation, prior, during and after the children are placed in foster parents. The article concludes that there is an imperative need for informed policies and practices that will ensure the adequate care and protection of minors in the foster system, recommending a synergy of legal, institutional, and educational strategies to optimize the welfare of foster children and support foster parents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: In recent decades, Europe has seen a steady increase in psychiatric diagnoses, which, besides affecting the population in many ways, also challenges the organization of welfare. This paper explores how welfare classification processes impact the contemporary production of mental (ill) health and social inequality in the German welfare state. Methods: Based on comprehensive ethnographic research in the public mental healthcare landscape in Berlin between 2011 and 2017, this paper discusses in detail the case of a mandatory prescription of a psychosocial rehabilitation measure for Ms Reisch, a psychiatric service user and ethnographic research partner. The analysis draws on the methodological approach of praxeography to examine how this case challenges the social determinants of mental health framework and the conceptual work of the sociology of inequality on which the categories of welfare are largely built. Results: The paper highlights the essentializing properties of social categories, whether in the sociology of inequality or in social and mental health policy. It also demonstrates the strength of praxeography to expose how multiple welfare categorization processes shape experiences and events of dis/ability in practice, potentially contradicting the stated intentions of social policy. Conclusion: The results suggest that the attachment of categories to people in public welfare needs to be changed to make public administration more flexible to responding to the situated processes that bring about differentiations of equal and unequal in practice. The paper, therefore, encourages social inquiry into the potentialities of a post-categorical social policy framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy PointsThe Paycheck Plus randomized controlled trial tested a fourfold increase in the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for single adults without dependent children over 3 years in New York and Atlanta.In New York, the intervention improved economic, mental, and physical health outcomes. In Atlanta, it had no economic benefit or impact on physical health and may have worsened mental health.In Atlanta, tax filing and bonus receipt were lower than in the New York arm of the trial, which may explain the lack of economic benefits. Lower mental health scores in the treatment group were driven by disadvantaged men, and the study sample was in good mental health. Context: The Paycheck Plus experiment examined the effects of an enhanced Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for single adults on economic and health outcomes in Atlanta, GA and New York City (NYC). The NYC study was completed two years prior to the Atlanta study and found mental and physical benefits for the subgroups that responded best to the economic incentives provided. In this article, we present the findings from the Atlanta study, in which the uptake of the treatment (tax filings and EITC bonus) were lower and economic and health benefits were not observed. Methods: Paycheck Plus Atlanta was an unblinded randomized controlled trial that assigned n = 3,971 participants to either the standard federal EITC (control group) or an EITC supplement of up to $2,000 (treatment group) for three tax years (2017–2019). Administrative data on employment and earnings were obtained from the Georgia Department of Labor and survey data were used to examine validated measures of health and well‐being. Findings: In Atlanta, the treatment group had significantly higher earnings in the first project year but did not have significantly higher cumulative earnings than the control group overall (mean difference = $1,812, 95% CI = −150, 3,774, p = 0.07). The treatment group also had significantly lower scores on two measures of mental health after the intervention was complete: the Patient Health Questionnaire 8 (mean difference = 0.19, 95% CI = 0.06, 0.32, p = 0.005) and the Kessler 6 (mean difference = 0.15, 95% CI = 0.03, 0.27, p = 0.012). Secondary analyses suggested these results were driven by disadvantaged men, but the study sample was in good mental health. Conclusions: The EITC experiment in Atlanta was not associated with gains in earnings or improvements in physical or mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, leisure was reserved for the few. By the end of the twentieth century, however, most workers had a regulated normal working time of 40 or fewer hours per week, annual paid leave, and overtime compensation. In this paper, I investigate which political parties brought forth these changes – which party constellations supported or opposed working-time reforms and argue that sector and class differences drive party preferences. Lower-class and urban middle-class workers demanded regulation as demand for leisure increased with income. In contrast, employers and farmers opposed such reforms. Accordingly, the study argues that socialist and social-liberal parties were inclined to support leisure-securing working-time reforms, whereas conservative and farmer parties opposed them. Due to their linkages with workers and farmers, liberal parties may be divided into a rural constituency that tends to oppose working-time reforms and an urban constituency that supports them. I test these expectations using parliamentary data: 65 roll-call votes from Norway between 1880 and 1940, combined with analysis of major reforms and legislative appeals. Finally, I undertake a generalization test using country-level reform data from 33 democracies between 1880 and 2010. Results generally fall in line with expectations, and the pattern is stable over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Croatia celebrated a decade of membership in the European Union by joining the euro currency and the Schengen Area of free movement on January 1, 2023. At the same time, however, the country is struggling with the economic, social, and political consequences of its semi-peripheral status. A series of reform challenges remain unsolved, including the continued dominance of clientelistic networks. Amid a set of overlapping crises, from the global financial meltdown to the COVID-19 pandemic, the country has seen a revival of conservative and patriarchal ideologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the effects of European integration on economic redistribution in Central and Eastern Europe. While accession to the European Union provided new economic opportunities, it also imposed considerable constraints. Using cross-sectional time-series analysis of 11 post-communist countries between 2004 and 2018, we focus on the impact of trade flows, cohesion policy funds, emigration, remittances, and Economic and Monetary Union membership. We find that emigration and commercial reorientation toward the European Union are associated with greater efforts to alleviate income inequality. In contrast, the adoption of the euro induces lower redistribution. Finally, the receipt of European Union cohesion funds does not affect income differentials. To our knowledge, this is one of the first systematic analyses of how the European Union shapes inequality dynamics in Central and Eastern Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]