Statutory Welfare Research Articles

Active Adaptation and Passive Dependence: A Comparison of Protestant and Buddhist Social Services in Contemporary China

China’s religious social services complement the statutory welfare. Clarifying the situations and characteristics of different types of religious social services is conducive to promoting their better integration into public welfare. With the help of existing policy texts, research documents, and website data, this paper employs the thematic framework analysis method to analyze texts and documents and uses NVivo12 and SPSS26 to analyze website data. We explore the similarities and differences between contemporary Chinese Protestant social services and Buddhist social services from the perspectives of the service program, service organizations, and service resources, starting from multiple dimensions such as vertical and horizontal, similarity and difference. The main findings include the following: (a) In terms of service programs, Protestant social services are more inclusive than Buddhist social services and more public in terms of participant selection, religious environment, and the use of spiritual methods. Protestant social services are more open in terms of service value and public expression, while Buddhist social services are more localized and are politically consistent with the government. (b) In terms of service organizations, Protestant social services and Buddhist social services are based on three main types of legal persons. Protestant social services were the first to register organizational legal persons. Protestant social organizations differentiated into special service institutions and have core organizations with strong mobilization capabilities (CCC/TSPM). There is little difference between Protestant and Buddhist social services in private non-enterprise units and foundations (transparency index, business scope). (c) In terms of service resources, both Protestant and Buddhist social services rely on donations. The sources of funds for Protestant social services are more international, diversified, and market-oriented. In terms of government resource acquisition, Protestant social services actively “adapt”, while Buddhist social services passively “rely”.

Quality assessment, inclusive community development, and collective learning: An institutional perspective from Germany.

This article reviews the German discourse on quality of life, quality assurance, and outcome measurement in services for persons with intellectual disabilities. Following institutional assumptions of path dependencies in organizational development, it is argued that concepts such as quality assurance must be understood in the context of the national support system development. For the Federal Republic of Germany, it can be noted that previous approaches to quality assurance of services based on measurement and evaluation tools have not been the drivers of innovation for inclusion. The driving forces behind reforms in the field of disability originated from the three angles of the social service structure (people with disabilities, statutory welfare agencies, and service providers). Policies of key actors were not part of a consistent reform strategy. However, the main elements of the inclusive philosophies of the disability rights movement became hegemonial and led to national legislation that prioritizes person-centered support arrangements in inclusive settings. With regard to governance arrangements in Germany and the idiosyncrasies of local disability fields, it is suggested that there should be a conceptualization of quality assurance in a multilevel approach as “local quality dialogues for collective learning.”

The study of “employees welfare measures” in private organisation at Chennai

Employee welfare refers to how businesses, trade unions, governments, and non-governmental organisations look after the well-being of their employees. It's referred to as "improvement of work conditions for employees." Employee welfare refers to the many activities, advantages, and amenities that firms provide to their employees. The welfare facilities do not have to be monetary, but can take any shape or form. Allowances, accommodation, transportation, health insurance, and food are all included. Minerals play an important part in a country ’s economic growth. Minerals are the foundation of the country's industrialized base, and a country's wealth is directly proportional to its mineral riches and wise exploitation. India's mining sector contributes significantly to the country's economic growth. Employee or worker welfare is a broad word that refers to a variety of services, perks, and facilities provided to an organization's employees. Worker welfare actions are those that include providing adequate workplace conditions to employees on a voluntary basis by the company. A study of mining sector worker welfare measures sheds light on the statutory welfare procedures in place at the Donimalai Iron Ore Mine in Bellary District. 

Urban food security during COVID-19: The limits of statutory welfare and the role of community action in Sweden and Korea

During COVID-19, the demand for food relief exploded as vulnerable people were suddenly more numerous and visible than ever, for which statutory welfare was not ready to cope with. We examine the role of voluntary and community organizations (VCOs) in food relief in Stockholm, Sweden and Seoul, Korea. Interpretive analysis of interview materials reveals how VCOs perceive their role vis-à-vis the state and take actions against urban food insecurity during the pandemic. The limits of statutory welfare in reaching out to vulnerable individuals reserve an indispensable role for community action in food relief even with the well-developed welfare state. Despite starkly different welfare state contexts, VCOs in both cases complement statutory welfare by swiftly identifying the risk of hunger and organizing community actions to meet the emergent needs. Given that Sweden and Korea represent the least likely cases to observe welfare provision by VCOs, the findings may have implications to general understanding of VCOs as indispensable welfare provider.

Study on analysis of labour welfare measures and its impact on employee’s commitment towards textile industrial units sipcot in Chennai

During the growing time of technology, the organizations cannot increase their employee’s commitment by providing salaries on time. When the organization offer different welfare measures to their employees, there is an opportunity to increase the commitment of the employee. The aim of the study is to analyze labour welfare measure and its relationship with employee's commitment. A sample of 76 respondents (84.2% male and 15.8% female) from Jyothy Laboratories Limited were participated in the study and the census method was adopted in the collection of data from individual respondents. The findings of the research indicated that the labour welfare measure especially health insurance, housing facility, hygienic toilet facility, transport facility, rest and lunch room facility, compensation on death and recreational facilities creates a positive approach on employee’s commitment, while the other factors create variables creates a negative approach on employee’s commitment. The factors of labour welfare measures namely statutory welfare measure and non-statutory welfare measure are highly influenced by the employee’s commitment like affective and normative commitment. But in the case of continuance commitment, social security measure alone creates an impact, the remaining variable are not create any impact on continuance commitment.

The legal status of animals: a source of their disaster vulnerability

The 2019–20 Australian bushfire season had a devastating impact on animals. A report sponsored by the World Wide Fund for Nature (2020) estimates that 3 billion native wild animals were affected by the bushfires, with several species now closer to extinction. Thousands of domesticated farm animals also perished, either as an immediate result of the bushfires or as a consequence of being euthanised with fire-related injuries. In addition, there was concern about the adequacy of arrangements for the evacuation and care of companion animals during the emergency. In these diverse ways, the bushfires brought the profound and multidimensional vulnerability of animals to disaster events into stark focus. Using case studies, this paper examines the role the law plays in contributing to this vulnerability. It investigates how the status of animals as ‘property’ under law increases their exposure to hazards and affects their priority in disaster planning and response. This paper also scrutinises the extent to which statutory welfare and environmental protections are capable of optimising wellbeing and survival outcomes for animals in disasters.

The death of Veronica L.: intellectual disability and statutory welfare in mid twentieth-century Ireland

AbstractVeronica L., a woman with an intellectual disability, died of starvation in 1961 while the recipient of a Disabled Person's Maintenance Allowance (D.P.M.A.) from the Dublin Health Authority. Her death occured after a prolonged period of deficient care, a neglect that was exacerbated by flaws in statutory welfare. During the preceding decade the state intervened in disability provision to an unprecedented degree through the expansion of institutional care and social welfare reform. Yet, these services remained characterised by a chronic pressure on resources and a reluctance to intervene in potentially neglectful family situations, which allowed cases of failing care to go unaddressed. Drawing on contemporary documents, in particular the depositions collected for the coroner's court inquest into Veronica's death, this article offers an insight into the exigencies underlying the later life of one woman with an intellectual disability. In doing so, it explores the way in which this singular case provides a distinctive avenue for better understanding the experiences of the intellectually disabled more broadly, including the nature of community care and the operation of statutory welfare during the mid twentieth century.

Workers’ perception towards statutory labour welfare benefits with special reference to engineering sector

In classical economics, labour is one of the three factors of production, along with capital and land. The word welfare has historically been related to happiness and prosperity. Labour welfare implies the adoption of measures to promote the physical, social, psychological and general well-being of the working population. Welfare work in any industry aims, or should aim, at improving the working and living conditions of workers and their families. Adequate levels of earnings, safe and humane conditions of work and access to some minimum social security benefits are the major qualitative dimensions of employment which enhance quality of life of workers and their productivity. Constitution of India, national and internal labour bodies, labour laws, especially the factories act, 1948 and contract labour (Regulation and abolition) Act, 1970 strive to make the working conditions more humane with a view to make workers not only satisfied but also productive. The paper studies the statutory welfare facilities and the provision of leaves as enumerated under Factories Act and contract labour act and social security provisions under different acts. The study was conducted in engineering companies to know the perception of workers about the different dimensions of welfare i.e. statutory welfare measures, social security measures and leaves provided and also to know the impact of worker’s status (permanent/contractual) on such measures. The sample comprised of 97 workers employed with different engineering companies. These companies can be categorised as light and heavy engineering companies employing varying strength of workers. The results indicated that though significant workers were satisfied with the welfare facilities, some workers perceive welfare facilities to be inadequate and there is impact of worker’s status on the perception of workers. Keywords: Labour, Welfare, Engineering, Permanent worker, Contractual worker.

Mandate-based welfare policies and the effect on real wage – The case of Taiwan

This study estimates the relationship between statutory welfare programs and workers’ compensation. Employing monthly macroeconomic data from 1982 to 2016 and wage rates in several private industrial sectors in Taiwan, the relationships between pay variations and policy interventions are explored after controlling for the economic growth rate, labor productivity, and time fixed effects. The seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average (SARIMA) and multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS) were adopted in the panel analyses. The findings of this study suggest that social welfare policies have negative effects on employees’ wage rates. The magnitudes of the effects are directly linked to the burden borne by the employers. National Health Insurance has the greatest negative effects on workers’ pay in all selected industrial sectors. The statutory welfare benefits explain approximately 23% of the pay deviation from the trend predicted by the models. A non-payroll-based financing method could be considered in the future to alleviate this impact.

Comparison of Decision-Making Analysis of Corporate Welfare System Implementation in Taiwan, Japan and Korea

The promotion of corporate welfare system aims to retain outstanding talents. Enterprises have launched various favorable welfare policies to retain and recruit excellent talents. How to make employees feel happy and increase their willingness to stay is also an important corporate welfare decision. This study uses integrated inductive method to explore the decision-making of Taiwan, Japan and Korea in the implementation of corporate welfare system. It is found that in terms of the statutory welfare, Taiwan has established labor insurance and employment insurance, while Japan has formulated employment insurance and children education subsidies and Korea has developed medical insurance and pension system. Regarding independent corporate welfare, Taiwan, Japan and Korea have formulated housing subsidies, special holidays, wedding welfare, funeral welfare and festival welfare. In job-related welfare, different from Taiwan and Korea, Japan has provided qualification exam subsidies and lounges. The corporate welfare survey results of Japan and the application results of customer-oriented corporate welfare information system website in Korea may serve as a reference for the decision-making on corporate welfare system by the Ministry of Labor of Taiwan.

A Comparative Study of Effectiveness of Statutory Employee Welfare Measures - With Special Reference to Canteen Facility in Sugar Mills in Krishna District of Andhra Pradesh

The existing research is created an effort to recognize the worker well being actions implemented in Sugar Miles industry. Employee well being indicates anything done for comfortableness and enhancement of the employees over and above the salaries compensated which is not a requirement of the profession. The standard objective of employee well being is to enhance the lifestyle of workers and keep them satisfied. Employees invest at least half their time at your workplace or getting to it, or making it. They know that they play a role to the organization when they are reasonably exempt from fear and they experience that when they are in trouble/ problems, they are due to get something returning from the company. Individuals are qualified for be treated as complete humans with individual needs, desires and stresses.

From associations to action: mental health and the patient politics of subsidiarity in Scotland

In times of economic hardship public mental healthcare suffers a double disservice. On the one hand, it faces a diminution of existing resource, and on the other, it is met with vastly increased demand. The damage done to already hard-pressed public services during economic crises is often most keenly felt by those at the receiving end of statutory health and welfare provisions. When public services are deemed by its principal recipients to be no longer fit for purpose, it is unsurprising that they, along with others, look to agencies other than the state to meet their needs. In the final year of the 1970s, a decade in which Great Britain became the ‘sick man of Europe’, while Margaret Thatcher moved into 10 Downing Street, a new mental health organisation came into being in Scotland. Glasgow Association for Mental Health (GAMH) and a group of patients’ social clubs called LINK clubs joined to form LINK/GAMH. In a climate of great social and economic upheaval during the 1980s, LINK/GAMH received substantial Urban Aid funding to support those suffering from mental illness. Motivated by principles of voluntary association, self-help and mutual aid, LINK/GAMH sought to ‘cater for needs, and encourage aspirations, which are not and perhaps should not be met, or promoted by Statutory Welfare Agencies’. This article examines how the relationship between socioeconomic factors and mental health was understood by LINK/GAMH and how this informed the development of a resource centre, a rehabilitation programme and political campaigning by psychiatric patients. By focusing upon the activities of LINK/GAMH in the 1970s and 1980s, drawing on archival evidence and oral testimony, it will be argued that the concepts of solidarity and subsidiarity were embedded in the practices of patient associations. This study will show that through the development of relationships of solidarity and subsidiarity, across local, national and international boundaries, patient associations such as LINK/GAMH and their allies redefined a normative conception of the ‘sick role’, reclaiming civic selfhood and political agency for psychiatric patients.

Recollection-as-method in social welfare practice: dirty work, shame and resistance

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to introduce a methodology for critical welfare practice research, “recollection-as-method”, and to use this to demonstrate the social relations of social welfare institutions.Design/methodology/approachThe paper analyses a series of personal recollections from the author’s experiences of academic life and welfare work to establish a methodology for critical welfare practice research. This uses concepts memory, dirty work, shame and complicity, and is grounded in critical feminist and critical race work, and psychosocial and socio-cultural approaches to governance.FindingsThe paper establishes a methodology for critical welfare practice research by demonstrating the significance of using an ontologically driven approach to governance, to achieve a realistic and complex understanding of statutory welfare work.Research limitations/implicationsRecollections are post hoc narrations, written in the present day. The ethics and robustness of this approach are deliberated in the paper.Practical implicationsThe focus of the paper is on statutory welfare practice that involves the assessment and regulation of homeless people. Principles and arguments developed in this paper contribute to reflective and reflexive debates across “front-line” social welfare practice fields in and beyond homelessness. Examples include assessment of social groups such as unemployed people, refugees and asylum seekers. Arguments also have application for criminal justice settings such as for prison work.Social implicationsThis foregrounds practitioner ambivalence and resistance in order to theorise the social relations of social welfare institutions.Originality/valueThe recollection-as-method approach provides a methodology for critical practice research by demonstrating an alternative way to understand the realities of welfare work. It argues that understanding how resistance and complicity operate in less conscious and more structural ways is important for understanding the social relations of social welfare institutions and the role of good/bad feeling for these processes. This is important for understanding interventions required for anti-oppressive social change across the social worlds of policy-practice life.

Farm membership of voluntary welfare schemes results in better compliance with animal welfare legislation in Great Britain

AbstractThe Action Plan of the European Commission 2006-2010 proposed a move towards more private and less state regulation of animal welfare and Great British (GB) Governments made a commitment to reduce the burden of inspection of farms by targeting high-risk enterprises. In previous research in GB, farmers in private, voluntary regulated schemes were more compliant with GB legislation and code at statutory welfare inspections made by the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) than farmers not in such schemes. The current study investigated whether membership of other private voluntary regulators and national data sources were associated with greater compliance with welfare at APHA inspections and whether the previous association between greater compliance and membership of private schemes persisted. Compliance at APHA inspections remained higher on farms in the private schemes previously investigated. It was also higher in the one retailer and seven herd health schemes investigated. There was no association between non-welfare EU cross-compliance inspections and compliance at APHA inspections. Approximately 90% of farmers in a scheme passed animal welfare inspections compared with 80% of non-scheme members. We conclude that farms in private schemes are more likely to pass APHA inspections and so this criterion can be used in selection of farms for risk-based inspection. We hypothesise that private regulation with regular inspection of all farms could raise compliance with animal welfare legislation to at least the minimum legal standards, however, it could result in animals with low welfare being concealed; consequently, this hypothesis requires testing.

Groupwork interventions for women and children experiencing domestic abuse: Do they work and do they last?

This paper draws selectively on the findings of a study exploring the impact of a concurrent groupwork programme for mothers and children (6-7 years of age) who have experienced domestic abuse. This group was delivered by statutory child and welfare services in Ireland in conjunction with a voluntary sector child support service. This paper illustrates how participation in the groupwork programme impacted positively on the relationship between the participating mothers and their children and also explores what benefits were sustained over time. Employing a mixed methods approach, both quantitative and qualitative data were collected from three distinct populations and at three points in time. The findings of this study confirm the usefulness of the group environment in helping participants share the full extent of their personal experiences in a therapeutic and supportive setting. Participant outcomes included pro-social modelling of positive parenting, awareness raising and information sharing regarding the impact of the experience of domestic abuse on both child development and parenting capacity. These factors were reported by participants to have impacted on the quality of the mother-child relationship. This paper concludes by highlighting the key features of the groupwork programme which were central to facilitating and sustaining these positive outcomes.

Discovering Disability: The General Classes of Disabled People and the Classic Welfare State, 1948–1964

The recognition of the needs of disabled people was a major feature of the expansion of statutory welfare in twentieth‐century Britain. Beginning with the recognition of the special needs of disabl...

The Challenge of Constitutionalising Children's Rights in Ireland

The Irish Constitution of 1937 makes extensive provision for the rights of the family unit and the rights of parents, but very little express provision for the rights of the child. While some provision for the protection of the child’s best interests and right to be heard has been made at a legislative level, these provisions fall to be interpreted in light of constitutional principles. In recent years, this has led directly to a number of court decisions which have arguably given priority to parental or family interests over the best interests of the child. Constitutional parental and family rights have, in effect, been used to trump the statutory welfare principle. After two decades of calls for reform from expert reports and academic commentators, political pressure has recently mounted to finally amend the Constitution to address this issue. However, in spite of promising beginnings, the reform process has been half-hearted and initial proposals quite weak. Public consultation has revealed an undercurrent of opposition to the constitutionalisation of children’s rights which the established political parties have been reluctant to confront. In light of the experience of this process in Ireland, this paper will examine the political and social challenges inherent in any effort to incorporate children’s rights into a constitution in the face of suspicion and misunderstanding on the part of politicians, parents and voters.

Debate: A Beveridge report for the 21st century? The implications of self-directed support for future welfare reform

In the early 21st century, elements of the English welfare state are in the middle of a ‘transformation’ process based on the concepts of personalisation and self-directed support (HM Government, 2007; Glasby and Littlechild, 2009; Carr, 2010; Needham, 2010). Beginning in adult social care, these approaches seek to recast users of state welfare away from being passive recipients of prepurchased services towards a situation where they are active citizens with a right to control and shape their own support. Central to this agenda has been the concept of direct payments (pioneered by disabled people’s organisations and developing in the United Kingdom from the mid-1980s onwards) and personal budgets (developed from 2003 onwards by a national social innovation network known as In Control). Beginning with 60 people in six local authority pilots in late 2003, there are now over 200,000 people receiving a personal budget and the government has stated that all adult social care will be delivered by this mechanism in future (HM Government, 2007). This approach is now also being piloted in children’s services (Carlin et al, 2006; DfES, 2007; Crosby, 2010) and in healthcare (Alakeson, 2007; Darzi, 2008), with several leading think tanks and commentators exploring its scope to extend to other areas of state welfare (such as the tax and benefits system, housing, education, rehabilitation for ex-offenders, substance misuse services and support for young people not in education, employment or training – see Needham, 2010, for an overview of the spread of personalisation). Underpinning much of this is a broader sense that the values, frameworks and ethos of much current statutory welfare remains too dominated by 1940s thinking and assumptions – and that some of the concepts inherent in debates about personalisation and self-directed support could help to shape ongoing debates about the future of welfare reform. If the Beveridge Report (1942) is widely credited with establishing the thinking behind the post-war welfare state, is a similar document or process needed to clarify thinking and options around the relationship between the state and the individual in the 21st century?

Industrial welfare and the state: nation and city reconsidered

Industrial welfare history presents important challenges to developmental state theories in “late” industrialization. This article expands the debate by examining how nation-states create statutory welfare by addressing institutional variety beyond markets. It is simplistic to argue linear growth of national welfare or of states autonomously regulating markets to achieve risk-mitigation. I contend that welfare institutions emerge from the state’s essential conflict and collaboration with various alternate institutions in cities and regions. Using histories of Europe, India, and Karnataka, I propose a place-based, work-based, and work-place based welfare typology evolving at differential rates. Although economic imperatives exist to expand local risk-pools, it is precisely the alternate institutional diversity that makes late industrial nation-states unable or unwilling to do so. This results in institutionally “thin,” top-down industrial welfare. Ultimately, theories that overly depend on histories of small nations, homogenous nations, or city-states, provide weak tests of the economics of industrial welfare.

Legacies of caring: the experiences and circumstances of ex-carers

Although there is extensive literature on carers and their care-giving role, the circumstances of carers after care-giving remains largely uninvestigated. This paper documents the socio-economic and psychological legacies of care-giving among 157 ex-carers who were included in a larger national study of the effectiveness and targeting of social security help to carers, which was carried out in 1989. Therefore, the sample included only those whose care-giving responsibilities had been relatively substantial, that is, over 35 hours a week. Survey data covering the employment status and income levels of these ex-carers are presented, as is in-depth interview material on the psychological and social circumstances of a small group of ex-carers. The article concludes that there are long-term negative financial effects of caring, which the social security system appears to ignore. In addition, the psychological, social and physical health consequences of caring may leave some carers poorly equipped for life after care, a situation which might call for the development of support services in the immediate post-care period. Further investigation of the material and non-material circumstances of ex-carers, preferably on a longitudinal basis, should be a priority in health and social care research. Without such research, our knowledge of the costs of caring borne by individuals, and our assessment of the appropriate contributions that should be made by statutory welfare agencies, remains incomplete. Finally, given the prevalence of informal care-giving, our lack of knowledge of the legacies of care-giving limits our understanding of the causes of income and health inequalities between people approaching pension age and older.