The fifth edition of this successful textbook discusses the different parts of the welfare system and, in particular, cash benefits, the health service, and education. The text is organized into four parts: Concepts, Cash benefits, Benefits in kind, and Epilogue.

This title was first published in 2001: Examining the future of the welfare state in four globalizing economies - Sweden, UK, Japan and US - this book presents a detailed analysis of the ways in which social and economic aspects of these welfare states have altered under growing market-first ideology and economic globalization. The book will be essential reading for all those interested in the present and future of the welfare state, both through its theoretical perspectives and because of the thorough attention paid to the health of society today.

Argues that the welfare state is necessary on grounds of efficiency as well as equity, and that its major efficiency role makes it relevant to the whole population. This edition takes into account reforms since 1987 in social security, the NHS and education and the Thatcher/Reagan governments.

Time-series analysis - Pooled time-series and cross-sectional analysis - Event history analysis - Boolean analysis.

Definitions of the welfare state often focus on how and why a state intervenes in the economy and welfare of the individual citizen. A welfare state does not, however, have to mean state intervention; it may merely reflect the state’s restrictions and the demands of the labor market, families, and the rest of civil society. This book covers the history of the welfare state from Chancellor Otto von Bismarck’s reforms in Germany starting in 1883 to the present day. This third edition of Historical Dictionary of the Welfare State covers the history through a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 400 hundred cross-referenced entries that focus on the definitions and concepts that are the most relevant, long lasting, and important concepts. It provides insights from major areas in social science, including sociology, economics, political science, and social work. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the welfare state.

The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State is the authoritative and definitive guide to the contemporary welfare state. In a volume consisting of nearly fifty newly-written chapters, a broad range of the world's leading scholars offer a comprehensive account of everything one needs to know about the modern welfare state. The book is divided into eight sections. It opens with three chapters that evaluate the philosophical case for (and against) the welfare state. Surveys of the welfare state 's history and of the approaches taken to its study are followed by four extended sections, running to some thirty-five chapters in all, which offer a comprehensive and in-depth survey of our current state of knowledge across the whole range of issues that the welfare state embraces. The first of these sections looks at inputs and actors (including the roles of parties, unions, and employers), the impact of gender and religion, patterns of migration and a changing public opinion, the role of international organisations and the impact of globalisation. The next two sections cover policy inputs (in areas such as pensions, health care, disability, care of the elderly, unemployment, and labour market activation) and their outcomes (in terms of inequality and poverty, macroeconomic performance, and retrenchment). The seventh section consists of seven chapters which survey welfare state experience around the globe (and not just within the OECD). Two final chapters consider questions about the global future of the welfare state. The individual chapters of the Handbook are written in an informed but accessible way by leading researchers in their respective fields giving the reader an excellent and truly up-to-date knowledge of the area under discussion. Taken together, they constitute a comprehensive compendium of all that is best in contemporary welfare state research and a unique guide to what is happening now in this most crucial and contested area of social and political development.

This book situates ethnic heterogeneity in the larger discussion of the welfare state and its redistributive outcomes, poverty and inequality. By using comprehensive, longitudinal data covering 1980 to 2010 from 17 high income countries, this analysis helps achieve a major milestone in comparative welfare state research both conceptually and methodologically. Conceptually, it elevates the relevance of growing ethnic heterogeneity in thinking about how politics and economics of the welfare state operate, collectively impacting the magnitudes of poverty and inequality. Methodologically, the analysis conducted in this book provides broader empirical tests for the many propositions and discourses found in the literature based largely on anecdotal evidence, case studies, and unjustifiably limited quantitative data. The innovative oeprationalization of the multidimensional character of both welfare state policies and ethnic heterogeneity help broaden the analytical frameworks of comparative welfare state research. The outcome is a major advance in the way we understand the causes and redistributive consequences of the welfare state, in which ethno-racial, religious, and especially immigration heterogeneity can play a crucial role. A thorough and insightful analysis presented in this book helps students, researchers, and policymakers better understand the ethnic heterogeneity connections of the welfare state and redistribution, together with a comparative perspective of the changing faces of ethnic heterogeneity, welfare state policies, and poverty and inequality in high income countries.

Welfare economics is a branch of economics using microeconomic techniques to simultaneously determine the efficiency of the overall economy and the income distribution consequences associated with it. As a British economist best known for his work in many fields and particularly in welfare economics, Pigou attended the prestigious Harrow School and was a graduate of King's College, Cambridge, where he studied under Alfred Marshall, famously known as the creator of "The Marshall Plan." Here in The Economics of Welfare, Pigou asserts that individuals are the best judges of their own welfare, that people will prefer greater welfare to less welfare, and that welfare can be adequately measured either in monetary terms or as a relative preference. Scholars and students of both economics and welfare policy will find Pigou's work a significant contribution to current debates on welfare policy directions. Included in Volume I: "Welfare and The National Dividend" and "The Size of The National Dividend and The Distribution of Resources Among Different Uses" ALSO AVAILABLE AT COSIMO CLASSICS: The Economics of Welfare: Volume II

Our health, our income and our social networks at older ages are the consequence of what has happened to us over the course of our lives. The situation at age 50+ reflects our own decisions as well as many environmental factors, especially interventions by the welfare state. This book explores the richness of 28,000 life histories in thirteen European countries, collected as part of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). Combining these data with a comprehensive account of European welfare state interventions provides a unique opportunity to answer the important public policy questions of our time – how the welfare state affects people’s incomes, housing, families, retirement, volunteering and health. The overarching theme of the welfare state creates a book of genuinely interdisciplinary analyses, a valuable resource for economists, gerontologists, historians, political scientists, public health analysts, and sociologists alike.

The welfare state is in hard times, according to today's consensus. The deterioration of exceptional economic performance--the basis for the "Golden Age" of welfare capitalism--seems irreversible. This has slowed down welfare state expansion and radically shifted the ground for discussion on the future of the welfare state. This volume takes stock of "the state of the welfare state". How can we build a theory of the welfare state? How did the post-World War II welfare state relate to economic development? How do welfare states change? How did the reforms of pension systems--a key welfare state sector--develop in OECD countries? How did the most developed "Nordic welfare state" fare? How viable are today's advanced welfare states in the international economy? How may we recast the European welfare states for the twenty-first century?