The United States has been a leader in the creation of disability rights law, providing a policy template for other nations. Yet the social model, the animating philosophy behind the disability rights movement, has had little effect on the wide range of welfare programs that serve people with disabilities. These programs, whose creation preceded the modern disability rights movement, reflect a medical model of disability that is at odds with the social model. Analysing the Americans with Disabilities Act (which embodies the social model) and Social Security Disability Insurance (the largest welfare program for people with disabilities), we explore how and why this layering of contradictory disability rights and welfare programs developed and how it has been maintained. We argue that the tension between these policies engendered a series of patches, or ‘kludges’, that allow the policies to coexist without meaningful synthesis. We contend that the United States is particularly prone to this layering of ‘tense policies’, but that it is likely characteristic of disability policy in many nations. Finally we argue that accurate benchmarking of disability rights regimes across nations requires analysts to dig through all the layers of disability policy.

This themed section focuses on parenting support as a social policy phenomenon within and across five European countries. The provisions involved include: information to parents about parenting and child-rearing (through helplines and websites as well as face-to-face services), organised parenting classes or programmes, one-to-one counselling and intensive work around parenting behaviours in ‘troubled families’, professional and non-professional networks and service provision oriented to reduce social isolation and increase social integration (especially among ‘minority’ sections of the population). Why are these developments interesting and why do they merit a themed section? There are numerous answers to this question. In the first instance, these measures are an interesting instance of social policy's increasing interest in what happens between parents and their children. Secondly, studying parenting support helps to reveal fundamental contestations between state and society with regard to the management of personal life and the governance of family. Thirdly, analysing developments helps to explore emerging specialist areas of social policy and how these tie in with public and political constructions of ‘social problems’.

The arrival of over six million asylum seekers in Europe since 2011 has engendered profound and ongoing governance transformations, which this article examines through the understudied perspective of asylum seekers’ accommodation. The article uncovers the unevenness of accommodation standards across reception centres in an Italian province, demonstrating how this heterogeneity selectively dis/enables the meaningful participation of asylum seekers in the social life of communities surrounding them. Second, it reveals how the circulation of asylum seekers across these facilities responds to performance-based deservingness criteria. Deservingness functions as a disciplining mechanism that mediates access to better forms of accommodation.

This article examines the saving behaviour of ethnic minorities in the UK. Within the context of pension planning, we investigate saving for retirement patterns in relation to ethnicity, gender and age. We use data from the Family Resources Survey (FRS) to analyse employment status, income, saving types and levels. Although we find profound heterogeneity, ethnic minorities show higher levels of unemployment, lower income and consistently lower levels of saving for retirement compared to our white control group. Disadvantages of ethnic minorities during their working life persist, especially for women, although to a lesser extent than in the past, and continue to affect private savings and prospective retirement income. Indian and Chinese men have experienced the greatest improvements in terms of employment status and income and this is reflected in higher levels of saving for retirement since the mid 1990s.

The aim of this paper is to study the Hong Kong government's attempt to promote residualism and market principles in medical services through changing its fee and charge policy, strengthening the principle of selectivity at the expense of the universalist principle and proposing compulsory saving measures. It is argued that these reform measures are related to the government's mixed attitude towards medical services – that is, whilst providing medical services in response to political demands and the requirements of capitalism, the government wants to reduce the challenges these services pose to capitalism and its financial policy.

The case selection issue has long been neglected in cross-national welfare regime studies, despite its importance in securing validity and reliability. This article reviews thirty-three studies that produced their own welfare regime typology, and analyses their case selection practices. They can be divided into five groups in terms of their case sizes: from Esping-Andersen's (1990) original eighteen nations to ‘all’ nations. Three peculiar patterns can be observed in the approaches. First, more than two-thirds of studies still focus on the old set of eighteen nations, arguably ignoring emerging welfare states. Second, theoretical tension exists between ‘isolationists’ and ‘expansionists’ on the exportability of the welfare regime concept to wider cases. Lastly only a few studies have clarified and justified their case selections. It is concluded that the welfare modelling business needs to rectify the common practice of ignoring case selection issues.

The growing demand for domestic workers has been linked to several global developments, such as an ageing population, income inequality, the growth of women entering labour markets, migration and changes in the provision of care. However, empirical quantitative evidence for these associations is still scarce. This study examines how macro-level factors related to care needs (female employment rates and proportion of aged population), labour markets (proportion of migrants and vulnerable employment) and economic characteristics (gross domestic product, income inequality and level of urbanisation) are associated with the prevalence of paid domestic labour across seventy-four countries. Data are derived from the statistics compiled by the International Labour Organization (ILO). Results show that a higher prevalence of paid domestic workers is particularly associated with greater income inequality, but also with a higher proportion of migrants. The association with income inequality remained unchanged after controlling for six other variables related to the demand and supply of domestic services. These findings suggest that income inequality is a crucial factor in determining the proportion of domestic workers in the labour force.

Faith-based organisations (FBOs) have delivered services to vulnerable people for many years. They are frequently characterised by values also to be found within social work, notably a commitment to social justice. In the context of recent attempts by governments, notably in the USA, United Kingdom and Australia, to ‘roll-back’ the state, to ‘marketise’ and ‘privatise’ welfare services, FBOs are increasingly called-upon to tender for and volunteer to provide public services, including ‘social work’. In the United Kingdom, as elsewhere, religious beliefs are central to how many people conduct themselves, especially in response to personal crises and challenges. The authors’ previous research indicates that religious beliefs and traditions may have a profound impact (for good or ill or for both) on the actions of both individual service users and practitioners, but that social workers and agencies (whether faith-based or not) are often ill equipped to respond appropriately. They acknowledge both the positive contributions to public welfare of many faith-based organisations and the potential dangers inherent in relying on such agencies for services to vulnerable people. The authors argue that evaluations need to consider the effectiveness, appropriateness, ‘costs’ and ‘benefits’ of individual faith-based services in their particular contexts, and that their contribution needs to be analysed in relation to the varied nature and variable impact of such services. Social work has often struggled in its aim of challenging and addressing the structural causes of inequality as its efforts have been channelled towards meeting the needs of the individual. Current policy proposals provide potential opportunities to review and assess the contribution of neo-liberal approaches to welfare and to promote alliances amongst those members of different FBOs and other welfare providers to agree more collective, community-based approaches with an agreed agenda of creating a fairer society.

For over a century, the goal of reducing class inequalities in educational attainment has been based at least in part on the belief that this would help to equalise life chances. Drawing upon the main findings of three ESRC-funded projects, this paper reviews the empirical evidence on trends in social class inequalities in educational attainment and the role of education in promoting social mobility in Scotland. The findings show that in the second half of the twentieth century, despite the increase in overall levels of attainment, class differences in educational attainment persisted. Educational policies in Scotland supported educational expansion which allowed larger numbers of working-class children to climb the social class ladder than in the past. However, these did not translate into any break with the patterns of social inequalities in the chances of entering the top-level occupations. The conclusions highlight that educational policies on their own are not powerful enough to change patterns of social mobility which are mainly driven by labour market and social class structures.

Peter Townsend argued that poverty could be scientifically measured as a ‘breakpoint’ within the income distribution below which participation collapses. This paper stands on Townsend's shoulders in measuring the level of poverty and participation by: (1) broadening his original measurement of participation; (2) using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) in conjunction with a new dataset including 40,000 households (Understanding Society, 2011; 2013); and (3) taking into account the multi-cultural/ethnic nature of British society. We find that participation – defined as lack of deprivation, social participation and trust – reduces as income falls but stops doing so among the poorest 30 per cent of individuals. This may be indicating a minimum level of participation, a floor rather than a ‘breakpoint’ as suggested by Townsend, which has to be sustained irrespective of how low income is. Respondents with an ethnic minority background manifest lower levels of participation than white respondents but the relationship has a less linear pattern. Moreover, the floor detected for the overall population is also replicated when combining all respondents from ethnic groups.

This article draws on findings from a study of a specialised tenancy support service for homeless substance users in a Midlands city, and contributes to debates about what makes solutions to homelessness sustainable. Two approaches to tenancy support are examined: first, a resettlement model based on risk management; and, second, a restorative model which prioritises support that enables people to rebuild their lives in a more holistic sense. Conclusions point to a need for a broader training for tenancy support workers and a funding level that enables them to stay with their clients long enough to facilitate this fuller restoration.

This paper reports on a study in which unique access to three locked psycho-geriatric wards of a hospital allowed ethnographic exploration into everyday social worlds of fourteen people with dementia. Findings indicate abusive practice in the wards and show that participants in receipt of such practice responded with self-defence and resistance, but ultimately were defeated. In a development of Sabat's (2001) Selfs 1–3 framework, I identify how abusive practice arose due to staffs' inability to recognise different aspects of patients' self. Recommendations for practice include integrating a developed Selfs 1–3 framework into staff training and evaluating its impact on practice.

This paper will present evidence from the interim results of a large scale longitudinal project designed to track the development of partnership working between the new primary care organisations (Primary Care Groups and Trusts) entrusted with the commissioning and in some cases provision of health care, and local authority social services departments, regarding health and social care services for older people in the UK. Drawing on theoretical work concerning the role of partnership working in the governance of welfare, the author uses a framework originally devised by the Nuffield Centre for Health at the University of Leeds to analyse the interim data, and to draw conclusions about the feasibility of current policy pushes towards partnership working and service integration around health and social care for older people.

Drawing upon the Trace method developed by Selma Sevenhuijsen (2004), this paper has traced the discourse constructed in two key Troubled Families Programme (TFP) policy documents through the lens of care ethics, highlighting tensions between ‘care’ and ‘justice’ orientations in the neoliberal family intervention model. It is argued that whilst the family intervention model advocated has the potential to provide families with support underpinned by an ethic of care, the TFP's managerialist tendencies also create challenges to the integration of care ethics within such services. Given that the programme's financial framework generates considerable opportunity for local variation in policy implementation, the ethics of care offer a valuable moral framework by which to evaluate local practice. Moreover, engaging with a distinctly feminist ethic of care renders visible to family support services the inequalities produced through the gendered distribution of ‘caring’ responsibilities, and highlights the need for interventions to address rather than reinforce these inequalities.

This article focuses on experiences of welfare recipients summoned to do volunteer work. Proponents of ‘workfare volunteerism’ argue that it leads to empowerment and employability while critics dismiss it as disempowering, stigmatising, and disciplining. Our longitudinal qualitative inquiry into experiences of sixty-six ‘workfare volunteers’ in the Netherlands shows how experiences of disempowerment or empowerment are dependent on caseworker approaches as well as on time. Disempowerment can turn into empowerment when an individual's past is considered, but can revert to disempowerment if changing needs go unrecognised. These findings have broader implications for debates on activating policies. They point to the need for diachronic approaches, which reflect the changing experiences of target groups over time and adaption of policies and caseworker approaches that respond to their clients’ changing needs and self-understanding.

This article analyses the labour market integration of newly arrived immigrants in the UK labour market, based on data from the UK Labour Force Survey. We focus on immigrants who arrived in the United Kingdom since 2000 and distinguish different cohorts based on the year of their arrival in the country. We examine the extent to which these new arrivals were able to enter work and move up into skilled jobs, and analyse the sectors of the economy that have proved most amenable to this progression. The analysis indicates that these new arrivals fared relatively well in the workforce. In part as a result of their relative youth and high education levels, many new arrivals (especially those from the European Union and in particular the EU10 countries) moved straight into work.

This article examines the growth of resilience-focused youth policy in Scotland, and its association with the proliferation of the ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) agenda. To do this, it critically compares policy discourse with qualitative data on young people’s experiences of growing up in two similar, low-income neighbourhoods. This combination leads us to problematise resilience-informed practice, relative to the voices of young people. Our review demonstrates that by emphasising individual protective factors, resilience discourse reframes inequalities embedded within certain neighbourhoods, and the specific impacts on young people who live there. The consequence is not an assets-based youth policy that supports all young people, but rather a form of resilience which promotes the ‘steeling’ of young people; making them stronger and more resistant to adversities. These adversities, we conclude, may be preventable within a more just social order.

Drawing upon findings from a qualitative project exploring welfare stigma in the lives of women in Merseyside, this article examines experiences of stigma and resistance strategies among the mothers interviewed. The article provides insights into how gendered stigma manifests in the lives of mothers reliant on social security benefits in the present era of continued welfare reform. The mothers’ experiences of stigma are argued to revolve around the devaluation of caring labour, the perception that benefits are undeserved and the notion of ‘bad motherhood’. Furthermore, the article contributes to knowledge about stigma resistance strategies, including acknowledging the value of care and rejecting blaming narratives. Nonetheless, it is argued that owing to the power and pervasiveness of structurally-imposed stigma, individualised resistance strategies are limited and mothers must also engage in everyday stigma management techniques.

China's welfare system has been a typical ‘residual welfare regime’, but the economic reform and market-oriented transformations in recent decades have weakened the original well-balanced ‘residual’ and ‘needs’ pattern. Marketisation of social welfare has intensified social inequality as those who are less competitive in the market-oriented economy have encountered tremendous financial burdens in meeting their welfare needs. In order to rectify the social problems and tensions generated from the process of marketisation of social welfare, the Chinese government has adopted different policy measures to address the pressing welfare demands from the citizens. This article examines how a local government in Guangzhou, capital city of Guangdong province, has responded to the call of the central government in promoting social harmony in the context of growing welfare regionalism emerging in mainland China. More specifically, with reference to a case study of Guangzhou, this article discusses how Guangzhou residents assess their social welfare needs and expectations, and how they evaluate the municipal government's major welfare strategies. It also reflects upon the role of the state in welfare provision and social protection, especially when many social welfare and social services have been marketised in the last few decades in China.

This article explores the social relationships created in the delivery of conditional cash transfer (CCT) programmes using a wellbeing lens. Most CCTs influence people's lives in overarching terms, including income, health and education. Their implementation process, however, also places policy participants in new and constant interactions with the front-line officers that implement the programmes. Wellbeing scholarship brings to our attention the centrality of social relationships in people's lives. This literature widely agrees that the quality of our relationships with others is possibly the most essential element of a good life. Therefore, given the recent entrance of wellbeing to the realm of policy, an exploration of the relationships created in policy contexts using a wellbeing lens is a necessary next step. This article examines this in the context of the Oportunidades/Prospera programme in Mexico, one of the most successfully regarded CCTs in Latin America. It presents primary qualitative data about the officer–recipient relationship during the delivery of the health conditionalities and explores its implications on the wellbeing of recipients. The article concludes that the relationships created during policy implementation have far-reaching effects on wellbeing and need to be better acknowledged in policy design and evaluation.