Blurring Age Boundaries and Normativity of Aging: A Review of Key Theoretical Approaches

Welfare policy in Mexico has been transformed in recent decades. During the years of the import‐substitution industrialization economic strategy and the hegemonic party political regime, social policy was based on social insurance programs of limited coverage to urban formal sector workers and their families. In the mid‐1990s, an unprecedented expansion of social protection through social assistance programs was triggered, along with social insurance reform. This article assesses the effects at the household level of social policy changes, in combination with changes in taxes and the minimum wage, which also impact the welfare of the population. The research applies “model families” to establish effects of social, tax, and minimum wage policy changes across population groups, and their combined potential to combat poverty. Findings show that although taxation and social policy changes increased redistribution towards poor families, their capacity to lift and keep them above poverty thresholds was limited by the drop in the real value of the minimum wage and by strict targeting mechanisms, which exclude families that do not meet eligibility criteria but still fall below poverty lines. Social policy expansion merely subsidized the drop in real minimum wage, and poor families at best remained at similar income levels. Hence, the logic of the design of welfare policy changes can be characterized as aiming to keep poor families on the breadline, but no higher.

A critical review of the current status of low‐income women reveals how patriarchy, violence, and discrimination mitigates against their employment and contributes to their poverty. Myths that fuel prejudice against the poor have led to public policy and welfare legislation based on individualistic rather than structural assumptions about the causes of poverty. Research on the effects of welfare reform reinforces the conclusion that changes in social welfare and policy are necessary for income parity and improvement in the employment opportunities, access, and status of low‐income women. A human‐capital model and recommendations for macro‐level changes in public policy and programming that address the systemic causes of women’s poverty are presented.

We aimed to explore experiences of government-led actions on the social determinants of food insecurity during Australia’s COVID-19 pandemic response (which included novel, yet temporary, social protection measures to support Australians facing hardship during state-wide lockdowns). During November–December 2020, we conducted in-depth interviews with 24 Victorians who received government income support (prior to COVID-19) and the temporary COVID-19 specific payments. Interviews were guided by a theoretical understanding of the social determinants of health and health inequities, which we aligned to the social policy context. Data were audio-recorded, transcribed, inductively coded, categorised and thematically analysed. Our sample included mostly women (n = 19) and single parents (n = 13). Interviews reflected four key themes. Firstly, participants described ‘battles all around them' (i.e., competing financial, health and social stressors) that were not alleviated by temporary social policy changes and made healthy eating difficult to prioritise during the pandemic. Secondly, housing, income, job, and education priorities rendered food a lower and more flexible financial priority – even with 18 participants receiving temporary income increases from COVID-19 Supplements. Thirdly, given that food remained a lower and more flexible financial priority, families continued to purchase the cheapest and most affordable options (typically less healthful, more markedly price discounted). Finally, participants perceived the dominant public and policy rhetoric around income support policies and healthy eating to be inaccurate and shaming – often misrepresenting their lived experiences, both prior to and during COVID-19. Participants reported entrenched struggles with being able to afford basic living costs in a dignified manner during COVID-19, despite temporary social protection policy changes. To reduce inequities in population diets, a pre-requisite to health, all stakeholders must recognise an ongoing responsibility for adopting long-term food and social policies that genuinely improve lived experiences of food insecurity and poverty.

Book reviews

The aim of this paper is to determine how the economic crisis, and the ad hoc attempts made by the authorities to counteract it, affected the Polish society and, above all, to prepare a multidimensional analysis of how the crisis impacted systemic changes in the Polish social policy. The author will examine both positive changes that followed the relevant global trends and also negative changes that resulted from the developmental lag, the country’s economic situation and especially the generally low involvement of the state via public funding in activities that were part of the state’s social policy. Assessment of Polish social policy during the crisis must be ambiguous. On the one hand, systemic changes in social policy introduced as a result of the economic collapse can be clearly distinguished, on the other hand, however, the severity of the crisis visibly affected many activities of state and local governments in the social sphere. These activities posed unsuccessful attempts to rescue the situation in the labour market. Additionally, an effective response to deepening poverty was missing, amendments adopted to labour legislation were disadvantageous to employees, and finally fundamental sacrifices in terms of social policy were made as the lawmakers passed the Unification Act during the crisis. Polish social policy was unable, for a number of reasons, to essentially redefine its approach to addressing the numerous social issues it had to face.

Turkey undertook a series of social policy reforms in the 2000s, including a large-scale transformation in health care, recalibration of its pension system, the introduction of a new industrial relations regime, reconstruction of its labour market, the launch of a wide range of social assistance programs and alterations in social care arrangements. This wide range of social policy changes and their impact on the patterns of social inequalities in Turkey has created a highly fruitful research agenda that has attracted the considerable interest of academics from different social science disciplines. This special issue contributes to this literature by offering a critical analysis of recent social policy changes and the changing patterns of social inequalities covering an impressive range of issues: social care, child labour, youth unemployment, young women's employment, the role of faith-based organizations in social welfare and the pension reform. This introduction to this special issue briefly reviews the history of social policy development in Turkey and scholarly debates on the direction of social policy changes in the last decade. Then the article examines contemporary policy trends and the patterns of social inequalities in three policy areas, namely, employment and income generation, education, and housing, which are also selected to reveal the changing character of social policy arrangements and to complement the comprehensive picture that this special issue sketches.

The COVID-19 pandemic presented unprecedented challenges to the capacity of developed welfare states to meet emerging needs. In its initial year, the pandemic prompted a wave of new social policy programmes and modifications to existing ones. This study empirically investigates the applicability of various social theories in elucidating the dynamics of social policy changes during the COVID-19 crisis. Reflective analysis employs Hegelian dialectics as a methodological framework on established theories, including welfare regime theory, path dependence theory, path creation, and incorporates contemporary perspectives such as capability theory. The aim is to reflect and discern what these approaches explain and how these theoretical paradigms account for the observed shifts in social policy dynamics. The paper builds on previously published studies focused on the dynamics of persistence and change, mitigation and prevention, divergence and convergence, and continuity and irruption in social policies implemented in response to the pandemic. The article also contributes at developing a theoretical and methodological reflective approach to examine social policy changes in multiple contexts.

This special issue commemorates the 50th anniversary of Social Policy & Administration. Much has been written over the last two decades about the role of ideas in social policy, especially as they relate to institutions. For instance, a decade ago in this journal, I published a now widely cited article titled‘Ideas and social policy: An institutionalist perspective’. The present contribution returns to some of the issues raised in that 2005 article, while assessing the recent ideational scholarship, with the goal of formulating a new research agenda for scholars in the field. Special attention is paid to the need for clear analytical distinctions and rigorous empirical analysis to study the explanatory role of ideas in social policy change, as they may interact with institutions. This article concludes with a discussion about the meaning of institutionalism in ideational analysis and how to concretely explore the interaction between ideas and institutions in the study of social policy stability and change.

Roth, W., <i>The Assault on Social Policy</i>

In recent years a heated debate has been taking place (and is still going on) whether the development of social (security) policies influences the general economic growth in a positive or negative way. Whereas Korpi (1985) finds a positive relationship and Rothschild (1982, 580) concludes, “that there are at the present no signs that Welfare State activities have by themselves net harmful effects on economic efficiency or economic growth”, Bernholz (1982, 584) asks, “can modern Western democracies survive with an expanding system of social welfare?” In his latest study (1985) Bernholz is quite sceptical in his answer, where he is in line with most other studies. They all reach more or less the same conclusion that, due to the rapid increase of social expenditures after the Second World War, welfare state activities have at least reached an absolute maxium or have even passed their limits so that the negative consequences (e.g. like rising disincentives to work, a low savings rate, increasing shadow activities), outbalance the benefits1. That social expenditures have increased quite drastically over the last 25 years in most Western democracies (see Table 1) should impress any observer. But to conclude from these developments that one should simply reduce state activities and the negative consequences will diminish may be quite misleading2. Before suggestions are proposed, e.g. to cut drastically social expenditures, it should be considered that “social policy has become an essential element in the political economy of all modern industrial states” (Rothschild 1982, 579). Therefore, first a positive analysis of the political institutions should be made in which social policies take place and which set the frame where the most important actors (voters/taxpayers, government, interest groups) operate3. When we know how voters/taxpayers and important interest groups will react to government policy proposals, we are able to evaluate how successful changes in social policies can be achieved.

Part 1 Social policy and social change: from Socialist to Liberal Utopia - change in Poland's social policy since 1989, Jozefina Hrynkiewicz politics and social policy in the new Poland, Fred Powell current trends in family policy - European Union countries and Poland, Marek Rymsza family policy and family life in Poland, Anna Kwak social policy and the family in the United Kingdom, Gillian Pascall changes in prison policy as part of a political and economic transformation in Poland, Andrzej Mosciskier recent trends in English penal policy, Paul Roberts. Part 2 Social policy and economic change: higher education and the labour market in Britain, Daniel Lawrence trends of the 1990s in Swedish welfare policy - implications for social work education, Lennart Nygren the prevention and relief of unemployment in Britian, Paul Ransome changes in the Polish labour market during the period of transformation, Ewa Giermanowska and Jozefina Hrynkiewicz. Part 3 Social work in the new Europe: the Irish model of social work, Fionnuala Lordon and Izabela Rybka the development of social work in Britain 1869-1996, Mark Lymbery the history of social work in Sweden, Staffan Oberg social work education in Britain, Mark Lymbery delivering social work education in partnership in Britain, Tina Eadie the development of social welfare in Poland, Izabela Rybka.

Social policy toward old people in Poland — conditions, development and directions of changesSocial policy shapes people’s living conditions. In the era of dynamic demographic changes, especially the aging of the population observed in Poland and across the world, the activity of the state focused on improving the quality of life of the elderly is particularly important. Population aging is a demographic process of increasing the proportion of older people while reducing the proportion of children in the society of a given country. Elderly people will continue to be a part of society, mainly due to the progress of civilization, advances in modern medicine and the popularization of so-called healthy living.Social policy toward the elderly should not be limited to managing the social security system and social welfare. Eff ective use of human and social capital of the elderly will be a growing challenge for this policy, and for senior citizens — spending satisfactorily the last years of one’s life. However, for some senior citizens, old age means or will mean poverty and living on the margins of civil society. The Ministry of Family, Labor and Social Polic y is responsible for the social policy of people in Poland, off ering for example in the years 2014–2020 to senior citizens such programs as “Senior +”, the Government Program for Social Activity of the Elderly ASOS or “Care 75+.” Each of the above programs have appropriate criteria that must be met to be able to use them. Are older people eager to use them, or are the eff ects of these programs already visible? This study will attempt to answer the above questions. The main purpose of the article is to diagnose and analyze selected government programs targeted at older people. In addition, perspectives for changes in social policy toward older people in Poland will be determined.

In many European countries, significant changes in social policy are needed to ensure successful policy outcomes in employment, social inclusion and overall prosperity. However, many governments have been unable to implement the changes due to resistance by special interests as well as broader sections of population. The paper uses the example of Slovakia, which has been able to introduce a comprehensive social policy reform (including pension reform, labour market reform and tax and benefit reform), to study the political economy of such changes and what has enabled the Slovak government to successfully introduce them. The paper first looks at reasons underlying the need for comprehensive changes in social policy in many European countries. It then describes the reform package adopted in Slovakia and analyses political and other factors that made it possible to design, implement, and sustain a radical change of this sort. In the conclusion, it looks at whether a broader new social policy paradigm can be identified as emerging among the new member states of the European Union.

In many European countries, significant changes in social policy are needed to ensure successful policy outcomes in employment, social inclusion and overall prosperity. However, many governments have been unable to implement the changes due to resistance by special interests as well as broader sections of population. The paper uses the example of Slovakia, which has been able to introduce a comprehensive social policy reform (including pension reform, labour market reform and tax and benefit reform), to study the political economy of such changes and what has enabled the Slovak government to successfully introduce them. The paper first looks at reasons underlying the need for comprehensive changes in social policy in many European countries. It then describes the reform package adopted in Slovakia and analyses political and other factors that made it possible to design, implement, and sustain a radical change of this sort. In the conclusion, it looks at whether a broader new social policy paradigm can be identified as emerging among the new member states of the European Union.

This article argues that the response to marital/couple problems by social work agencies and the application of therapeutic concepts outside specialist marital agencies must locate marriage and social work in the context of recent changes in social policy. We therefore discuss the family, marriage and divorce in the 1980s and related changes in social policy in particular, two key developments: the Children Act 1989 and recent proposals of the Law Commission for reform of the divorce law The impact of developments in social policy on social work in the 1990s are then discussed with particular reference to the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1989. The implications of the reconstruction of the role of social workers as case managers and the issue of the relationship between the statutory and the independent sectors are considered. We argue from this the importance of retaining provision for direct help to couples by statutory agencies in view of the limited resources of specialist ag...