Social Policy Perspective Research Articles

Women’s working futures – views, policies and choices

Changes in the economy, workforce, technology, population and family structures have implications for women’s working futures. Longer life expectancy and an increasing proportion of older people in the community are expected to influence fiscal, economic and social policy and put pressure on government income support systems. These pressures will be exacerbated by older workers leaving the workforce. With an increasing proportion of older people in the population and increasing health and longevity, paid work after the age of 65 years may become an option or a necessity in the future. The focus of this paper is on women of the baby boom generation, their working futures and the issues that will influence their work‐retirement transition. This is explored from the viewpoint of Australian women and from a social policy perspective.

Victim and citizen perspectives on sexual offender policy.

At any point, the "best practices" for managing sexual offenders typically derive from the prevailing social policy regarding such offenders. Social policy perspectives held by victims, citizens in the community, and sexual offender experts often are quite different, with victims, their advocates, and citizens supporting management strategies that are more harsh and restrictive than the strategies recommended by the experts. In this paper, these varying perspectives are discussed, and recommendations are made for ways in which sexual offender experts can be influential in shaping social policy.

Observations on the Progress of Welfare-State Construction in Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic

Three specialists in social services present an assessment of Hungary's performance during the economic transition from the perspective of social policy and the general welfare of the population. Using figures drawn from a variety of European sources, they offer a review of social expenditure, labor market tendencies, and the social security, health and education systems, comparing throughout with data from the Czech Republic, Poland and the European Union.

Seattle's mental health courts: early indicators of effectiveness

Courts specializing in the adjudication of mentally ill defendants are relatively new to the United States. Steadman, Davidson, and Brown (2001) proposed a four-part functional definition of a mental health court (MHC): (1) all identified mentally ill defendants are handled on a single court docket, (2) the use of a collaborative team which includes a clinical specialist who recommends and make linkages to treatment, (3) assurance of availability of appropriate clinical placement prior to the judge making a ruling, and (4) specialized court monitoring with possible sanctions for noncompliance. Other authors have stressed the view that MHCs are primarily vehicles for the practice of therapeutic jurisprudence, defined as the process of fostering therapeutic outcomes by legal means, or at least considering the therapeutic or antitherapeutic outcomes resulting from the legal process (Casey & Rottman, 2000; Wexler & Winick, 1996). Publications on MHCs have been primarily limited to descriptions of MHCs and their implications from legal, health, and social policy perspectives. There remains a virtual absence of empirical data elements in published accounts, with the exception of basic program statistics, such as number of defendants screened, adjudicated, and supervised. Although a major evaluation of the Broward County Mental Health Court is underway, and a description of the evaluation’s methods, measures, and challenges is available (McGaha, Boothroyd, Poythress, Petrila, & Ort, 2002), empirical reports from that research are only beginning to emerge (see Boothroyd et al., this issue; Poythress, Petrilla, McGaha, & Boothroyd, 2002), and analyses for many facets of that study are still in preparation. Heretofore, empirical evidence of the effectiveness of MHCs has been very limited and benchmarks from which different court

Commentary: A Second Opinion

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Other ArticlesFull AccessCommentary: A Second OpinionScott H. Nelson, M.D.Scott H. NelsonSearch for more papers by this author, M.D.Published Online:1 May 2002https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ps.53.5.573AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail The preceding article purports to show that, from a broader social policy perspective, "the impact of mental illness on crime, unemployment, and homelessness appears to be much smaller than that implied by much of the psychiatric services literature." The essential thesis of the article is that persons with mental illness are usually members of the poverty class and thus, by definition, have a higher risk of the three social problems discussed, which are all related to poverty.However, the article's premise—that it is not the mental illness but the poverty of those who are mentally ill that leads to the frequency of these social problems—is implausible. The article fails to acknowledge that it is the clinical consequences of untreated mental illness that lead many—although admittedly not all—persons with mental illness to the criminal justice system, unemployment, and homelessness. The article does not acknowledge certain basic facts, such as the large numbers of criminal offenses committed by mentally ill persons that are misdemeanors, the impact of serious mental illness on employability, and the paranoia often associated with homelessness. Rather, it considers psychiatric illness to be "only a small part of the problem."The article also implies that the social conditions of unemployment, involvement with the criminal justice system, and homelessness are "simplified as psychiatric problems," which is not a common theory. Although it may be correct that the factors associated with the social context of poverty can affect the manifestation of mental illness, the article does not succeed in showing that untreated mental illness is not substantially associated with these conditions.One of the recommendations of the article is that the risks of poverty need to be addressed. This is certainly a noble suggestion, but it is likely to be infeasible and is hardly a timely or effective solution for mental illness or substance use problems in present-day America. The article is helpful in emphasizing the fact that social context is important in addressing issues related to mental illness and that more research is needed.The article concludes by emphasizing strategies for positively changing the social context experienced by persons with serious mental illness. Unfortunately, it does not focus on the most important issue—working with the mentally ill person to ensure that treatment of the mental illness, which has never been more effective, is offered and accepted.Dr. Nelson has been a mental health director in New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C. He is currently with the medical assistance division of the New Mexico Human Services Department, 2025 South Pacheo Street, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505 (e-mail, [email protected]). FiguresReferencesCited byDetailsCited ByNew South Wales Public Health Bulletin, Vol. 18, No. 12Perceived Reasons for Loss of Housing and Continued Homelessness Among Homeless Persons With Mental IllnessRamin Mojtabai, M.D., Ph.D.1 February 2005 | Psychiatric Services, Vol. 56, No. 2Poverty, Social Problems, and Serious Mental IllnessJeffrey Draine, Ph.D., Mark Salzer, Ph.D., Dennis Culhane, Ph.D., and Trevor Hadley, Ph.D.1 July 2002 | Psychiatric Services, Vol. 53, No. 7Poverty, Social Problems, and Serious Mental IllnessCarl I. Cohen, M.D.1 July 2002 | Psychiatric Services, Vol. 53, No. 7 Volume 53Issue 5 May 2002Pages 573-573 Metrics PDF download History Published online 1 May 2002 Published in print 1 May 2002

Step-Fathering: Comparing Policy and Everyday Experience in Britain and Sweden

Step-fathering is becoming increasingly common in contemporary western societies, yet it has received little research attention from either social policy or sociological perspectives. In this article, we draw on our empirical studies of step-families in Britain and Sweden to argue that social context is important in shaping step-fathers’ understandings of their position. Policy and legislation in these countries emphasise the importance of ascribed, biological parenthood, marginalising step-parents. There are, however, notable class differences in both our British and Swedish samples concerning whether step-fathers see their relationship to their step-children as the same as biological fathering, supplementary to it, or as disengaged from fathering. The analysis also reveals that policies simultaneously emphasise achieved contemporary involved fathering alongside promoting ascribed biological fatherhood. Such policies contain a contradiction for step-fathers’ understandings of their everyday relationships with their step- children.

Is the New Deal for Transport Really Better for Everyone? The Social Policy Implications of the UK 1998 White Paper on Transport

The authors examine, from a social policy perspective, the UK government's 1998 transport White Paper, which aims to reduce the environmental and social costs of growing traffic congestion and pollution. Data from the British Social Attitudes Survey are used to analyse the implications of the government's new transport policy for the relative welfare of different social and demographic groups. The results suggest that car dependency, which the government is hoping to tackle, is widespread and is particularly strong among men, people with higher incomes, those aged between 25 and 59 years, people with children, the nonmanual social classes, and those living in rural areas. These classes and groups share most of the responsibility for the negative impacts of motor transport, and are often the least concerned about them. They are also the people most opposed to the idea of government intervention to ameliorate the problems.

Recasting European Welfare States for the 21st Century

This article places European welfare states squarely in today's European integration context and looks optimistically at social policy perspectives ‘top down’ from the European level. It has the needs of European policy makers in mind, and thus their interests in optimal policy mixes, lessons from national experiences and in a new institutional architecture that links EU member states more effectively into All-European corridors of reform efforts. The authors argue that the overriding need in welfare state reform is to identify new value combinations and institutional arrangements in national systems that are both mixed – in terms of solidarity and growth objectives – and virtuous, that is capable of producing advances on all necessary fronts. The authors recapitulate the EU's present social agenda – where the search for ‘new value combinations’ is seen to be most actively undertaken. They take up the nature of the ‘bottom up’ challenges to, and the adjustment problems of, the four different sets of European welfare states at length and also their differing needs for functional, distributive as well as normative re-calibration. They present core components of an optimal adjustment strategy that could reconcile growth with solidarity. Finally, they focus on different instruments that might further substantiate the role the EU could play in preserving and developing the ‘European Social Model’ in different welfare domains.

Urban poverty and vulnerability in India: A social policy perspective

This article explains the characteristics of the urban poor and makes a strong case for its analysis and understanding at an individual, household and community level. The paper argues that policy makers need to make a conceptual distinction between social development and social protection during both the planning and implimentation of any antipoverty policy. To shift policy making towards this approach a considerable effort to shift in resource flows will be required. Analysis of the causes and symptoms of urban poverty needs to be improved, innovative partnership between different stakeholders (poor people as well as community leaders, governments, the pivate sector, NGOs and donors etc.) need to be developed and policy makers need to be clear about what they are trying to achieve — to raise all the poor to the improving condition and to keep them there or to continue with palliative measures which keep the poor in their vulnerable condition?

Norwegian-Swedish cross-border trade in alcoholic beverages

In order to reduce the total alcohol consumption, and thereby also the level of individual and social alcohol-related damages, Norwegian alcohol control policy is based on a system in which high alcohol excise taxes constitute a key element. The excise taxes on alcoholic beverages therefore serve other purposes than representing sources of revenue to the state coffers, and must in consequence be viewed from a public health and social policy perspective. However, this policy may also have other effects that do not appear in the official alcohol sales statistics. These effects, which may include legal and illegal home production, legal tourist import in compliance with the existing rules and quota regulations, and illegal import in the form of smuggling, may contribute to undercut the effect of high alcohol excise taxes as a public health and social policy strategy to limit alcohol-related damages. If the legal and illegal home production and import reach a certain level, the legitimacy of the Norwegian alcohol control policy may be weakened. In this paper, the extent to which Norwegians purchase alcoholic beverages in Sweden will be regarded as an indirect effect of the high excise tax level in Norway. The continuing debate around this theme has intensified during the 1990s, mainly as a result of the fact that Norwegian prices on alcoholic beverages during this period have risen compared with the Swedish prices. The aim of this paper is to analyse how the cross-border trade with alcoholic beverages between Norway and Sweden has been affected by the changes in prices, taxes, and exchange rates during the 1990s. This issue will be addressed by analysing the changes in cross-border trade in different subperiods. In addition, the overall volume of cross-border trade with alcoholic beverages between the two countries will be estimated.

Advancing the human right to food in Canada: Social policy and the politics of hunger, welfare, and food security

This article argues that hunger in Canada, while being an outcome of unemployment, low incomes, and inadequate welfare, springs also from the failure to recognize and implement the human right to food. Food security has, however, largely been ignored by progressive social policy analysis. Barriers standing in the way of achieving food security include the increasing commodification of welfare and the corporatization of food, the depoliticization of hunger by governments and the voluntary sector, and, most particularly, the neglect by the federal and provincial governments of their obligations to guarantee the domestic right to food as expressed in international human rights law. The interconnectedness of hunger, welfare, and food security issues in a first world society are explored from the perspective of progressive social policy and food security analysis and the development of alternative strategies. In terms of advancing the human right to food in Canada, particular emphasis is placed on the role of the state and civil society, and the social and economic rights of citizenship built on an inclusive social policy analysis and politics of welfare, food security and human rights.

Book review: A social policy perspective

Book review: A social policy perspective

Book Review: A social policy perspective

Book Review: A social policy perspective

Computers Don't Kill Jobs, People Do: Technology and Power in the Workplace

New technologies are increasingly common in America's workplaces. The pace of technological change can be expected to increase in the future. The impacts of technological change include job loss, changes in skills, and health and safety effects, among others. These are of great importance to the workforce. From a social policy perspective, however, the most important impact of technological change is its effect on the power relationships between workers and managers in the workplace. Many of the traditional sources of union or worker power or leverage are undermined as new technologies are designed, developed, and implemented. Effective technology policy needs to go beyond dealing with the symptoms of technological change to taking on the core issue, which is precisely the loss of power that the workforce experiences.

The advantages and disadvantages of the contribution base in targeting benefits: A social analysis of the insurance scheme in the United Kingdom

This article assesses the role which social insurance plays within the social security scheme in contemporary Great Britain, and presents this analysis for comparison and assessment to an international audience. The structure of the Beveridge scheme is briefly outlined and adaptations to it discussed. The scheme's failure to provide comprehensive social protection in Great Britain is then explained and the consequent drift towards social assistance is noted. A contrast is drawn between the advantages and disadvantages of insurance protection from a social policy perspective. Finally, the prospects for social insurance are briefly appraised and compared with alternative possible models for social security. From this it is concluded that, despite its past failings, even in Great Britain the prospects for social insurance protection remain strong.

Delinquency and impulsivity and IQ: A reply to Block (1995).

Although J. Block's critique (1995) of the D. Lynam, T. Moffitt, and M. Stouthamer-Loeber report (1993) contains several interesting points, many of his criticisms are not valid and resulted from miscommunications, misunderstandings, and simple preferences. Specifically, the authors believe the criticisms to be the results of mistaking a single hypothesis for an organizing principle, a misunderstanding of the reported path analyses, and a simple preference for impulsivity over IQ as an explanatory construct. An attempt is made to address the misinterpretation through clarification of the predicted relations between IQ, executive dysfunction, impulsivity, and delinquency. The original path analyses are reviewed and are shown to refute not only the original self-control hypothesis (Lynam et al., 1993), as reported, but also Block's more recent version. Finally, evidence marshalled by Block to support his emphasis on impulsive personality over low IQ is argued to have inadequacies from empirical and social policy perspectives

Workplace Policies as Social Policy

The rhetoric surrounding family-responsive policies in the workplace (e.g., employer-supported child care, parental leave, and employee-assistance programs) suggests that their purpose is to help workers achieve a healthy balance between work and family roles. The reality is, however, that many so-called family-responsive policies function as work supports to help ensure that workers continue to give priority to work over family. In this article, I reframe and clarify the goals of family-responsive policies. I examine these policies from a social policy perspective in order to identify new strategies for promoting a balanced life and to sort out the responsibilities of government, employers, and individuals in this emerging policy arena.

Tomlinson: a social policy perspective (Part 2).

This article is the second of two which explore the Tomlinson Report and its implications from a social policy perspective using a "policy as process" model. In this article, the main points of the report and the government's response to it will be analysed with reference to areas of particular interest to nurses and nursing, that is, primary and community health services, the acute sector, nurse education, and research. The impact on nursing and health policy, both in London and the United Kingdom, will also be discussed.

Tomlinson: a social policy perspective (Part 1).

This article is the first of two which explore the Report of the Inquiry into London's Health Service, Medical Education And Research (1) (the Tomlinson Report), and consider its origins and implications from a social policy perspective. In this article, the Tomlinson Report will be placed within its historical context and the key events leading up to its commissioning and publication examined. To facilitate the analysis, a 'policy as process model' will be adopted throughout to articulate and emphasise the relationships between the phenomena involved (2). Part two appears next week.

Book Notes

Development and ChangeVolume 23, Issue 2 p. 196-199 Book Notes First published: April 1992 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7660.1992.tb00452.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Abstract Said El-Naggar (ed.), Privatization and Structural Adjustment in the Arab Countries. African Centre for Applied Research and Training in Social Development, Understanding Africa's Food Problems: Social Policy Perspectives. Penny van Esterik, Motherpower and Infant Feeding. Paul Cook and Colin Kirkpatrick (eds), Privatisation in Less Developed Countries. Gordon R. Conway and Edward B. Barbier, After the Green Revolution. Sustainable Agriculture for Development. Volume23, Issue2April 1992Pages 196-199 RelatedInformation