Social Welfare Measures Research Articles

Using a Susto Symptoms Scale to Analyze Social Wellbeing in the Andes

Susto is a cultural syndrome associated with fright that impacts Andean farmers. Measures of social wellbeing were utilized to determine possible risk factors for development of susto. Stress was measured to assess the level of social wellbeing of susto sufferers. The cultural consensus model was used to explore the distribution of understandings of susto and Andean social roles in Peru. Highlander's ability to know and enact the cultural model of Andean social roles was investigated as it related to social wellbeing. By analyzing a variety of potential factors associated with susto one can gain insight into Andean culture and social wellbeing.

The rights of persons with Disability Bill, 2014: How "enabling" is it for persons with mental illness?

India ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Person with Disabilities (UNCRPD) in 2007. This is a welcome step towards realizing the rights of the persons with disability. The UNCRPD proclaims that disability results from interaction of impairments with attitudinal and environmental barriers which hinders full and active participation in society on an equal basis with others. Further, the convention also mandates the signatory governments to change their local laws, to identify and eliminate obstacles and barriers and to comply with the terms of the UNCRPD in order to protect the rights of the person with disabilities, hence the amendments of the national laws. Hence, the Government of India drafted two important bill the Right of Persons with Disabilities Bill, 2014 (RPWD Bill, 2014) and Mental Health Care Bill, 2013 (MHC Bill, 2013). There is no doubt that persons with mental illness are stigmatized and discriminated across the civil societies, which hinders full and active participation in society. This situation becomes worse with regard to providing mental health care, rehabilitation and social welfare measures to persons with mental illness. There is an urgent need to address this issue of attitudinal barrier so that the rights of persons with mental illness is upheld. Hence, this article discusses shortcomings in the Right of Persons with Disabilities Bill, 2014 (RPWD Bill, 2014) from the perspective of persons with mental illness. Further, the article highlights the need to synchronize both the RPWD Bill, 2014 and Mental Health Care Bill, 2013 to provide justice for persons with mental illness.

Territorial analysis of social welfare in Iran

The last few decades have seen increased theoretical and empirical interest in multi-dimensional measures of social welfare. The objective of this paper is to measure social welfare in Iranian provinces. To achieve this, we used a composite social welfare index (SWI) for Iran. The SWI was developed through the methodology of constructing composite indicators. The index comprises information on different social indicators from various life domains, including: health, education, economy, social security, housing, and employment. We then categorized Iranian provinces on the basis of SWI scores. The results show that value of the SWI was poor in provinces located in the periphery of the country. Furthermore, we found the best and worst performances in Yazd and Sistan and Balochestan, respectively.

Housing Wealth in the Long-Run

We use a simple two-sector, life-cycle economy with bequests to explain the increasing wealth to income ratio, housing wealth and wealth inequality that have been observed in several countries over the long-run as a consequence of a rising labor efficiency in manufacturing (the housing cost disease). When consumption inequality across households is sufficiently large, the housing cost disease has adverse effects on a measure of social welfare based on an egalitarian principle: the higher the housing's value appreciation, the lower the welfare benefit of a rising labor efficiency in manufacturing.

Creating Crime

Beginning with the Johnson administration, this article examines the development of the juvenile justice system and the subsequent criminalization of African American youth and the urban spaces they inhabited. Soon after Lyndon Johnson called for the “War on Crime” in 1965, federal officials merged the social welfare and law enforcement measures of the Great Society in new and innovative ways. The administration designed programs such as Youth Service Bureaus to reign in potential lawbreakers as well as offer assistance to troubled youth. As federal policymakers expanded the reach and resources of the Bureaus and other juvenile delinquency programs during the 1970s, they required youth employment initiatives, public schools, and grassroots organizations to partner with juvenile courts, police departments, and correctional facilities to receive funding. Following the enactment of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974, however, the ongoing absorption of social service initiatives by crime control programs rapidly escalated. The legislation created a national justice system for young offenders and formally labeled all economically vulnerable youth “potentially criminal.” In an attempt to control future crime, the terms of the 1974 Act diffused crime control techniques into the everyday lives of black urban children, yielding new possibilities for supervision in public schools, housing projects, and within families on welfare. By the end of the 1970s, the United States had the highest youth incarceration rate of any industrialized nation as a result of this uniquely punitive approach to urban social programs.

Social Policy Context of Alternative Care in Sri Lanka

Research into alternative care in Sri Lanka indicates the absence of an organised family support mechanism for children who move into the three legal forms of alternative care – fostering, residential care and adoption. The underlying cause for this is to be found beyond the relevant laws and within the social policy structure that houses them. While the ostensible rationale for social policy is a commitment to equality its full attainment at the structural level could be frustrated by historical factors. The welfare state that crystallised in the 1940s pioneered universal services in health and education whilst making residuary social welfare provision to grant entitlements and placements to select categories of social casualties like aged, disabled or needy children and families, orphans and unemployed. The social services and probation and child care services that administered them were office based with limited outreach capacity and they were not resourced to provide social care or social work services. This limited commitment to the most vulnerable was capped by reliance on a large private and voluntary residential care sector that admitted the aged, children, disabled and others who could not be cared for within the community. The combination of administrative relief and institutional care disables and functions as a disincentive to casework to provide community-based solutions for socio-economic problems. Finally the close bond between criminality and poverty completes the relationship between the state and the marginalised in society. This legacy stems directly from the British Poor Law philosophy, based in turn on capitalist considerations that seek to maintain the poor at the least expense to the state and also lays down an ideology of social control for ensuring their conformity. The post-1977 era of neo-liberal economics and illiberal politics – what has been referred to as the change ‘from politics of welfare to warfare’ has rendered the picture more complex. This period has strengthened rather than weakened the hold of Poor Law in society by fragmenting social welfare measures within the poorer half of the new dual economy. Several sectoral initiatives acquired a higher profile than the regular social welfare services and these included targeted poverty alleviation services, rural development initiatives that included participatory development, services for migrant labour etc. The centrifugal thrust was completed by the establishment of ‘rights based’ bodies at national level, especially for children which struggled to connect positively with child related in public and curative health, pre-schools, education, probation and child care and social services that were devolved to the nine provinces after 1987. The post-Tsunami social care centres that provided custom built facilities for divisional officers in affected divisions sought to arrest this trend with some success. Policy makers need to move away from concepts and relate more directly to the experience of poor law for children. This can be achieved by following case work for children than through a continuation of top down capacity-building projects.

On sustainability and social welfare

This paper proposes to define sustainability in terms of leaving it possible for future generations to sustain certain defined targets. It is shown that variants of genuine savings and the ecological footprint can then serve as indicators of sustainability. The link between sustainability and intergenerational welfare is examined, and it is shown how to incorporate indicators of sustainability into a social welfare measure, including risk in the analysis.

The true cost of the economic crisis on psychological well-being: a review.

The recent economic crisis has led to many negative consequences, not the least having to do with the mental health and well-being of the populations involved. Although some researchers say it is still too early to speak about a relationship between the economic crisis and a rise in mental health problems resulting in suicides, there is solid evidence for the existence of such a relationship. However, several moderating or mediating mechanisms can also play a role. The main reactions of most policy makers to the economic crisis are (severe) austerity measures. These measures seem to have, however, a detrimental effect on the mental health of the population: Just when people have the highest need for mental help, cost-cutting measures in the health care sector lead to a (substantial) drop in the supply of services for the prevention, early detection, and cure of mental health problems. Policy makers should support moderating mechanisms such as financial and psychological coping and acculturation and the role of primary health care workers in the early detection of suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts, and suicide in times of economic recession. Several examples show that the countries best off regarding the mental health of their populations during the economic crisis are those countries with the strongest social safety net. Therefore, instead of cutting back on health care and social welfare measures, policy makers should in the future invest even more in social protection measures during economic crises.

Is unconditional basic income a viable alternative to other social welfare measures?

Automation and globalization have brought about a tremendous increase in productivity, but also accelerated job destruction, systemic risks, and greater income inequality. Current social policies may not be adequate for achieving the goals of redistributing the gains from automation and globalization, providing efficient buffers against economic shocks, and advancing the reallocation of jobs and skills. Under certain circumstances, an unconditional basic income might be a better alternative for achieving those goals. It is simple, transparent, and has low administrative costs, though it may require higher taxes.

Measuring the welfare of sub-groups subject to premature mortality

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to provide an exposition of the concepts relevant to measuring the economic effect of premature mortality and the conception of how the social loss from premature mortality can be incorporated into social welfare measurement. None of the conventional welfare measures currently pick up this welfare signal.Design/methodology/approach– Various concepts are examined in the conventional and “new” literatures of welfare measurement. Six Venn diagrams show how various concepts “fit together”.Findings– This paper outlines a framework for measuring the economic effect of premature mortality in a conceptually appropriate way. Thus the paper shows how the welfare loss associated with premature mortality can be incorporated into social welfare measurement.Research limitations/implications– Accurate premature mortality measurement is difficult but this data problem hardly limits this exercise. Sensitivity analyses can alleviate this measurement problem.Practical implications– The main practical implication is that empirical applications are feasible. Time series data can be analysed from this conceptual framework to determine whether the problem of the social loss from premature mortality is improving through time, or worsening.Social implications– Knowing the size of the welfare impact of premature mortality is useful not only on policy fronts concerning premature mortality prevention.Originality/value– “New welfare measurement” has not yet been applied to the notion of the social loss from premature mortality.

Building Responsible Social Protection in South Asia

Inspired by the global ambition to eradicate poverty through the Millennium Development Goals, to be achieved by 2015, this article finds that continuing population growth in South Asia will make such goals impossible to achieve. Rather than sinking into despair, however, the article first captures specifically the major demographic reasons behind the troubling bottlenecks of development in South Asia. Since tackling those demographic issues will not yield tangible results in the short run, the focus of analysis then switches to arguing that other creative development remedies are indeed feasible. Given that there is no scarcity of food in South Asia, but it simply does not reach those who need it most, the article demonstrates that India’s recent Food Security Act of 2013 may be a globally relevant model of concerted state action to tackle deep poverty and avoid mass starvation. This article breaks new ground in relation to implementing state-led social welfare measures, showing that earlier assessments about Asian development may have been too pessimistic.

Labour and Social Welfare Measures to Combat the Economic Crisis in Germany

Although Germany, and especially the labour market, were particularly affected by the global financial and economic crisis, it already started to recover, contrary to most other countries, in 2009. Meanwhile, it now has a lower unemployment rate than before the crisis. To explain this initially surprising outcome, the authors will first of all provide an overview of the course of the crisis in Germany and the subsequent development. Following this, there will be a detailed analysis of the most important governmental and entrepreneurial measures that are intended to cushion against the economic crisis, especially the utilisation of short-time work, the expansion of job placement and the flexibilisation of working times. Finally, there will be an examination of the question of which of these measures are responsible for the positive development and which optimisations can be proposed for the future.

Poverty and Welfare Measurement on the Basis of Prospect Theory

This paper examines the measurement of social welfare, poverty, and inequality, taking into account features that have been found to be important welfare determinants in behavioral economics. Most notably, we incorporate reference‐dependence, loss aversion, and diminishing sensitivity—aspects emphasized in Prospect Theory—to social welfare measurement. We suggest a new notion of equivalent income, the income level with which the individual would be as well off, evaluated using a standard concave utility function, as he actually is, evaluated with a reference‐dependent utility function. We examine the differences between standard poverty and inequality measures based on observed income and measures that are calculated based on equivalent income. These differences are illustrated using household‐level panel data from Russia and Vietnam.

Implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in India: Problems and Prospects

The people-centric government has focused on rural development under decentralised democratic system. Infact, rural development needs a holistic approach and the Government of India implements various programmes for the development of the people, especially in the rural areas which constitute 72.2% of the total population. The schemes/programmes of rural development include the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (infrastructure development), the Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (self-employment), the Provision of Urban Amenities in Rural Areas (basic facilities), the National Social Assistance Programmes (social security and welfare measures), the Watershed Development Programmes and Land Reforms (area development), the Rural Drinking Water and Rural Sanitation (health and hygiene protection), the Indira Awaas Yojana (housing for the rural poor) and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (wage employment). All these schemes promote livelihoods and improve the socio-economic conditions of the people living in rural areas.

The Strategic Role of Infant Mortality in the Process of Economic Growth: An Application for High Income OECD Countries

Health is one of the necessary elements in order to socially develop a society. Providing quality and affordable healthcare is one of the most important challenges facing many nations. Developing and pervading the health services accelerate socio-economic development. Thus, there has been a strong relation between the level of social welfare and health measure. Because development is not only the rate of per capita income, but also includes basis social indicators such as infant mortality rate, life expectancy, health expenditure, and education.Using panel data analysis techniques, this study investigates empirically the relationship between economic growth and infant mortality that is one of the basis variables of health sector over the period 1970-2007 for a sample of 25 high income OECD countries. Our empirical evidence reveals that there is a significant and negative relationship between infant mortality rate and real per capita GDP in selected countries. So, it is concluded that the infant mortality rate of the countries decreased as countries became rich and powerful and new levels of strategic thinking, which will find innovative solutions, have an important role in decreasing infant mortality rate and growing economic power of the countries.

Alleged Constitutional Limits of Legislative Delegation in Social Welfare Measures- by discussing Act on Compensation of Members of Special Mission Units and Enforcement Decree thereof -

Alleged Constitutional Limits of Legislative Delegation in Social Welfare Measures- by discussing Act on Compensation of Members of Special Mission Units and Enforcement Decree thereof -

Intervention with Private Information, Imperfect Monitoring and Costly Communication

This paper studies the interaction between a designer and a group of strategic and self-interested users who possess information the designer does not have. Because the users are strategic and self-interested, they will act to their own advantage, which will often be different from the interest of the designer, even if the latter is benevolent and seeks to maximize (some measure of) social welfare. In the settings we consider, the designer and the users can communicate (perhaps with noise), the designer can observe the actions of the users (perhaps with error) and the designer can commit to (plans of) actions - interventions - of its own. The designer's problem is to construct and implement a mechanism that provides incentives for the users to communicate and act in such a way as to further the interest of the designer - despite the fact that they are strategic and self-interested and possess private information. To address the designer's problem we propose a general and flexible framework that applies to many scenarios. To illustrate the usefulness of this framework, we discuss some simple examples, leaving further applications to other papers. In an important class of environments, we find conditions under which the designer can obtain its benchmark optimum - the utility that could be obtained if it had all information and could command the actions of the users - and conditions under which it cannot. More broadly we are able to characterize the solution to the designer's problem, even when it does not yield the benchmark optimum. Because the optimal mechanism may be difficult to construct and implement, we also propose a simpler and more readily implemented mechanism that, while falling short of the optimum, still yields the designer a good result.

An alternative measure of social wellbeing: analysing the key conceptual and statistical components of quality of life

Statisticians, policy makers and social researchers widely accept that there is a need to consider a more nuanced range of measures of quality of life that move beyond the economic domain and that take into account key aspects of an individual's life circumstances. Using data from an Australian household survey, a composite Wellbeing Index was created that covered objective circumstances, with known associations to wellbeing, evaluated from the individual's subjective viewpoint. The robustness of the measure comes from the fact that while covering a broad range of key dimensions, the index only includes the items deemed important components of wellbeing by a majority of respondents. The index was then used to explore the extent to which wellbeing is associated with other dimensions of quality of life that have currency in the contemporary literature. The study contributes to the contemporary debate on social wellbeing and adds new Australian evidence to a body of research that has been mainly based on European and American data.

A game-theoretic approach for optimal time-of-use electricity pricing

Demand for electricity varies throughout the day, increasing the average cost of power supply. Time-of-use (TOU) pricing has been proposed as a demand-side management (DSM) method to influence user demands. In this paper, we describe a game-theoretic approach to optimize TOU pricing strategies (GT-TOU). We propose models of costs to utility companies arising from user demand fluctuations, and models of user satisfaction with the difference between the nominal demand and the actual consumption. We design utility functions for the company and the users, and obtain a Nash equilibrium using backward induction. In addition to a single-user-type scenario, we also consider a scenario with multiple types of users, each of whom responds differently to time-dependent prices. Numerical examples show that our method is effective in leveling the user demand by setting optimal TOU prices, potentially decreasing costs for the utility companies, and increasing user benefits. An increase in social welfare measure indicates improved market efficiency through TOU pricing.

Logistic Function as a Measure of Welfare

A social welfare measure based on logistic function has been proposed. The measure also takes into account the inequality existing in the society as captured by Gini coefficient.