National Welfare Policy Research Articles

Social solidarity and deservingness

The notion of social solidarity involves formal and informal practices, with various levels of institutionalisation. It builds on normative assumptions and discourses of reciprocal expectations of mutual help, on (perceived) ideas of sameness or neediness in relation to, among other, class, ethnicity, and/or gender and on notions of deservingness that are entangled in such ideas. In this contribution, we discuss how the intersection between institutionalised social solidarity in European nation-states and notions of deservingness informs who is seen as worthy of being part of welfare arrangements. Where ideas of solidarity and deservingness intertwine with legal categorisations of belonging, the results are exclusionary policies that often restrict migrants’ access to national welfare policies, and hence meaningful societal participation. Furthermore, we discuss migrants’ experiences with expressions of solidarity beyond the national realm, exploring how ideas about migrants’ deservingness become linked to their economic usefulness within the European (integration) project.

Governing early childhood education and care quality development among diverse private ECEC providers in Norway

ABSTRACT This article sheds light on governance mechanisms at work when decentralised implementation of national educational and welfare policies encounters a heterogeneous sector of private service provider organisations. It illuminates how isomorphic pressure plays out at the interface between local governance and private providers’ organisational strategies for quality development in early childhood education and care (ECEC). Key informant interviews are employed to investigate the function of local non-mandatory quality and competence-developing networks (QCDNs) as a locus for these interactions. Findings indicate that QCDNs contribute to shaping private ECEC providers’ quality development efforts, and that coercive, normative, and mimetic isomorphic pressures become intertwined in this process. Most private provider organisations choose to participate in these non-mandatory networks. However, ECEC corporations and small private providers assign different meanings to their participation, and the networks thus appear to spur different organisational strategies. While small private providers harmoniously align their ECEC quality development strategies with institutionalised municipal practice, the provider corporations, while in formal compliance, exploit the resulting inter-municipal variation as one argument among many for more stringent national governmental standardisation. We demonstrate how isomorphic pressure may create and enable an impetus for endogenous and gradual institutional change agency.

Romanian and Moldovan Migrant Families between National and Transnational Welfare Policies

Romanian and Moldovan Migrant Families between National and Transnational Welfare Policies

Institutional Determinants of Co-Production: Norway as an Illustrative Case

This article focuses on collective engagement through voluntary organizations to advance a theoretical understanding of the determinants of varying patterns of co-production, and we conduct an empirical investigation of how these determinants shape local-level co-productive relationships in Norwegian municipalities. We use a policy fields approach in which we compare four policy areas that each constitute an institutional field. The study uses a qualitative design, with data from 89 interviews in 12 municipalities. We find strong systematic differences between the fields, suggesting that the institutional space for local co-production is structured by national welfare policies and public management practices. We also identify feedback processes in co-production between the design and implementation stages of the policy process. We conclude that, unlike the often-prescriptive embrace of co-production in the literature and among policymakers, co-production is a more suitable organizational form in some service areas than others, depending on the institutional context.

Assisting People with Psychosis to Overcome Obstacles to Living in the Community: Recovery-Oriented Case Management

<p>個案管理是社區精神病人精神照護服務的核心工作，而社區心理衛生中心在新版的精神衛生法中被賦予此項職責。已有明確的個案管理實證研究指出，資源連結模式有其侷限，而有效的元素包含穩固的治療性結盟、外展服務與為其需求提供連續性與整合性的服務。呼應衛生福利政策白皮書「以人為中心，社區為導向，康復為目標」的宣示，本文建議在精神病人個案管理服務中，康復導向應與問題導向並重，採用實證與促進康復的工作方法，並重視社區心理衛生中心對於服務使用者的心理與社會的可近性。方法包括：在分級納入康復的指標、彈性調整外展服務的焦點、將同儕納入個案管理服務中，以及架構社區心理衛生中心各類員工的康復導向在職教育訓練。</p> <p> </p><p>Case management is a core service in community mental health care for people with major mental illness and a responsibility granted to community mental health centers by the new Mental Health Act of 2022. Empirical case management studies have reported that limitations exist in broker model. Studies also reveal that effective elements include strong therapeutic alliance, outreach services, and needs-based continual and integrated services in case management process. In response to the White Paper of the National Health and Welfare Policy 2025 in which person-centered, community-oriented, and recovery-targeted care is emphasized, we suggest that case management services targeting people with psychosis be both recovery-oriented and problem-oriented. Evidence-based and recovery-promoting care approaches should be adopted, and emphasis must be placed on the psychological and social accessibility of the community mental health centers to service users. This involves introducing recovery indicators into the client grading system, flexibly adjusting the focus of outreach services, involving peer support and workers in case management services, and establishing recovery-oriented on-the-job education for all employees in community mental health centers.</p> <p> </p>

Advancing national animal health and welfare policy.

Advancing national animal health and welfare policy.

Judge the Evil of Human Nature: “Moll Flanders” and Defoe's View of Conscience

“Moll Flanders” is a companion piece of Daniel Defoe's “Robinson Crusoe”, known as Defoe's "female version of spiritual autobiography". For a long time, Defoe researchers have focused on the "individual self-sufficiency" and social problems in his works. However, the research on Defoe's moral outlook is slightly fragmented, involving money and morality, Christian morality, national morality and so on. Therefore, it is necessary to start from the text of “Moll Flanders” to deeply explore the core of Defoe's moral thought, reveal Moll Flanders' crime and punishment under the threshold of his view of conscience, and analyze the birth context of Defoe's view of conscience, which mainly includes the following aspects: The relationship between Moll Flanders and the spirit of early capitalism, the lack of national welfare policy and Moll Flanders’s moral crisis, Moll Flanders' criminal predicament and spiritual redemption. Finally, this paper aims to explore the similarities and differences between Defoe's view of conscience and David Hume's and Adam Smith's view of conscience in the context of moral philosophy, to reveal the continuity and development of the ideas, to provide the thought resources from Defoe for the modern society. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the behavior and moral concepts of the heroine Moll Flanders in Defoe's work and to explain how the social values and ideas implied in it reflect Defoe's notion of conscience. The significance of this paper is to explore the moral philosophy of Defoe's work and the connection between his conscience and Hume and Adam Smith.

An International Spatial Analysis of Welfare Spending’s Influence on Measles

BACKGROUND: National welfare policies have the potential to influence population health. Yet, no research has investigated the influence that welfare spending levels have on primary prevention interventions.
 
 METHODS: This study uses generalized linear mixed model Bayesian analysis to explore how welfare spending influences the relationship between measles counts and measles vaccination rates at a national level. Furthermore, models include random effects to account for the nested structure of countries within regions. A conditional autoregressive model was also developed to test for the influence of spatial relationships among the variables of interest.
 
 RESULTS: Analysis of the Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) indicated that the non-spatial model (BIC=19743.090) was preferred over the spatial model (BIC = 24225.730). The final model found that both the first dose of measles vaccine (B = -0.835, 95% Cr. I. = -0.975, -0.699), public social protection (B = -0.936, 95% Cr. I. = -1.132, -0.744), and their interaction (B = -0.239, 95% Cr. I. -0.319, -0.156) had a negative influence on national measles counts.
 
 CONCLUSIONS: This finding indicates that welfare spending may enhance primary prevention interventions, like measles vaccination.

The Educational Dilemma of Rural Left-behind Children and the Construction of Care System

Left-behind children in rural areas are a special group produced in the process of urbanization in my country. Left-behind children lack parental care in life and education. This article investigates whether left-behind children have an impact on the performance and cognitive abilities of left-behind children, and the magnitude of the influence. The results show that only left-behind children whose mothers go out and whose fathers are at home will have a significant decline in performance; the absence of parents will have a significant negative effect on the children’s cognitive ability. Based on the above education dilemmas for left-behind children, this article proposes to build a care system for left-behind children: on the one hand, the government, market and social forces should be integrated to ensure the effective connection of urban and rural education resources; on the other hand, through the national child welfare policy and local social welfare provision Organically combine to promote the development of left-behind children.

Discussion on the research and development demand and market benefit of intelligent disability nursing equipment — Analysis from the perspective of welfare pluralism

In order to better serve the disabled, the state strongly supports the research and development and production of intelligent nursing equipment, thus ensuring and improving the quality of life and the sense of happiness of the disabled. This paper analyzes the current market situation of disabled nursing equipment and nursing products at home and abroad. Combined with the national pension and welfare policies, the paper analyzes the current market demand, market benefit and investment risks of intelligent disabled nursing equipment from the perspective of welfare pluralism, aiming at the development demand of intelligent disabled nursing equipment. This paper provides research and development suggestions and countermeasures for intelligent disability nursing equipment of Anhui Liwei Precision Machinery Co., Ltd.

12.M. Workshop: Health and integration of young refugees in Nordic Welfare countries – an equity perspective

Abstract Objectives The workshop is based on results from the Nordic project CAGE (Coming of Age in Exile) and aims at creating a better understanding of how health, education and employment jointly play a role in the process of integration among young refugees. Results on patterns and trends regarding education, employment and health across the Nordic countries based on the unique Nordic register data will be presented along with analyses of Nordic health reception policies as well as qualitative studies on educational and labour market policies and practices related to young refugees in Norway and Finland. The Nordic countries are sharing quite similar general welfare schemes and other cultural and historical roots, but at the same time displaying different integration policies. By comparisons of some of the differences between otherwise similar countries we can identify possible effects of policy decisions and disentangle some of the complex processes forming the health and welfare trajectories of the young refugees that have arrived during recent decades. Nordic CAGE researchers have collaborated since 2015 in studies on similarities and differences between national health and welfare policies with a focus on their significance for refugee health and integration; these results have served as a framework for generating hypotheses and interpreting findings from studies on the different trajectories of the young refugees. Results from time and cohort analyses of comparable register data from each country have been further explained through the policy studies as well as the qualitative studies focusing on the experiences and perceptions of key actors involved in the integration processes. The workshop will include 5 short presentations (45 minutes in total) - the first introducing and motivating the focus on the interactive dynamics of health, education and employment followed by 4 presentations based on new evidence from the CAGE project. The participants will be invited to discuss the learnings from the Nordic results in an international perspective and their implications for integration policies for different groups of refugees in Europe (15 minutes). Presentations: Integration of refugees: the interactive dynamics of health, education and employment - a Nordic project, by Signe S Jervelund, 9 min.Educational trends, patterns of employment and selected health indicators among young refugees: results from a Nordic comparative analysis based on register data, by Andrea Dunlavy, 10 min.A healthy start: A comparative analysis of health reception policies for asylum-seeking and refugee children in the Nordic countries, by Camilla Michaëlis, 8 min.Young refugees' pathways in(to) education - Teacher and student voices: challenges, opportunities and dilemmas, by Ketil Eide and Hans A. Hauge, 9 min.Two-way labour market integration? Perspectives on youth with a refugee background and employers in Finland, by Eveliina Lyytinen, 9 min. Key messages Welfare policies related to refugees need to take into account the interrelations between inclusive health care, successful education and entrance into the labour markets. Multidisciplinary, international comparative studies can provide important new evidence on the role of different migration policies for the health and social trajectories of young refugees.

Healthcare and Welfare Policy Efficiency in 34 Developing Countries in Asia.

The healthcare and welfare policies of nations, as well as the amount of investments put into these areas, vary across countries. Investments in healthcare and welfare have been increasing worldwide which brings the question of assessing the efficiency of these investments. There are, however, difficulties in evaluating the effectiveness of such investments due to differences in countries’ economic development levels and due to the differences in data definition issues. There are only a limited number of studies in the literature that employ consistent and comparable indicators across countries. This study evaluates the healthcare investment efficiency and health competitiveness efficiency of 34 developing countries in Asia using a two-stage dynamic data envelopment analysis approach. Furthermore, we employ a broader measure of indicators on national healthcare and welfare policies and outcomes, in addition to the investment data on healthcare and welfare expenditures. Our findings indicate that the establishment of an investment environment with a consolidated approach and management is an important factor that increases the efficiency of investments in healthcare and welfare sectors. A consistent delivery of the national policy strategy is also crucial for reaching the medium-and long-term targets for each country. For example, if a country establishes healthcare and welfare policies that focus on improving its indicators with low efficiencies, the output will be improved and a better return on investment will be ensured in a long-term perspective.

Assessment of Measures for Tax Regulation of Transfer Pricing from the Standpoint of National Welfare

This article is devoted to development of mathematical models for resolving an actual scientific challenge in the field of corporate finance. This involves substantiating taxation policies for the counter-acting tax planning of multinational companies (MNC), and then devising and articulating the appropriate international taxation scheme, as evaluated from the position of national welfare policy. Based on an analysis of existing models of international taxation, and on the peculiarities of the actual mechanism of capital movement tax regulation, new models with equilibrium postulated have been developed.
 The primary mechanisms of this research involve the following considerations: (1) examination of an approach targeted at the determination of the final outcomes of international taxation from the perspective of national economies; (2) measures of tax planning on the part of MNCs, and corresponding counter-acting measures to the tax planning applied by governments, are taken as a complex.
 Our results indicate that because a government uses rules of controlled transactions, in order to counter-act MNCs’ tax planning, for the government the final outcome from an application of these rules may be negative. This is due to a possibility of MNCs’ development in convenient and offshore jurisdictions. This finding is illustrated by means of an approbation of models with a case study involving a three-tier structure.Further to this point, instead of additional revenues, a government is at a risk of a shrinking tax base and a reduction in budget revenues; and moreover from the perspective of national welfare, the additional loss of revenues and capital of MNCs. Therefore there is a significant importance in forming rules for MNC taxation policies which would focus not on taxes as such, but would focus on trying to keep capital within the territory and/or would facilitate the return of earlier divested income. This could be attempted, for example, by using the secondary adjustment rule in conjunction with a minimum tax on return.
 The novelty of this research resides in the specificity of our investigation and the applicability of our conclusions to the practical challenges of international taxation and national revenue policies. The peculiarities of this economic moment and the crucial challenges for national governments in dealing with MNCs and the digital economy underline the significance of this study. Our results expand and develop the existing literature in this ever-crucial area be of immediate use to policymakers, academics and administrators involved in national and international taxation, finance, economics, and analysis.

Understanding the evolution of national child welfare policies: The case of Israel

Numerous models for policy analysis focus on understanding an existing or proposed policy. However, reviews of comprehensive welfare policies from a socio-political and historical developmental perspectives are rare. Further, most policy analysis studies are narrowly focused. Reading through many policy analysis approaches, we elicited five analytic themes that appeared in most and that are longitudinally socio-political-historical in nature: (1) the socialist/collectivist – capitalist/individualistic continuum, (2) transition from denial of child abuse and neglect to recognition, (3) the professionalization of care, (4) transition from out-of-home placement to community solutions, and (5) transition from first punishing, then protecting and providing rights. In this paper, we first present these five analytic themes with special reference to child welfare policies. Then, as a case study, we apply these themes to understand the evolution of child welfare policies in Israel. We refer to the wider gamut of social welfare that usually includes only child protective services while we also include child education, civil rights, child allowances, and social development policies. When the policies are children- and youth-related, some of the general policy trends take a softer, less-punitive, and expanding stances as compared to the welfare of adults. We conclude with suggestions regarding ways to analyze the evolution of other policies in other societal contexts.

Are older deafblind people being left behind? A narrative review of literature on deafblindness through the lens of the United Nations Principles for Older People

ABSTRACTUnderpinned by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRDP), Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is the international goal to ‘leave no one behind’. However, the World Federation of the Deafblind have argued that deafblind people have been excluded from international welfare and disability development programmes. Despite making up the majority of the deafblind population, it appears that older deafblind people are particularly invisible. The paper builds on the earlier work of others, which translated the UN Principles for Older Persons into the language of older visually impaired adults, by using them here as the lens for a narrative review of the literature on older deafblind people. It argues that existing research demonstrates that older deafblind people are not only being ‘left behind’ in benefitting from implementation of the UN Principles, but also that the focus of the UN Principles themselves risks maintaining or enhancing their exclusion. Further research and policy development with older deafblind people is required to ensure that international and national social welfare policies and provision are not nugatory to the older deafblind population.

Ausnahmesegment

Going along with the end of the “golden age” of the welfare state, the fordist paradigm of social housing has been considerably transformed. From the 1980s onwards, a new paradigm of social housing has been shaped in Germany in terms of provision, institutional organization and design. This transformation can be interpreted as a result of the interplay between the transformation of national welfare state and housing policies, the implementation of entrepreneurial urban policies and a shift in architectural and urban development models. Using an integrated approach to understand form and function of social housing, the paper characterizes the new paradigm established and nevertheless interprets it within the continuity of the specific German welfare resp. housing regime, the “German social housing market economy”.

The cost of becoming a neo-liberal welfare state: A cautionary case of Lithuania

This article reveals the extent to which western-driven neo-liberal policies have influenced and shaped the current state of the national welfare policies, and consequent socio-economic conditions, in Lithuania. It looks at different stages of welfare state development following the independence of Lithuania before providing an overview of the current national institutional settings and policies. First, it discusses policy reforms that occurred during the transformation from planned to market economy. This part deliberates ideological changes characteristic to that period along with socio-economic impacts of the transformation. Then, it evaluates the more recent welfare state developments that began after Lithuania’s accession to the European Union (EU). The article concludes with an assessment of the key features of contemporary welfare policies and their wider socio-economic outcomes.

Assessment of changes in ecosystem service monetary values in Mozambique

Land cover change has been negatively affecting the provision of ecosystem services (ES) to satisfy the increasingly global demand of goods. ES valuation assessments may provide relevant information to policy makers about natural capital, being one potentially effective way of achieving sustainability. In this work GlobCover land cover data was utilized to identify Mozambique’s biomes between 2005 and 2009. A benefit transfer approach was used to estimate the values of the services delivered by the ecosystems. It was found that the Cropland biome increased its ES value considerably between 2005 and 2009 due to the increase of food production, as agriculture is considered the key factor for reducing poverty in the country. In contrast, the Grass/Rangeland area fell substantially in order to support the increase of the Cropland and Forest biomes. Niassa and Gaza provinces contributed the most to the loss of Mozambique’s ES value. Mozambique’s total ES value was estimated in 5,054.4 × 10^6 US$ for the year 2009, representing a variation of −11.4% since 2005. Despite this decrease, the ES value for 2009 was still about half of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the year 2009 (10,910 × 10^6 US$). This information may contribute to the development and monitoring of policy instruments that consider ES provision. Additionally, they can also be used to call for the importance of considering ES in national well-being accounting, and for going beyond GDP as a national welfare measure and policy goal.

A Cross‐Country Comparison of Child Welfare Systems and Workers' Responses to Children Appearing to be at Risk or in Need of Help

This paper compares how frontline staff in four national child welfare systems and policy contexts – Finland, Norway, England and the USA (specifically, California) – respond to questions about a scenario of possible harm to children. The countries have different child welfare systems that we anticipated would be reflected in the workers' responses (n = 1027). The analysis shows differences and similarities between the systems, although often not in line with system expectations. There is also variation within the country samples. The study shows the complex interactions of individual and agency characteristics in addition to the role of proceduralised decision‐making systems and professional discretion.‘Compares how frontline staff in four national child welfare systems and policy contexts... respond to... a scenario of possible harm to children’Key Practitioner Messages Professional discretion differs. Proceduralised and high threshold systems result in less variation between workers' responses. System categories do not seem to capture the nuances of frontline decision‐making.

Restoring the Entrails of Welfare Reform

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996 famously “ended welfare as we [knew] it” by replacing the state-operated Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program with a revised funding scheme called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). In the summer of 2012, controversy erupted over a memorandum issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Administration for Children and Families (ACF), concerning state options for TANF performance reporting. Opponents of the Obama administration claimed the policy initiative specified in the memorandum signaled a fundamental change in direction of the national welfare policy established by PRWORA—that it “gutted” welfare reform. The memorandum has not (as of 2016) been rescinded, and the issues raised in the ensuing controversy remain unresolved. We review the controversy. We argue that while there is some justification in criticism of the Obama administration's strategy, the initiative addressed an important problem: the inadequacy of the program's performance measure given the variation in resources available to states in meeting the program's goals. The ACF memo was in our judgment a responsible step toward finding methods for improving TANF performance and, as conducted, the guts debate retarded this search.