Robert Goodin has recently argued that the welfare state increases rather than reduces freedom. This paper examines the meanings of both ‘welfare state’ and ‘freedom’ and argues that the relationship between the two is much more complex than Goodin suggests. The welfare state is seen as a multi-dimensional phenonemon, capable of being defined exclusively or inclusively. Goodin's use of the term ‘freedom’ is unpacked into four distinct components: negative freedom, opportunity, autonomy and moral paternalism. Accordingly, an assessment of the welfare state must include an evaluation of its various programmes, policies and the perceptions of these against separated components of ‘freedom’. It becomes, therefore, on both sides of the analysis a multi-dimensional problem.

The system of personal taxation in the United Kingdom is under attack because of the way in which it discriminates between taxpayers on the basis of sex and marital status. Criticisms are allied with proposals for reform, all of which are primarily concerned with the social effects of changing the system. In this paper the various proposals have been categorized under the heads ‘conservative’, ‘radical’, and ‘moderate’ according to the social implications of the changes they advocate. Each set of proposals is discussed and evaluated in terms of revenue costs and savings to the Exchequer and real costs and benefits to the community. The proposals of the recent Green Paper are categorized as conservative and discussed under that head.

This article discusses significant changes of Japanese occupational pensions since the early 2000s. Our analysis shows that these schemes have been key components of policies to promote private welfare provision and have been highly compatible with human capital investment strategies that are based on long-term employment relationships of regular workers. However, since the 1990s, occupational pensions have come under increased pressure due to underfunding problems caused by depressed stock markets and changes in accounting standards that made these underfunding problems apparent. In response to these challenges, Japanese companies have restructured their occupational pension arrangements. The nature of these efforts can be explained with reference to existing institutional complementarities with the economic system on the one hand and changes in the cost–benefit calculations of employers, employees and the civil service on the other hand. Whereas complementarities, especially with human resource management factors, have ultimately defined the limits of these changes, an actor-centered analysis helps to explain the particular nature of changes within these boundaries.

This article considers the reasons given for the creation of a no-fault compensation scheme for victims of road accidents. In particular the article examines the work of the Royal Commission on Civil Liability and Compensation for Personal Injury and evaluates its proposals by reference to its analysis of whether preferential treatment for road accidents can be justified. The policy options for the future development of welfare provision for the disabled are thereby thrown into sharp relief: each justification given is of relevance to other accident victims; the political nature of the reform is exposed when considering why one particular group is to be preferred to another; and the rationale supporting the existence of the many regimes of compensation in tort and social security is called into question. The role of Commissions in policy making and the structural limitations upon their deliberations are also discussed. In sum the article provides a case study of what has been called ‘the strain of seeking to justify the different treatment for various categories of misfortune’.2

In the current article, we explore the effect of partners’ workplace characteristics on the take-up and intensity of parental leave by mothers and fathers. We use social security records data from 2004 to 2015 for Luxembourg. The results of the analysis reveal that the probability of taking full-time leave is substantially lower among mothers and fathers working in very small companies than among their counterparts in larger firms, whereas working in a small-sized company is related to higher probability of taking part-time leave. Mothers working in companies in predominantly female-dominated sectors, such as education, health, and social services, are more likely to take parental leave than their counterparts employed in other sectors. With regard to the effect of partners’ workplace characteristics, fathers’ take-up of parental leave is associated with the economy sector of their partner, whereas mothers’ take-up correlates with their partners’ workplace size.

Many policies target the economic and social consequences of regional inequality. This study experimentally investigates factors explaining the public degree of consent to financial transfers to disadvantaged regions. The main hypothesis of this study is that most people use the deservingness-heuristic not only to judge individuals but also to judge regions. We argue that people advocate interregional transfers based on perceived deservingness determined by recipient region’s need, lack of responsibility for the need, likelihood of reciprocity, and by a shared identity. To support this hypothesis, we conducted a factorial survey in Germany asking respondents to rate transfers to needy regions under different hypothetical conditions. We demonstrate, as predicted by the deservingness hypothesis, that consent to transfers to other regions is positively influenced by the extent of need and, in particular, past effort of the recipient region as well as by a shared identity. The results suggest that regional policies are particularly accepted when they target needs caused by factors beyond the control of recipient regions.

In 2003 the UK government set an objective that in ten years' time Britain's minority ethnic groups should not face disproportionate barriers in the labour market. A key ‘barrier’ is discrimination by employers. This article examines one potential way forward: the use of contract compliance. First, the article presents findings from the authors' study of an innovative use of contract compliance by a group of local authorities in the West Midlands. If contract compliance can be made to work and New Labour is committed to addressing racial inequality in employment, this suggests that contract compliance is an approach that the government should be seeking to develop. The second part of the article therefore considers New Labour's stance on contract compliance, which can be seen to be highly ambiguous. It is argued that if contract compliance is located within the broader context of New Labour policy development, what is apparent is that the professed aspiration for social change is compromised by a dominant commitment to the maintenance of neo-liberal economic policies. The conclusion is that it is likely that only limited progress will be made in achieving racial equality in employment.

The objective of this article is to explore aspects of the nature and process of exchange in welfare systems. The welfare exchange was the focus of much discussion in the early 1970s stemming from the writings of Titmuss, Pinker and Pruger, and this article starts with a review of that debate. In searching for a more adequate theoretical framework it argues that Gouldner's work on reciprocity, beneficence and complementarity provides that framework. A model of exchange on an interpersonal level is put forward in which welfare exchanges are viewed as lying along a continuum reflecting the notions of reciprocity and beneficence, with exchanges at each end of the continuum being represented by the two types of complementarity. Dependency, power and disequilibrium are seen as crucial factors in the exchange process, and the total pattern of exchanges is shown to be strongly influenced by the pattern of resource generation and availability within which all exchanges occur. Different types of social services are located at various points along the exchange continuum, and these are seen as reflecting differing relationships between service donors and individual service recipients. The final section of the article is concerned with discussing the influence of the interaction between ‘servers’ employed by agencies and service recipients.

Concerns about the unintended effects of marketised public employment services are increasingly expressed because there is mounting evidence that such services are frequently characterised by various gaming practices on the part of their providers. To prevent these unintended consequences, payment-by-result approaches have been progressively strengthened.

The aim of the research reported in this article was to investigate the extent to which such approaches are able to make service providers accountable for client outcomes. The study used two Italian regional cases in order to compare different and alternative contracting arrangements: Lombardy (outcome-based payments), and Emilia-Romagna (fixed payments). Drawing on rich administrative databases, the analysis relied on a quantitative methodology based on propensity score matching and logistic regressions. Even if outcome-based contracting can make service providers financially accountable for the service outcome, the results of the analysis show that it does not sufficiently prevent gaming practices, resulting in inequity among the services provided.

Martin Powell has produced an important critique of some of the arguments put forward in The Strategy of Equality. In doing so, he advances the debate in several significant ways, although not always in the direction that he may have intended.

Prior research on active labour market programmes (ALMPs) for young people has revealed either no effect or negative effects on transition rates into employment. In addition to accessing the programme content, participation in ALMPs bestows the right to a supplementary benefit. Yet, the direct effect of this benefit on the use and outcome of ALMPs remains largely unknown. We study the effects of a Norwegian policy that pays much higher benefits to recipients when they reach 19 years of age. This policy provides a natural experimental setting that allows us to utilise the age discontinuity to observe whether young people are more likely to become benefit recipients after their nineteenth birthday, and to estimate the effect of benefits on the labour supply. As age determines the increase in benefits rather than need, it creates a random and exogenous variation in the criteria for allocating cash benefits. We use Norwegian administrative register data that cover all 18 to 19 year olds during the period 2003 to 2012. We find no effect on programme take-up or employment rates. Hence, benefits do not work against the aim of ALMPs and young people's responsiveness to financial incentives cannot explain such programmes’ lack of effects.