Welfare Research Articles

Link Between Social Relationships and Vulnerability Among Community‐Dwelling Older Adults Living Alone in Taiwan

ABSTRACTThe study investigated the effect of social relationships on vulnerability among community‐dwelling older adults living alone in Taiwan. Data were extracted from the de‐identified service records of 2116 older adults living alone. Logistic regression models were used to identify the connection between social relationships and vulnerability. The results demonstrated that close social relationships help reduce vulnerability for older adults living alone. Moreover, the data indicated a statistically significant relationship between frailty and vulnerability and a statistically significant relationship between public assistance and vulnerability. An increase in the degree of frailty increases the risk of exposure to threats for older adults living alone. However, public assistance benefits older adults living alone. Existing policy and social work interventions aim to strengthen social safety nets for older adults living alone and establish social networks for older adults living alone through an institutional approach to prevent exposure to threats. Moreover, policymakers should focus not only on risk factors (e.g., frailty) but also on protective factors (e.g., social relationships and public assistance).

Climate Finance: Pioneering Pathways to Sustainability

Climate finance is a progressive financial tool to foster sustainability and address climate change mitigation and adaptation challenges. This study delineates the notion of climate finance and sustainability, illustrating their confluence and its impact on social welfare, ecological quality, and economic well-being. Climate financing involves distributing resources to environmentally sustainable enterprises and projects designed to harmonize economic growth with sustainability. Furthermore, developed nations have committed to offering financial assistance to developing nations to confront the problems presented by climate change. This paper aims to decode the confluence of climate finance and sustainability. Moreover, it underscores the significance of climate financing in tackling environmental issues, reaching carbon neutrality, and eventually realizing sustainable development. The finding indicates that climate finance is essential for addressing climate change and achieving sustainability, highlighting the significant role of developed nations and the private sector in closing the funding gap required for investments in climate-resilient projects and infrastructure. Consequently, this can generate possibilities for people and nations to earn carbon credits, which are tradable in carbon markets, thereby securing financial benefits.

Factors Affecting Urban Women Empowerment in Bangladesh

This study explored the factors (attributes) affecting women empowerment in Bangladesh focusing 24 specific attributes grouped into six categories. The primary data is collected through a questionnaire survey of 176 urban women selected through convenient sampling. The most agreed attributes are access to education, and the education of people. Next agreed factors are social security, family support, women personality, women rights, legal rights, societal perception about women, vocational training, work mobility, and NGO impact and support, Next in the row are break of study, income, voting rights, savings, dowry, employment length, profession choice, wealth, inheritance. The disagreed factors are public or private education, and sibling status. The analysis of group variables showed that environment is the most important group followed by rights, education, family dynamics, finance, and employment. The important environmental factors include social security, and societal perception about women. NGO impact and support also plays a key role. Regarding rights the significant factors are awareness of women, legal, and voting rights. In the education group, access to education, and level of education of people are the two most crucial factors. Also, vocational education, as well as break of study play important roles. But public or private education have no effect in women empowerment. Regarding family dynamics, family support, and women personality are two important variables. Dowry payment, and marital status also found to carry less weight. But sibling status have no impact on women empowerment. Financial factors playlesser role in women empowerment. In this group income and savings are key factors followed by wealth and inheritance. Employment is the least important group variable. Here work mobility found to help women empowerment followed by length of employment. Parental leave was found to have no impact. Demographically not much difference in opinion is observed.

Does Price Personalization Ethically Outperform Unitary Pricing? A Thought Experiment and a Simulation Study

AbstractMerchants often use personalized pricing: they charge different consumers different prices for the same product. We assess the ethicality of personalized pricing by generalizing and extending an earlier model by Coker and Izaret (Journal of Business Ethics 173:387–398, 2021) who found that price personalization ethically outperforms unitary pricing. Using a simulation analysis, we show that these results crucially depend on the choice of parameters and do not hold universally. We further incorporate additional sources of marginal cost into the utility function that will likely arise from personalized pricing. These include the expectation that personalized pricing is widely considered unfair by consumers who prefer that all consumers are charged the same price (unitary pricing), and that firms often approximate the consumers’ willingness-to-pay in ways that may raise negative sentiments among consumers who feel that their privacy is breached. By extending our model with disutility from unfairness perception and disutility from surveillance aversion, we demonstrate that personalized pricing is quickly outperformed by unitary pricing under social welfare functions that tend to prioritize total utility (utilitarianism and prioritarianism), whereas personalized pricing can ethically outperform unitary pricing under social welfare functions that tend to prioritize equality (egalitarianism and leximin). Our findings illustrate various intricacies and dynamics regarding the circumstances under which personalized pricing can be considered ethical.

The Application of Artificial Intelligence for the Design of a Virtual Assistant (Chatbot) as an innovative approach in user service: Social Security Center No.102

The "Social Security Center No.102" has a deficiency in customer service, which has caused problems such as low user satisfaction, bad reputation, long waiting times for answers and loss of customers. The objective of this project is to demonstrate that the design and implementation of a virtual assistant (Chatbot) optimizes the service to users of the organization. As for the design of the method, the research is considered mixed, applied and technological; and depending on the level of research, it is descriptive, explanatory, cross-sectional, non-experimental and field. A stratified population sample of 380 people was considered, to whom a "questionnaire" type data collection instrument was applied, consisting of 4 sections and 24 items. Based on the results obtained, it was shown that the Chatbot improved efficiency by 64.4% and effectiveness by 63.1% in the provision of customer service to users.

APOSENTADORIA RURAL POR IDADE E OS MEIOS DE PROVAS NECESSÁRIAS PARA A CONCESSÃO DO BENEFÍCIO DIREITO PREVIDENCIÁRIO

This work addresses the analysis of the necessary requirements for granting the rural retirement benefit to rural workers, taking into account their difficulties and facilities for granting the benefit, after the various system updates until the benefit is granted. This sets out the approach method used in this article, which will be deductive where the general arguments will be analyzed. Its objective is to analyze and understand the various situations encountered and faced by special insured persons when applying for retirement, to list the difficulties in proving their rights, which in most cases occurs through proof of facts that are not registered, and to estimate the facilities established by the National Social Security Institute (INSS), which simplify the social security administrative process. Thus, to characterize the obstacles and difficulties during the process of granting retirement by age, promoting the verification of the essential elements that make up this set of means, the changes during the administrative social security process and in the legislation regarding rural retirement by rural age, as well as the difficulty in proving the exercise of rural activity, a burden that lies with you.

Demographic variation in truancy in adolescence and its effects on educational attainment and income in early adulthood

Although prior research has linked adolescent truancy with lower educational attainment and income in young adulthood, less is known about how these relationships are conditioned by demographics, such as gender, race, ethnicity, and receiving public assistance. Using data from two waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, we find that adolescent truancy predicts lower educational attainment in young adulthood, and the effect is significantly stronger for males relative to females and significantly weaker for recipients of public assistance relative to their peers. Truancy's effect on educational attainment was largely invariant across race and ethnicity. We found little evidence that truancy in adolescence is significantly related to income in young adulthood, net of controls. This study highlights the importance of examining the nuanced relationship between truancy and later life outcomes.

A Study on How Libraries Operate as Health Spaces in the United States.

A health space is any physical, social, or virtual space that supports building health literacy skills, promotes health behavior, preventive health, and wellbeing, or provides health care, health information, or health or social services. To move the needle on health, especially preventive health, a focus on non-traditional health spaces is critical. Libraries serve various community needs such as food distribution, health literacy, education, immunization, and health screenings. This study explores the extent to which libraries are equipped to function as a health space. A convergent mixed-methods approach was utilized; 234 library personnel were randomly recruited using data from the 2017 Public Libraries Survey to complete a survey and 24 semi-structured follow-up interviews were conducted. Our findings support that libraries function as a health space in multiple ways including providing important health and social programming and services to patrons. They help meet patron's health information needs by leveraging the expertise of community partners and incorporating valuable input from patrons in programming decisions. However, the capacity of libraries to carry out these health initiatives varies, in particular due to limited staff expertise in health-related topics and structural issues (e.g., funding). Our research emphasizes the need to integrate organizational health literacy attributes into library operations, specifically by (1) streamlining strategic partnerships with community experts in libraries in high-need areas to extend their limited resources, and (2) incorporating health literacy into missions and operations to draw necessary financial and personnel support to overcome salient challenges (i.e., funding and staff training).

A Tri-Level Transaction Method for Microgrid Clusters Considering Uncertainties and Dynamic Hydrogen Prices

The advancement of hydrogen technology and rising environmental concerns have shifted research toward renewable energy for green hydrogen production. This study introduces a novel tri-level transaction methodology for microgrid clusters, addressing uncertainties and price fluctuations in hydrogen. We establish a comprehensive microgrid topology with distributed power generation and hydrogen production facilities. A polygonal uncertainty set method quantifies wind and solar energy uncertainties, while an enhanced interval optimization technique refines the model. We integrate a sophisticated demand response model for hydrogen loading, capturing users’ behavior in response to price changes, thereby improving renewable energy utilization and supporting economically viable management practices. Additionally, we propose a tri-level game-theoretic framework for analyzing stakeholder interactions in microgrid clusters, incorporating supply–demand dynamics and a master–slave structure for microgrids and users. A distributed algorithm, “KKT & supply-demand ratio”, solves large-scale optimization problems by integrating Karush–Kuhn–Tucker conditions with a heuristic approach. Our simulations validate the methodology, demonstrating that accounting for uncertainties and dynamic hydrogen prices enhances renewable energy use and economic efficiency, optimizing social welfare for operators and economic benefits for microgrids and users.

The economic burden of long COVID in Australia: more noise than signal?

To estimate the potential economic burden of long COVID in Australia. A stock-and-flow model of weekly estimated numbers of people with long COVID (January 2021 to June 2023); application of proxy cost estimates from people living with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome; time series analysis of labour market and social security datasets. The working age Australian population. The likely number of Australians severely impacted by long COVID; the economic cost of long COVID; and the impacts of long COVID, determined by analysis of labour market data. At its peak in late 2022, between 181 000 and 682 000 Australians may have experienced some long COVID symptoms, of whom 40 000-145 000 may have been severely affected. Severe cases potentially decreased to affecting 10 000-38 000 people by June 2023. The likely economic burden of long COVID in Australia during 2022 was between $1.7 billion and $6.3 billion (some 0.07% to 0.26% of gross domestic product). Labour market data suggest that between 25 000 (February 2023) and 103 000 (June 2023) more working age Australians reported being unable to work due to long term sickness than would have been predicted based on pre-COVID-19 trends. This does not appear to have translated into increased claims for Disability Support Pensions, but numbers of working age Carer Allowance recipients have grown markedly since 2022. Long COVID likely imposed a small but significant aggregate toll on the Australian economy, while exposing tens of thousands of Australians to substantial personal economic hardship and contributing to labour market supply constraints. Yet while some signal from long COVID is discernible in the labour force data, Australia lacks adequate direct surveillance data to securely guide policy making.

Reduction in perforated appendicitis incidence between rural and urban populations after introducing social health insurance in Vietnam: A population-based study.

Over the years, Vietnam has expanded its social health insurance (SHI) coverage to reduce health disparities. In this population-based study, we examined the differences in incidences of perforated appendix between rural and urban populations in Vietnam since the expansion of SHI coverage in 2015. We also identified risk factors for perforated appendix in these populations. The 2015-2019 SHI inpatient claims data from the Social Security Agency of Dong Thap Province were used to elaborate the final sample of 6863 patients aged 18years or above who underwent an appendectomy. Multivariable probit and logistic regression model were employed to obtain adjusted estimates. An overall rate of 22.9% for perforated appendix among adults in Dong Thap was revealed. After the expansion of SHI, rural residents consistently had lower rates of perforated appendix than urban residents, but the differences between rural and urban residents were small and decreased over time, that is from 4.4% in 2015 to 3.4% in 2019. Older, male, and poor residents were at a higher risk of perforated appendix in both urban and rural areas. In rural areas, patients with comorbidities, patients who resided in remote communes bordering Cambodia, and patients who had district hospitals or commune facilities as their primary assigned providers were significantly more likely to develop perforated appendix. Under the SHI in Vietnam, no significant difference was observed in perforated appendicitis incidence between urban and rural residents. Additional efforts are required to reduce poorer outcomes among other high-risk residents.

Configuring social assistance: conceptualizations and implications of the adoption of robotic process automation in the Swedish personal social services

ABSTRACT Many European countries’ public organisations have turned to digital automation as a strategy to enhance the efficiency of their service delivery. One example of this is the use of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) in the provision of Social Assistance (SA) in Sweden. Swedish SA is a means-tested subsidy intended as a last resort for the economically most vulnerable persons, and caseworkers exercise a high degree of discretion when deciding on clients’ eligibility for the benefit. Based on semi-structured interviews with stakeholders at the national and local levels, this study explores how these actors conceptualise and rationalise the adoption of RPA in the SA context and discusses how this relates to the mutual configuration of RPA and SA. The results show that RPA is framed as a simple technology to alleviate caseworkers’ administrative workload so that they can instead focus on supporting clients towards self-sufficiency. However, local actors describe RPA adoption as a challenging process with modest outcomes. As such, the study suggests that stakeholders’ simplified conceptualisation of RPA allows them to shift responsibility for its practical adoption to local PSS organisations, which ultimately pushes the PSS organisations towards configuring their SA casework processes around the limited capabilities of the technology.

Epidemiological features of chronic hepatitis B in the Russian Federation and the Samara region

Research objective. To analyze the epidemiological features of chronic hepatitis in the Russian Federation and in the Samara region.Materials and methods. The data of official statistics were analyzed: the materials of the Federal Service for Supervision in the Field of Consumer Protection and Human Welfare, the Office of the Federal Service for Supervision in the Field of Consumer Protection and Human Welfare in the Samara Region.Results. The long-term dynamics of the incidence of newly diagnosed chronic hepatitis B in the Russian Federation and the Samara region in 1999–2021 was synchronous. In 1999–2001 the incidence of HCV (Chronic hepatitis B) in the Russian Federation and the Samara region had maximum values of 16,00⁄0000–22,50⁄0000. In the Samara region, it was higher than in the country. As a result of systematic measures to vaccinate the population against HCV during the period of mass immunization (2006–2021), the rate of decrease in the incidence of HCV in the Samara region decreased from 14,5 0⁄0000 to 2,40⁄0000 and in the country – from 14,0 0⁄0000 to 4,50⁄0000. The introduction of immunization of the child population against HCV in the Samara region had a positive effect on the incidence of HCV. From 2000 to 2021, the incidence of HCV decreased by 9,4 times. If in 2000 the incidence of children with HCV was 4,20⁄0000 in the Russian Federation, in 2002–7,30⁄0000 in the Samara region, then in 2021 in the Russian Federation it decreased to 0,080⁄0000, no cases were registered in the Samara region.

Echoes of Ubuntu Capacity in The Realization of Child Rights Through Ujamaa Intersections – A Case of a Parasocial Work Model in Tanzania

Child rights abuse has become a serious global concern in the 21st century as it has been reflected in the global agenda of SDGs. Tanzania like other developing countries experienced significant child rights abuse in the 1990s due to the influx of the number of orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) which was highly influenced by the HIV and AIDS pandemic, poverty, urbanization, etc. OVC was exposed to the high risk of being deprived of their rights following the failure of the formal systems and the shortage of childcare workforce that necessitated the government to involve the key child welfare stakeholders to revitalize and capacitate among the Ujamaa Intersections Models (UIM) under Ubuntu philosophy. Ultimate the country successfully designed an Indigenous cadre of para-social work (PSW) that advocated for and addressed the multiple rights of vulnerable children from 2007. Initiation and operation of PSW are embedded in the Ujamaa sections from side to side with social work and Ubuntu competence, this combination capacitated existing Ujamaa Intersections in the community such as family, extended families, neighborhood, local leadership, ecology, spirituality, and wider attributes in realizing child rights. The relevance of Ubuntu values and social work enabled para-social workers to identify the special needs of vulnerable children, increase community child protection awareness, create alarm systems for abused children, and sometimes link them to temporary self-shelters or social welfare services, etc. Despite the challenges, PSW succeeded in advocating for children's rights and improved the quality of life of children and their families. PSW has rendered evidence based on how the Indigenous models can offer relevant and sustainable solutions in addressing the rights of vulnerable populations in the community. Over time, several African countries adopted the PSW model and the model calls for child rights stakeholders and global decision-makers to revisit and relearn the capacity of the PSW model in the realization of SDG including protecting children from abuse, exploitation, trafficking, and violence. Also, it has relevant sustainable opportunities that ensure children attain inclusive and equitable quality social welfare services.

Social security, relative deprivation, digital capacity, and household financial investment behavior

Household financial investment behavior significantly impacts economic stability and growth, yet the complex interplay between social security, relative deprivation, and digital capability in shaping these decisions remains understudied, particularly in developing economies. While previous research has explored various factors influencing household investments, the mediating role of relative deprivation and the moderating effect of digital capability in the context of social security have been overlooked. This study addresses this gap by examining how these factors interact to influence household financial investment decisions in China. Using data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) 2018, we employ regression analyses and robustness tests to investigate these relationships. Our findings reveal that comprehensive social security coverage encourages households to engage in riskier financial investments, with reduced relative deprivation enhancing this effect and increased digital capability strengthening the relationship between social security and investment decisions. These results underscore the importance of integrating behavioral and technological insights into social security policy to enhance economic participation and development. Our study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the determinants of household financial behavior in emerging economies and offers valuable insights for policymakers seeking to promote financial inclusion and economic growth.

The Unequal Impact of Disasters: Assessing the Interplay Between Social Vulnerability, Public Assistance, Flood Insurance, and Migration in the U.S

Extreme weather events, such as hurricanes with intense rainfall and storm surges, are posing increasing challenges to local communities worldwide. These hazards not only result in substantial property damage but also lead to significant population displacement. Federal disaster assistance programs are crucial for providing financial support for disaster response and recovery, but the allocation of these resources often unequal due to the complex interplay of environmental, social, and institutional factors. Relying on datasets collected from diverse sources, this study employs a structural equation model to explore the complex relationships between disaster damage (DD), social vulnerability (SV), public disaster assistance (PDA), the national flood insurance (NFI), and population migration (PM) across counties in the contiguous US. Our findings reveal that communities with lower SV tend to experience higher levels of DD across US counties. SV is negatively associated with PM, PDA, and NFI, both directly and indirectly. Furthermore, PDA is positively linked to PM, whereas DD has a direct negative effect on PM but an indirect positive effect through PDA.

Shooting a moving target: Evaluating targeting tools for social programs when income fluctuates

A key challenge for policymakers in low- and middle-income countries is to design a method to select beneficiaries of social programs when income is unobservable and volatile. We use a unique panel dataset of a random sample of households in Colombia’s social registry that contains information before, during, and after the 2020 economic crisis to evaluate a traditional static proxy-means test (PMT) and three policy-relevant alternatives. We consider targeting metrics and social welfare under different curvatures of governments’ social welfare function, aggregate economic environments, and budgetary and political constraints. Updating the PMT data does not improve social welfare relative to the static PMT. Relaxing the eligibility threshold reduces the exclusion error, increases the inclusion error, and increases social welfare. A dynamic method that uses data on shocks to estimate a variable component of income reduces exclusion errors and limits the expansion in coverage, increasing social welfare during the economic crisis.

Social Security, Digital Literacy, and Relative Poverty in China

In the context of China's rapid economic development and digitalization, relative poverty persists as a pressing concern despite significant strides in poverty alleviation. While the role of social security in poverty reduction has been extensively studied, the potential moderating effect of digital literacy remains largely overlooked, particularly regarding individuals' ability to access and utilize social benefits effectively. To address this gap, we examine the interplay between social security, digital literacy, and relative poverty using data from the China Family Panel Studies 2020. Employing logistic regression models with interaction terms and addressing potential endogeneity, we find that social security coverage significantly reduces the likelihood of relative poverty. Crucially, digital literacy positively moderates this relationship, amplifying the poverty-reducing effect of social security for individuals with higher digital skills. This effect is particularly pronounced for low-income households and varies across regions. These findings highlight the need for integrated policy approaches that combine social protection with digital skill development to effectively combat relative poverty in the digital age, contributing to our understanding of poverty dynamics in digitalized societies and informing more targeted poverty reduction strategies.

Retailer involvement in eco-conscious consumer-oriented carbon footprint reduction

Retailer involvement and consumer eco-consciousness are two critical considerations for firms when designing comprehensive carbon footprint reduction (CFR) plans. This paper constructs a supply chain (SC) where one manufacturer and one retailer make CFR and pricing strategies in response to eco-conscious consumers. Eco-conscious consumers form a reference carbon footprint to assess the product's green level. To achieve SC coordination, a cost-sharing contract is introduced. Our results suggest that retailer involvement in CFR always benefits the environment, SC performance, consumer surplus, and social welfare. During CFR cooperation, the manufacturer strategically affects the retailer's CFR decision by adjusting the CFR level, impacting environmental and economic outcomes. Although higher CFR efficiency by the manufacturer can benefit the environment, SC performance, consumer surplus, and social welfare, a similar emphasis by the retailer may have adverse effects. Surprisingly, a lower reference carbon footprint for eco-conscious consumers may be worse for the environment, depending on the retailer's CFR efficiency. Furthermore, implementing a cost-sharing contract under the retailer's different CFR efficiency yields two distinct impacts: a multi-win situation or an incentive conflict. Extended studies are further examined to validate the robustness of these main results.

Impact of family members’ perception bias on service strategies of elder care institutions

Family members play an important role in the decision-making process of the elderly in accepting elder care services, which inevitably influences the operational strategy of elder care institutions (ECIs). Previous literature has focused on the disagreements between the elderly and their family members, but a research gap remains in examining the effects of family members’ perception bias on ECIs’ decisions to outsource service and on the elder care service market in general. Our study bridges this gap by employing a game-theoretic model that incorporates monopoly and duopoly markets to explore these effects. Our findings indicate that family members’ perception bias for ECIs’ services negatively impacts ECIs’ prices, demand, and profit. Moreover, we find that in the monopoly market, an ECI should adopt the outsourcing strategy to reduce losses if family members’ perception bias is higher. In the duopoly market, when family members’ perception bias is higher, if one ECI adopts the outsourcing strategy, then the other ECI should opt for the self-providing strategy, and vice versa. Furthermore, we observe that a higher perception bias decreases family surplus and social welfare in the monopoly market. However, it may sometimes benefit family surplus and social welfare in the duopoly market. Our results offer insightful takeaways for ECIs’ operational strategies and policymakers’ welfare policies in the elder care service market.