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Analysis of actual transactions in a grocery store shows that households enrolled in the U.S. government's Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) purchase more unhealthy hedonic food, compared with households that do not receive SNAP benefits. SNAP households purchased more unhealthy hedonic food regardless of whether they used government funds or cash to pay for their purchases. Three follow-up simulated grocery shopping studies were designed to understand the mechanisms underlying this food consumption pattern by SNAP households. SNAP households, compared with households that do not receive SNAP benefits, reported stronger food craving. Stronger food craving was associated with lower unhealthiness perception of hedonic food. Overall, the results suggest that food cravings can reduce perceptions of unhealthiness and thus increase unhealthy food purchases. Interventions that reduce the effect of food cravings on shopping decisions might reduce unhealthy consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using rural household survey data from West Bengal, we find that voters respond positively to excludable government welfare benefits but not to local public good programs, while reporting having benefited from both. Consistent with these voting patterns, shocks to electoral competition induced by exogenous redistricting of villages resulted in upper‐tier governments manipulating allocations across local governments only for excludable benefit programs. Using a hierarchical budgeting model, we argue these results provide credible evidence of the presence of clientelism rather than programmatic politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the major concerns of targeting interventions on individuals in social welfare programs is discrimination: individualized treatments may induce disparities across sensitive attributes such as age, gender, or race. This article addresses the question of the design of fair and efficient treatment allocation rules. We adopt the nonmaleficence perspective of "first do no harm": we select the fairest allocation within the Pareto frontier. We cast the optimization into a mixed-integer linear program formulation, which can be solved using off-the-shelf algorithms. We derive regret bounds on the unfairness of the estimated policy function and small sample guarantees on the Pareto frontier under general notions of fairness. Finally, we illustrate our method using an application from education economics. for this article are available online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the multifaceted challenges faced by mentally ill women in developing countries, with a particular focus on India. Drawing on research from various sources, including studies conducted in India, the paper highlights several critical issues affecting mentally ill women, such as societal misconceptions about mental illness, legal vulnerabilities, caregiving burdens, and the absence of state-supported programs. The study underscores the urgent need for comprehensive government interventions to address these challenges, including legal protections, access to healthcare and support services, efforts to combat stigma, and targeted interventions for vulnerable populations, such as homeless individuals with mental illness. Despite ongoing efforts, gaps in the availability and utilization of rehabilitation services persist, especially for women. The paper calls for continued advocacy, policy reform, and community support to address gender disparities and improve the effectiveness of rehabilitation services, ultimately striving for a future where mental health is prioritized and all individuals have the opportunity to thrive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does the receipt of public assistance and social insurance relate to charitable giving and volunteering? Using data from the 2017 wave of Panel Study of Income Dynamics in the US, we employ a series of multilevel logistic regressions and tobit models to answer the research question. Results show that the receipt of public assistance and social insurance is not significantly related to volunteering. The receipt of social insurance is also not significantly associated with charitable giving, but the receipt of public assistance has a small, negative relationship with the recipients' charitable giving. Moreover, how public assistance associates with charitable giving and volunteering varies with different public assistance programs, whereas the relationship between social insurance and charitable giving and volunteering remains insignificant when different social insurance programs are analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the sample of 1,177,794 mothers in Greece who were eligible to apply for and receive a voucher as beneficiaries of the European program Harmonization of family and business life for the period 2011–2022, using financial on/off criteria. This was a European union (EU) subsidized program under the main strategic plan for Growth in Greece, the Partnership agreement for the Development Framework. This paper conducts an ANCOVA analysis to reveal the motives of the participants that led to the progress of the program both pre- and post-COVID-19 pandemic. The database comes from all applications submitted online, but confidential data remained undisclosed, restricting the power of the results. Findings uncover the major factor interfering with a mother's decision to apply prior to COVID-19, namely her family status. However, for the post-COVID period, a mother's declining age is the major determinant, which shows the increasing uncertainty of women in reproductive age. These findings, along with the low birth rate in Greece, suggest large social unrest, such that a large fraction of women in the workforce would go into labor if they had greater access to subsidized childcare. Regional differences do not seem to affect these results. This analysis might be unique in its nature, as no previous paper has focused on mothers' characteristics linking them to childcare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Cooperative Extension Service (CES) and agricultural experiment station (AES) have been integral parts of the Land Grant Universities (LGUs) for over 100 years. State formula funding has been the predominant source of funding for both CES and AES and also has been important to the LGUs. From 2008 to 2018, state funding remained essentially flat for all three entities, even when state budgets grew by 35%. LGU budgets increased by 52%, bolstered by healthy increases in tuition and fees, revenue from auxiliary services, and growth in grant funds. Some LGU leaders have reacted to the reduced or flat funding from the states by seeking to redirect funding from CES and AES to the LGU general budget. In this paper, we explore the fiscal relationship between these three entities, as well as identifying those factors that influenced changes in their budgets over the 2004–2018 period. All three entities function as complements in the budgeting process, rather than competing with each other for funds. Viewed across the states, CES operates from the strongest position politically, particularly among rural communities. AES is viewed much like the LGUs, subject to the same budgetary and political forces. Of particular concern is the apparent loss of political support by AES from the agricultural and rural communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Controlling for monetary policy, government transfers are potentially inflationary. This, however, may not be true when the economy is demand-constrained. Using panel data of 17 Indian states over 30 years, we show that government transfers via welfare programs do not lead to inflation. For identification, we use a narrative shock series of transfer spending based on the introduction of new welfare programs. We re-examine the relationship between government transfers and inflation by studying whether the recent implementation of India's public workfare program, NREGA, had aggregate price effects. Using the phase-wise implementation design of the program, we confirm the absence of any association between higher program coverage and price inflation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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We present evidence on the long-term relationship between the breadth (the proportion of households) and depth (the amount per household) of public assistance and the prevalence of self-employment in US neighbourhoods. The analysis of decennial data of 71,437 census tracts over four decades (1970 to 2000) shows that the poverty ratio lowers self-employment, and that breadth (but not depth) of public assistance mitigates the negative relationship between the poverty ratio and self-employment. The results are robust to alternate model specifications and are informative about the distributional effects of welfare spendings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Investigación Económica is the property of Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Facultad de Economia 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.)

Copyright of Journal of Social & Technology / Jurnal Sosial dan Teknologi (SOSTECH) is the property of Green Publisher 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.)

Dr. B. R. Ambedkar advocated welfare and stressed on utilising the funds optimally in a planned and systematic way. The GOG department was set up to focus on the implementation of schemes of welfare and to eradicate the misuse of funds. The objective is to evaluate the impact of the GOG scheme in Majha region of Punjab. The GOG scheme has fairly succeeded in increasing the effective implementation of welfare schemes. The government should ensure that complaints forwarded by GOGs to concerned departments are addressed in a time-bound manner to keep the faith of citizens in GOGs and commitment towards good governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marginalized groups are the systematic social exclusion of huge vulnerable populations from policymaking forums. Disabled peoples are coming under the major marginalized community in which marginalization discriminates Intellectual and physical disability people from the world's population. To enhance the socio-economic status of disabled people there is a need to identify the problems associated with marginalized disabled peoples. For that purpose, we surveyed to focus and detect the suffering of disabled people. In addition to this, the review has to identify the available Acts, policies, and missions to understand the community benefits. Finally, this work summarised the possible enhancements towards achieving the socio-economic status of marginalized disabled peoples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Antropología Social is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid 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.)

There is limited empirical evidence on whether cash social assistance to poor pregnant women improves children’s birth outcomes. Using program administrative micro-data matched to longitudinal vital statistics on the universe of births in Uruguay, we estimate that participation in a generous cash transfer program led to a sizeable 15 to 17% reduction in the incidence of low birth weight. Improvements in mother nutrition and a fall in labor supply, out-of-wedlock births and mother’s smoking all appear to contribute to this effect. Effects are not driven by changes in fertility. We conclude that, by improving child health, cash transfers may help break the cycle of intergenerational poverty.

This paper examines allocation of benefits under local government programs inWest Bengal, India to isolate patterns consistent with political clientelism. Using household survey data, we find that voters respond positively to private welfare benefits but not to local public good programs, while reporting having benefited from both. Consistent with the voting patterns, shocks to electoral competition induced by exogenous redistricting of villages resulted in upper-tier governments manipulating allocations across local governments only for welfare programs. Through the lens of a hierarchical budgeting model, we argue that these results provide credible evidence of the presence of clientelism rather than programmatic politics, and how this distorts the allocation of government programs both within and across villages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can we improve upon an income-driven approach for assisting poor single mothers? This study evaluates the No Limits program (Illinois) by applying Amatya Sen's capabilities approach, which implies that the main purpose of welfare programs for single mothers should be to improve their capability to increase their opportunities beyond income. Using qualitative interviews with 16 single mothers who are participants of the program, this study investigates if and how No Limits provides participants with opportunities and resources to improve capabilities beyond income. Implications for welfare programs for single mothers suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural welfare programs are implemented for a variety of reasons. However, of key importance is to understand how government spending under such programs affects local agricultural output which is a key measure of economic activity in developing economies. This article estimates the local multiplicative effects of transfer spending by the government using a novel data‐set of state‐level expenditure under rural welfare programs in India. Using government records as narrative evidence, I use the motivation to implement new programs at the national level to construct changes in transfer spending that are largely exogenous to fluctuations in agricultural output at the state level. I estimate local multipliers using this "narrative shock series" and find government transfers to be quite consequential for local economic activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper presents an analysis of the key elements of Modinomics, defined as "everyone's participation, everyone's progress." It investigates the reasons why Modinomics was necessary, the key elements of Modinomics, and how this policy was implemented. It argues that India's economic policy has had continuity since the economic reform package of 1991, so Modinomics has involved a high component of better implementation. Nevertheless, there have been some major policy changes as well. The paper discusses the deep structural reforms of demonetization and a Goods and Services Tax as well the new Insolvency and Bankruptcy Act. The paper examines the record of economic growth under Modi as well as new welfare and employment programs to make economic growth more inclusive. Finally, the paper examines the medium and long‐term growth prospects for India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Welfare programs play important roles in the lives of vulnerable populations. However, since their inception, welfare programs have been accompanied by contentious debate about their impact on the wellbeing of participants and, hence, about their collective value as a strategy for alleviating poverty. This study uses welfare participation as a marker of lower socioeconomic status to identify and synthesize the relationship between welfare participation and depression among youth. A systematic review was undertaken based on literature published between 1997 and 2017 through a search of 9 electronic databases, 15 reports met criteria for study inclusion. Four descriptive studies reported mixed findings. Of the 11 comparison studies, 10 studies showed consistent findings that participation in welfare programs was associated with a higher vulnerability for depression. Discussion includes the effects of stigma related to welfare and mental health treatment, and the implications for policy makers, social workers, and future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Research Papers of the Wroclaw University of Economics / Prace Naukowe Uniwersytetu Ekonomicznego we Wroclawiu is the property of Uniwersytet Ekonomiczny we Wroclawiu 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.)

Social welfare plays an important role on helping needy people build their future. There is no doubt that a good social welfare program in any country could indirectly reduce rates of crimes and violence. In this study, we examine the quality of life between welfare receivers and ordinary people. The proposed study of this paper designs a questionnaire consists of nine questions and distribute between two groups of 50 people. The questions are based on Likert scale from very low to very high and the feedbacks are analyzed using some statistical tests. The results indicate that typical ordinary people have better life style in terms of nutrition, healthcare, housing and shelter, education, employment, income, social relationships, marital status, entertainment than welfare receivers do.

This article reports on the methodology for setting the Mexican User Satisfaction Index for Social Programs (MUSI-SP) as tested in seven national social programs. The evaluation is based on Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). How satisfaction takes the central place of the SEM, which postulates its causes and effects, contributes to the increased validity and reliability of satisfaction indicators that allow benchmarking between social programs. The MUSI model is an adaptation of the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) model. The MUSI methodology includes qualitative and quantitative techniques. The estimation model is by the Partial Least Squares (PLS) . In each of the seven social programs, no statistical evidence was found to reject the main relationships postulated by the ACSI's model: that Perceived Quality impacts Satisfaction, and Satisfaction impacts Trust. The improvement opportunity areas were also identified for each program. These results give valid and reliable feedback to public policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social trust ameliorates collective action problems by allowing multicultural societies to adopt more inclusive and equitable public policies directed toward newly arriving immigrants. However, existing research warns that increasing ethnic diversity from immigrant populations can undermine levels of social trust, hindering mass support for redistributive policies that empower low-income minority populations. This article examines the relationship between U.S. state-level social trust and immigrant access to social welfare programs using multilevel regression with post-stratification to estimate state-level attitudes of distrust. Distrust is found to be associated with reduced immigrant access to redistributive social programs, such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Supplemental Security Income, and Medicaid. Interestingly, patterns of distrust and strict immigrant welfare exclusion are more pronounced among low immigrant Southern states, while high immigrant states exhibit relatively inclusive and accommodative policies. Related Articles [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Europe, differences among countries in the overall change in happiness since the early 1980s have been due chiefly to the generosity of welfare state programs-increasing happiness going with increasing generosity and declining happiness with declining generosity. This is the principal conclusion from a time-series study of 10 Northern, Western, and Southern European countries with the requisite data. In the present study, cross-section analysis of recent data gives a misleading impression that economic growth, social capital, and/or quality of the environment are driving happiness trends, but in the long-term, time-series data, these variables have no relation to happiness.

This study looks at the effect of welfare programs on work incentives and the adult labor supply in developing countries. The analysis builds on the experimental evaluations of three programs implemented in rural areas: Mexico's Programa Nacional de Educación, Salud y Alimentación (PROGRESA), Nicaragua's Red de Protección Social, and Honduras' Programa de Asignación Familiar. Comparable results for the three countries indicate that the effects that the programs have had on the labor supply of participating adults have been mostly negative but are nonetheless small and not statistically significant. However, the evidence does point to the presence of other effects on labor markets. In the case of PROGRESA, there is a small positive effect on the number of hours worked by female beneficiaries and a sizeable increase in wages among male beneficiaries and a resulting increase in household labor income. Moreover, PROGRESA seems to have reduced female labor-force participation in ineligible households. These results imply that large-scale interventions may have broader equilibrium effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of REGE Revista de Gestão is the property of Emerald Publishing Limited 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.)