Social Policy Problems Research Articles

MODERN WORKER OF SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED BUSINESSES AS A SUBJECT OF SOCIO-LABOUR RELATIONS: RESOURCES

Purpose. The main purpose of this research was to study the Russian worker of small and medium-sized businesses as the subject of modern labour relations in the context of available resources. Methodology. The study was conducted on the materials of the Russian monitoring of the economic situation and public health (RLMS) the latest available at the time of the study wave 22 (individual unit). Five filtering method revealed 1629 suitable for research purposes observations. Results. Relying on the resource-based approach to the analysis of labour relations, was a list of core resources, the presence or absence of which could have an impact on the employee’s behavior as a subject of the labour market: qualification, economic, biological, innovation and social. Modern employees of small and medium-sized businesses have low level of qualification and economic resources, аnormal level of social and innovation resources, and a high level of biological resource (health resource). Practical implications. The results of this study may be of interest not only to researchers involved in the sociology of labour and labour relations, but also the practical business because knowledge and understanding of the role of resource potential of employees will provide an opportunity for employers to take more effective staffing decisions, as well as representatives of the State concerned in labour, employment and social policy problems.

Efficiencies in Antitrust Analysis

While antitrust scholars continue to debate the goals of antitrust law, including the role of efficiencies in antitrust analysis, these discussions typically recognize that antitrust law does and should consider efficiencies, particularly efficiencies that lead to lower consumer prices. This paper provides a review of the “efficiencies debate” and the economics literature that evaluates efficiencies to assess whether the analysis of efficiencies in antitrust cases should be changed significantly. Our review finds that current antitrust law does a reasonable job of balancing the potentially conflicting policy objectives of promoting social efficiencies and protecting consumers from the adverse effects of anticompetitive practices. As a result, we conclude that only modest change in current antitrust policy is appropriate. Specifically, we recommend (as is consistent with some existing policies) that parties asserting an efficiency rationale for their conduct should bear the burden of proof, that a rule of reason analysis should be used, that all efficiencies (not just variable cost savings) should be recognized, and that limited equity issues should be considered. We conclude that antitrust law is not well suited for addressing tangential social policy problems.

Consumer Insolvency: The Linkage Between the Fresh Start, Collective Proceedings, and the Access to Debt Adjustment

The term “fresh start” is widely used. This article asks how fresh the start needs to be in order to offer real rehabilitation to the debtor. A fresh start where the debtor does not restore the control of his or her economic situation has not achieved the objective of debt adjustment. Sometimes, however, the poor economic situation of the debtor after debt adjustment is not a sign of unsuccessful insolvency legislation but a consequence of more general social policy problems in society. In this paper, the hypothesis is set that the fresh start requires quite extensive and simultaneous discharge of debts in collective proceedings. The collectivity of the proceedings is the procedural side of the coverage of the debts. A high coverage of debts means usually a strict entry control by the court as a gatekeeper. The court investigates the reasons behind the indebtedness. The downside of strict control is the drastic sorting out of the debtors. A relatively open assess to debt adjustment is possible in systems where plenty of debts have been excluded from debt adjustment by the legislator (protected debts). The weak point of these systems is that the fresh start is not achieved because the debtor has not enough disposable income to pay the protected debts. In this paper, a debt adjustment model is suggested that has high coverage of debts where rescheduling is used as a means of debt arrangement concerning the protected debts.

Implementing Joined‐Up Government: Lessons from the Australian Social Inclusion Agenda

‘Joined‐up government’ (JUG) approaches have emerged in many industrialized countries as a means to tackle persistent ‘wicked’ public and social policy problems (Pollit ). Despite this, limited evidence exists concerning their implementation or effectiveness. ‘JUG’ was popularized by the Blair Government (UK) with its focus on addressing social exclusion. Following in these footsteps, in 2007 the Australian Government launched the Social Inclusion Agenda: a joined‐up approach to improving the wellbeing of all Australians and addressing disadvantage. This paper focuses on findings from a study that examined the SIA as a natural experiment in JUG. Drawing on the implementation experiences of federal policy makers, our findings lend weight to emerging research into JUG that suggests that compatibility and consistency between goals, instruments, and processes is critical to success. We argue that closer attention needs to be given to developing ‘supportive architecture’ around joined‐up initiatives to facilitate implementation.

Social Welfare Needs and Policies for Elderly People in Thailand: A Case Study in Pitsanulok Community

The objectives of this study are to study the level of satisfaction of older people with social welfare policy, to study the problems of social welfare policy, and to study public policy guidelines for social welfare in a community in Pitsanulok province. We did quantitative and qualitative methods for 3,701 questionnaires, interviews of 29 participants and a focus group of 15 experts to discuss policy guidelines. From the study, we found that older people were satisfied with social welfare policy at a moderate level such as social security, knowledge and education. However, the problems of social welfare policy such as the monthly payment assistance is not enough in the current economy, government’s lack of budget, and not allowing government agencies to take care of older people, so local government should create a department for service and support older people and also train government officers to have more knowledge about how to take care of older people. In addition, the government should train more healthy volunteers in communities to take care of and help to transfer older people to hospitals.

The untapped potential of sustainable domestic tourism in Iran

The majority of tourism literature focuses on international tourism; however, domestic tourism for specific destinations, such as Iran, can contribute to job creation, heritage protection, regional integration, and cross-cultural understanding. The market for domestic tourism in Iran has been downplayed and its true value has been underutilized. This study assumes that the present apathy towards tourism is reinforced by the public sector's lack of decisive governance towards the tourism industry where the public sector “can best act to mediate contemporary tourism-related social, economic, political and environmental policy problems” (Hall, 2011, p. 439). Drawing on “culture-ideology of consumerism” and “ecological economics” theories, study revealed that critiques of international mass tourism have convincing argument that domestic tourism is a domestic investment with a sustainable agenda.

Reassessing findings from the Fast Track study: problems of method and analysis

Objectives A 2010 article by the Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group considers an important social and public policy problem: can early psychosocial intervention prevent delinquency? The article examines the effects of the Fast Track preventive intervention on youth arrests and self-reported delinquent behavior through age 19. The article reports that the intervention reduced court-recorded juvenile arrest activity as well as a range of other disparate effects.

((( ) (Problems of Social Policy and Prospects Its Perfection in the Period of Transformation (On the example of Georgia))

Russian Abstract: На переходном этапе рыночных отношений имеет особое значение для развития социальной сферы страны, что обусловлено рядом обстоятельств. С одной стороны, недостаточно решить острые социальные условия, созданные в стране, предоставив небольшие финансовые ресурсы. Кроме того, на повестке дня разработка методологических основ формирования социальной политики, совершенствование методов социального развития областей, районов и городов, решение методологических и организационных вопросов социального управления. С другой стороны, существуют новые факторы и условия, которые необходимо комплексно решать в период перехода от директивной к рыночной экономике. Все это требует качественных изменений и подходов в развитии и управлении экономикой страны. Это цель изучения и анализа вышеупомянутой темы. English Abstract: The transitional stage of market relations is of particular importance for the development of the social sphere of the country, which is due to a number of circumstances. On the one hand, it is not enough to solve the acute social conditions created in the country by providing small financial resources. In addition, on the agenda the development of methodological bases for the formation of social policy, the improvement of methods for social development of regions, districts and cities, the solution of methodological and organizational issues of social management. On the other hand, there are new factors and conditions that need to be complexly solved during the transition from the directive to the market economy. All this requires the qualitative changes and approaches in the development and management of the country's economy. This is the purpose of studying and analyzing the above-mentioned theme.

Soziologie im zwanzigsten Jahrhundert. Studien zu ihrer Geschichte in Deutschland by Uta Gerhardt (review)

[MWS 11.2 (2011) 289-291] ISSN 1470-8078 Book Review Uta Gerhardt, Soziologie im zwanzigsten Jahrhundert. Studien zu ihrer Geschichte in Deutschland (Stuttgart: Franz SteinerVerlag, 2009), 392pp. ISBN 978-3-515-09286 9. €42.00. This book is an impressive Fundgrube. It offers an account of key episodes over six periods, accounted for in six chronologically ordered chapters. Germany has experienced six different forms of rule and legitimacy during the 20th century and Gerhardt's work demonstrates how history of sociology should be a contextual endeavour, with sociology related to society. The perspective is 'anti-positivist' (anti-Social-Darwinist/anti-unified science). According to Gerhardt neo-Kantianism has eroded sociology, and she re-constructs a line manifested in Dilthey, Simmel, Max Weber, Schütz and Parsons. German sociology post-1945 is partly an American re-import. Ideas were carried over the Atlantic Ocean and re-contextualized, and they also shaped intellectual development on the European continent. Many social policy problems appeared earlier in the US than in Europe, only to mention such sociological research areas as segregation, lobbying, and ethnic tension. The large scale survey-tradition was developed in the USA. Gerhardt is an eminent expert on Talcott Parsons, who influenced not only Euro pean sociology but also the democratization in Germany after World War Two. Par sons gained his PhD degree from Heidelberg in the 1920s. Max Weber's world wide success is thanks to the American reception of his work. Yet the legacy of Weber is problematic. Without Parsons's wishful extension of Weber to the level of a macro-theoretician Weber might have remained another dead European intellectual. At the Heidelberg Centennial in 1964 Adorno, well known for his vehement anti-Weber feelings, and others had planned an assault on Weber's legacy. Habermas and Marcuse did their best to denounce Weber's 'techni cal reason' and to use the link to Carl Schmitt as a sort of guilt by association, even implying co-responsibility for atrocities during the NS-period. Parsons and Rein hard Bendix managed to intervene in the staging of the program, and foreign schol ars such as Parsons himself, Benjamin Nelson and Raymond Aron gave the event as a whole a more 'pluralistic' and international feel. As a controversy, though, it firmly placed Weber on the scene. Even Weber's most vehement critics manifest ambiguity, as was the case with the earlier case of Weber's sometime pupil György Lukâcs, whose Geschichte und Klas senbeumsstsein (1923) is a synthesis of Weber and Marx, anticipating the Frankfurt School—a point made by Reinhard Bendix who was a non-Frankfurt migrant. Nelson in a famous letter to the editor of the New York Times Book Review on 3 January 1965 commented upon the Heidelberg centennial, that there 'took place a© Max Weber Studies 2011, Clifton House, 17 Malvern Road, London, E8 3LP. 290 Max Weber Studies scapegoating of Weber by a highly vocal faction cratic, anti-Nazis, committed to the so-called "cri neo-Marxist) philosophy'". Further: the 'Titan o as a main inspiration of the "Hitler event of 1933 hardt, p. 268). Marcuse even implied Weber's views on 'formal for the 'final solution', which is explicit in Stamm (in the longer complete version, not in the abridg cal meeting). The Frankfurt school had its diaspora—but many migrants also returned to Europe. After World War Two German sociology was restarted, in Cologne and other places. Reconciliation between a critical hermeneutic tradition and new empir ical US-inspired research also became an issue. Gerhardt claims that there was no scientific sociology in Germany during the National Socialist period, a claim some might think is an exaggeration. During the National Socialist regime in Germany some sociologists accommodated and became 'Brot-Nazis', as in the case of Gerhard Mackenroth. Sociology was rather vegeta tive, although some activities went on, in particular in Leipzig. The legacy of the 'Leipziger Schule' cannot be neglected (and to see this fleshed out compare the works by Earl Eubank and Elfriede Oner). Leipzig had an ambience long imprinted by 'positivism', and was far more than common in Germany, possibly because of a British links to the Saxony dynasts...

Consumer Insurance Fraud/Abuse as Co-creation and Co-responsibility: A New Paradigm

Insurance fraud and abuse—international concerns—are inherent in the proposition of insurance and prevalent in insurer–insured interactions. While the subject of considerable industry and regulatory attention, this little-researched area of consumer behavior and consumer ethics represents persistent social policy questions and problems at multiple levels. This article addresses the issue by first defining insurance fraud and its origins in contract, as well as consumer- and insurer-management. The authors conclude by re-envisioning the problem as one of co-creation by the consumer-insured and insurer personnel, proposing a framework for its study and resolution.

MOTIVATION OF STAFF - FUNDAMENTAL FACTOR IN THE CONTINUOUS MEDICAL EDUCATION AND QUALITY IMPROVEMENT OF MEDICAL CARE

Health protection is one of priority problems of social policy of the state. The present stage the special urgency is got with questions of quality of medical aid which cannot be considered separately from questions of preparation of experts and a supply with information during training and professional work, creation of system of motivation to increase of an educational level and rendering of qualitative medical services to the population, continuous education of medical workers of all levels. System of public health services one of complex branches of the national economy, demanding capital investments and change of personnel selection concerning the medical personnel.

MOTIVATION OF STAFF - FUNDAMENTAL FACTOR IN THE CONTINUOUS MEDICAL EDUCATION AND QUALITY IMPROVEMENT OF MEDICAL CARE

Health protection is one of priority problems of social policy of the state. The present stage the special urgency is got with questions of quality of medical aid which cannot be considered separately from questions of preparation of experts and a supply with information during training and professional work, creation of system of motivation to increase of an educational level and rendering of qualitative medical services to the population, continuous education of medical workers of all levels. System of public health services one of complex branches of the national economy, demanding capital investments and change of personnel selection concerning the medical personnel.

The Status and Problem of Social Integration Policy for Immigrants in Korea: Focusing on the Social Integration Program Managing

본 논문은 국내의 사회통합정책과 이민자 사회통합프로그램 운영 실제에서 제기되는 쟁점을 도출하고 그에 따른 대안을 제시하는데 목적을 두고 있다. 첫째, 이민자 사회통합의 개념과 우리나라 실정에 부응한 사회통합 정책은 무엇인가? 둘째, 이민자 사회통합프로그램 도입배경은 무엇인가? 셋째, 사회통합 프로그램의 실제적인 내용은 무엇인가? 넷째, 사회통합프로그램의 효율적 운영을 위한 대책으로는 어떠한 점들이 있는가? 이 연구는 다음과 같은 시사점을 도출하였다. 상호존중 및 문화적 다양성을 제고한 사회통합의 인식, 사회통합프로그램 정착을 위한 평등한 교육기회 제공, 다문화사회전문가 인프라 확충, 이민자 대상 실시하는 언어?문화교육외 직업교육 병행 및 인턴십제 도입, 사전평가시 구술시험 실시, 수료증명서의 어학증명서로의 활용방안, 거버넌스 구축과 통합정보관리시스템 도입, 시민교육 및 행복드림 프로그램 활성화 방안 등의 대안을 제시하였다.

The sociology of ethnic relations

The sociological problems presented by ethnic relations should be distinguished from problems of social policy. The foundations for a micro-sociology of ethnic relations laid by Max Weber in 1906–11 have to be interrelated with the macro-sociological contexts within which ethnic groups are constructed by collective action. When ethnic relations have their origin in trans-national migration, much depends on the immigrants’ points of entry into the receiving society's scale of socio-economic status, and, thereafter, on transmitted inequalities. While the nature and causes of social differences associated with ethnic origin have been illuminated by quantitative and qualitative studies, new styles of research are needed to bridge these modes of analysis, such as the measurement of relative preferences for association with co-ethnics.

Feminism, Policy and Women's Safety during Australia's ‘War on Terror’

The main argument in this article is that the Australian government in power from 1996 to November 2007 failed women's domestic security by denying the central policy role of women's organizations in the struggle against domestic violence and by successfully expunging public debate on gender issues in Australian governance, while participating in the ‘war on terror’ to guard national security. In bringing together a discussion about the war on terror and the importance of feminism for women's security, key issues about feminism, race and gender are considered. This article also explores the prevalence of violence against women and the social implications of the lack of leadership in public debate about the gendered nature of violence against women. Under the Australian government led by Prime Minister John Howard that gained power in 1996 and was defeated in 2007, women's organizations lost financial support and women's policy infrastructure was decimated. Violence against women, however, continued to increase, reaffirming women's place in Australian society as insecure and dangerous. After more than 30 years of struggle to maintain domestic violence and sexual assault as serious social policy problems, provide services, support and advocacy for women who are victims of violence and assault, women's organizations are coming to terms with a society where there is a blindness to the role of gender in violence against women.

Social Sciences and the Next Development Agenda

The author argues that today's development agenda is animated by concerns for economic growth and structural change, democracy and human rights and social inclusion. In academia this has produced ‘literatures’ that separately address problems of developmental states, democratic transitions and social policy and welfare regimes. The author argues for the need to bridge these literatures to exploit the intellectual synergies to address these issues whose interconnections are widely recognized.

Cardiovascular Disease Disparities in Native Hawaiians

Although Hawaii boasts relatively low rates of death from heart disease and stroke, past data suggest that Native Hawaiians bear a disproportionate burden of mortality from cardiovascular disease (CVD). This study examined 2005-2006 data on CVD mortality and risk factors to see if disparities experienced historically by Native Hawaiians have continued, increased, or been reduced. Existing data were reviewed related to CVD and risk factors for Native Hawaiians in Hawaii and compared with statewide and US rates. These data show that Native Hawaiians are experiencing continuing and perhaps growing disparities in CVD mortality rates and risk factor prevalence. Nevertheless, increased support for enlightened social policy and community-directed problem solving can help reduce CVD health disparities experienced by Native Hawaiians. Future research should be directed at better delineation of the various components of cardiometabolic risk and culturally sensitive, and educationally appropriate approaches to CVD risk reduction.

Two birds with one social policy stone: youth employment and regional skills shortages in Australia

In June 2005, the Victorian State Government introduced the Regional Jobs Package (RJP) – a twelve month pilot program that attempted to kill two social policy problems with one stone. The problems were youth unemployment and skills shortages in regional areas of Victoria, Australia. The intention of the RJP was to create a ‘win-win’ outcome. If young unemployed people could be matched with jobs in skill shortage areas, this would both increase employment and reduce skill shortages. The Regional Jobs Package was particularly targeted towards young people experiencing barriers in the labour market. This article reports on an evaluation of the program and overall, the RJP had a high success rate of placing young people in employment in areas of skills shortage. It was clear, however, that the program was more successful for some groups than others. Most notably, young women and people from CALD backgrounds were under-represented within the program.

Grey Literature and the Internet

Accreditation standards for professional schools offering social work degrees mandate curriculum content that provides students with skills to analyze, formulate, and influence social policies. An important source of analytical thinking about social policy is the “grey” literature issued by public policy organizations, think tanks, university-based research institutions, professional organizations, etc., that is increasingly available via the Internet. This research surveys library social work subject pages for content and links related to the social policy grey literature. A coding scheme was developed that counted the number of paths to relevant grey literature from the libraries’ subject guides. The results of the study suggest that there is a great deal of variance across institutions in how much help they provide users. Libraries must do a better job guiding users to the policy organizations that produce reports, briefs, newsletters, etc., that are important to social policy problem solving and implementation.

Crisis als katalysator

Social security reform in Belgium and the Netherlands Social security reform in Belgium and the Netherlands The record levels of benefit dependency and labor market inactivity rates in the Netherlands and Belgium induced a political crisis in both countries in the early 1990s. Policymakers announced drastic interventions in the Dutch disability insurance and the Belgian unemployment insurance. The countries are similar in many ways: both are continental welfare states, corporatist social security systems, and consensus-seeking political systems. Despite these similarities and despite the scope and severity of the problems in each country, reform outcomes looked very different. In Belgium, major reforms were announced but incremental steps were taken to improve the financial sustainability of the social security arrangements. The Netherlands experienced major changes in its disability policy and in the organization of benefit administration and supervision. Why do welfare states with similar institutional settings respond so differently to similar social policy problems? This study argues that historical institutionalism in combination with a crisis-induced reform perspective can account for this divergence. Historical institutionalism explains how path dependency led to increasing rigidity and accumulating contradictions in both welfare states. If crisis rhetoric is successful, it questions this rigidity and includes a great deal of blaming and framing to legitimize a drastic change of the status quo.