In Japan the ideology of familism has reproduced patriarchal family values. It successfully retained family centred welfare provision and gender inequality in informal care work, and ensured formal care services were residual. However, the advancement of modernisation has weakened the effectiveness of the informal care sector, and the demand for care has increased steadily along with the ageing of the population. Moreover, informal care based on the self-sacrifice of family carers tends to be less popular. This tendency is especially evident in the opinions of the younger generation and females. Furthermore, structural shifts in their working circumstances, particularly of females, makes the continuation of the patriarchal approach to informal care more difficult. In the field of the care of older people, as part of the strategy for restructuring the Japanese welfare system, the emphasis is now more on market activities, which is in accord with the assumptions underlying ‘the residual welfare model of social policy’ (Titmuss, 1974).

Pension reform in Western societies has sought to shift the balance of provision towards the private sector. In Britain, the 1986 Social Security Act marked a watershed in privatisation by promoting personal pensions while cutting the value of the State Earnings Related Pension Scheme. The article assesses the effects of the Act, especially the different implications according to gender and position in the labour market. Data from the 1993/4 and 1994/5 General Household Surveys is used to examine the changing pension arrangements of employees. We distinguish between personal pension membership among those who rejected the opportunity to belong to an occupational pension and those for whom this option was not available. The extent to which personal pensions were taken up by the intended target group or by those unlikely to benefit is assessed. Rejecting membership of an occupational pension scheme was associated with labour market disadvantage but those who opted for a personal pension were more advantaged than those who remained in SERPS. Among those lacking access to an occupational pension scheme, take-up was higher among younger and more advantaged employees. However, a substantial proportion of personal pension contributors were low paid, especially among women employed part time, illustrating the extent of mis-selling of personal pensions to those who are likely to have been better off in SERPS.

In current debates about citizenship, three approaches to social rights can be detected. Three models of access to social rights mirror these accounts. The institutionalised rights model, based on the post-war welfare state, stresses education and information. The market efficiency model, stressing the need for consumer information, stems from contemporary neo-liberal, consumerist approaches to welfare provision. The radical model challenges the assumption of a level playing field for all citizens. As the state's role in housing has been transformed and governments have stressed the market efficiency model, housing advice services have expanded in both state and voluntary sectors. The objectives and work of these services is examined and shown as providing a close fit with the institutionalised rights model in the local authority sector, while in the voluntary sector the radical rights model dominates. In addition, the campaigning work of voluntary organisations is shown to promote a radical view of citizenship rights.

This article analyses the formulation and implementation of a relatively new statutory programme of care services for dependent elderly people in Israel, which has as a basic characteristic the supply of services by non-state agencies. The analysis serves as a basis for an exploration of the effects of privatisation and the emergence of quasi-markets upon the functioning of the welfare state both as a benefits provider and as a major employer. In contrast to the perspectives that consider privatisation as leading to the weakening of the state in the welfare domain, we argue that through the transfer of services supplied by non-state agencies the state protects itself from demands and pressures from clients, while maintaining its control and regulation capabilities. This process decreases the state's accountability towards its citizens, enhancing in turn its autonomy. Privatisation policies do not imply, therefore, the dissolution of the welfare state, but rather the emergence of a new mode of state intervention.

Following the 1997 general election in Britain, the New Labour government made clear its intention to cut back and radically reform the social security system, including Housing Benefit, an income-related housing allowance for low-income tenants. The cost of Housing Benefit had doubled in real terms over the previous decade and was taking up a growing share of social security expenditure. The scheme also suffered from major deficiencies. Drawing on recent literature on welfare state retrenchment, this article examines why the government eventually retreated from cuts and a wholesale reform of Housing Benefit and opted instead for a more modest and long-term approach.

This article addresses two issues. First, using data drawn from the Sample of Anonymised Records of the 1991 Northern Ireland Census, for over 13,000 individuals, it constructs a deprivation index and then, using this index, compares the deprivation levels of Catholics and Protestants. Second, it relates the level of deprivation of the individuals in the sample to their personal characteristics and circumstances. In particular, it examines the possibility that while higher deprivation levels among Catholics may have been partly due to the fact that they possessed, to a greater degree than Protestants, the attributes that were correlated with deprivation, it may also have been the result of Catholics being penalised more harshly than Protestants for possessing these attributes.

Contents

1 Social security and income maintenance

2 Health (formerly Health care)

3 Education

4 Housing and environment

5 Personal social services

6 Law and the treatment of the offender

7 Unemployment and the labour market

8 Race relations

9 The voluntary sector

10 Government (formerly Local government)

11 Gender

12 Demography