Following legal changes in the 1980s, the Voluntary and Community sector/économie sociale in France has become culturally diverse as faith-based organisations serving minority ethnic communities have developed, including charities inspired by religious and cultural principles of charitable giving. In this article, we use a case study of a social welfare charity established in a Parisian suburb with a culturally diverse population. Worldwide social welfare work is a priority; the charity responds to disasters, but it prioritises long-term development actions, encouraging the direct involvement of local communities. In recent years, its work has also embraced distressed communities within France.

This article builds on recent work entitled The Spirit Level by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett suggesting that Japan is one of the most harmonious affluent countries in the world, whereas the United Kingdom (UK) is one of the most unequal and hence disharmonious. In particular, the article revisits The Spirit Level evidence according to which Japan is a more equitable society in terms of income than any other industrialised country, but especially contrasts with a country such as the UK. The article provides a brief review of appropriate data in both Japan and the UK that could be used for the analysis of income inequality and identifies the best available microdata that would be most suitable for this purpose: the Japanese National Survey of Family Income and Expenditure microdata and the UK Family Resources Survey and Household Below Average Income survey microdata. It then presents a comparative analysis of income inequality measures in Japan and the UK and a discussion of the income distribution in both countries based on these data sets over the past twenty years. The findings suggest that the UK is much more unequal than Japan in terms of income distribution.

This article examines whether the population of Scotland would set a different poverty standard compared with the rest of the UK. It is based on research on a consensual or democratic poverty measure, defined by majority views of the items or activities which should be considered the ‘necessities of life’. The article explores whether majority opinions are the same in Scotland as in the rest of the UK. More generally, it explores how attitudes differ north and south of the border, and possible reasons for this. Data on attitudes were collected through three closely related surveys in 2011 and 2012. The analysis suggests that, in the early years at least, a more independent Scotland would be unlikely to set a different social minimum. On this topic, as on many others, attitudes in Scotland are very similar to those in the rest of the UK.

Accounts of employment experience with Hepatitis C (HCV) are scarce, particularly within a UK context where few qualitative studies are available. This article reports on a piece of empirical work which sought to explore the experiences of living with HCV in the UK, out of which the experience of employment emerged. Two standout areas of discussion in this article are the degree to which individuals felt protected in disability legislation (i.e. the Disability Discrimination Act, 1995, 2005, now part of the Equality Act 2010) and their experiences of receiving reasonable adjustments in the workplace. This research highlights the apparent lack of acknowledgement that HCV can affect employment and indeed that the difficulties faced by those with HCV are shared by other disabled people. The findings here suggest that where workplaces facilitate or allow reasonable adjustments employees were able to take up the potential that allowed them to work in sustainable ways.

Human rights may be categorised as belonging to ‘three generations’: political, social and ‘solidarity’ rights. This paper considers this schema theoretically, deploying the example of the ‘psychiatric survivor’ movement in Britain in support of its central claims. Psychiatric survivors comprise groups of psychiatric patients who have campaigned both for political and social rights in addition to a singular form of ‘right’, which is referred to here as ‘experiential’. The paper clarifies the meaning of the ‘experiential right’ and, drawing upon aspects of social theory, considers how it is to be understood in the context of the ‘three generations’ schema.

Contrary to its conventional image as a social-democratic paragon, the Danish welfare state has, in recent decades, been undergoing significant changes as a response to the intrusion into the social sphere by self-regulating markets and a final departure from Keynesian politics of universalism and solidarity. This article examines the evident decline of the Nordic model as a result of neoliberal globalisation and establishes an association between the erosion of the welfare state and the emergence of fascist political sentiment in Denmark. An analysis of the Danish People's party and its growing public support among the disenfranchised working class communities in Denmark demonstrates how those overlooked by the free market and unrepresented by the liberal left become increasingly more receptive to the proposed social agendas of the far right campaigns.

This case study investigates strategies used by the NGO Leonard Cheshire Disability Zimbabwe (LCDZ) to promote the SRHRs of girls and young women with disabilities in Zimbabwe. The findings show that LCDZ employed a combination of six strategies. These are: (1) building practical knowledge on SRHRs; (2) increasing community awareness and sensitivity; (3) providing SRHRs-related education; (4) enhancing access to justice and related services for survivors of sexual violence; (5) delivering assistive devices; and (6) promoting the livelihoods and economic empowerment. LCDZ made use of multi-stakeholder partnerships to implement these strategies, leveraging complementary skills and experience in the promotion of SRHRs. In each of these strategies, girls and young women with disabilities are the target group, with other stakeholders brought together to support them.

Studies on the development of social policies have provided us with a rich body of knowledge. However, being based mostly on class, gender or racial analysis, this body of work has seldom used disability as an analytical framework. This article proposes a systematic research agenda for addressing this lacuna. Drawing on the political and institutional approaches, this article illustrates how mainstream theories on social policy development cannot be assumed applicable to disability policies ‘as is’. To apply them effectively, we argue, students of social policy need to rework them in light of the insights of disability studies. Such conceptual work would involve closer attention to the uniqueness of disability as a socio-political category. Integrating these social policy theories with disability studies will allow us to better identify the unique political and institutional factors behind the trajectories of disability related policy. We conclude this discussion with suggestions for future research.

Lone mothers in the UK are a key target group of tax-benefit measures designed to ‘make work pay’. This article assesses how the Conservative–Liberal Democrat Coalition's ‘make work pay’ agenda since 2010 has potentially affected single mothers. It calculates two lone mothers’ incomes and incentives for a range of working hours and wage rates under the Coalition and previous New Labour government. While the Coalition's measures substantially improve the lone mothers’ incentives to work in mini-jobs of fewer than sixteen hours, their incentives to work longer are still weak, if not weaker than under Labour. Furthermore, the financial returns to progressing in work begin to diminish once hours exceed just six at average wage and nine at minimum wage. While tougher conditionality may still push many lone parents to work longer, weak labour demand and reduced employment supports could undermine their abilities to meet increased work expectations.

In a recent review of the mental health policies of its 42 member states in the European Region, the World Health Organization highlighted the need for further analysis of service user involvement in the policy making process. In the UK, a plethora of recent government policies and initiatives have stressed the importance of service user involvement in the design and delivery of health and social services. Their input is described as a fundamental requirement of a modern, flexible, responsive healthcare system. This paper reviews mental health policy in Northern Ireland, which has undergone a period of unprecedented activity and explores the extent to which service users have influenced the process of policy design and development. It raises questions about the extent to which a genuine commitment to and investment in user involvement has been achieved and comments on the prospects for the future.

This article examines how social policy influences social cohesion within a London borough. The focus is on the degree to which civil society organisations facilitate the representation of migrants within the public sphere. The policies considered are those introduced by New Labour and the current Coalition government. The theories adopted in this article are based on social cohesion and the public sphere, and the research is based on grey literature and interviews with civil society practitioners. The study concludes that, although the previous government gave visibility to migrants, the conditions imposed for their access to social provision have contributed to the demotion of cohesion. The Coalition's reforms have reinforced social divisions and given rise to two identities within civil society: the insiders, who are in dialogue with the authorities, and the outsiders, who have no contact with the decision makers.

This paper considers work the authors have done with community projects to explore the meaning and usefulness of social capital. It sets out the model of social capital developed from this work, which has enabled the discussion and application of social capital to move from academia into local neighbourhoods and communities. It goes on to consider the relationship between social capital and social policy, and concludes that, whilst it is hard to ascertain whether social policy can directly develop social capital, it is however possible for policy to create environments which either allow for the enhancement of social capital, or harm it.

Drawing on recent quantitative and qualitative research, we consider lessons of the Scottish policy of free personal care for older people. The policy is embedded in political debates about devolution and interacts with various changing policies on care and support for older people. Evaluation is complicated by these interactions and by gaps in relevant data, especially concerning costs. Operationally, policy implementation has presented varying difficulties for local authorities. For clients and informal carers it remains popular, but is part of a service-led model of provision which does not reflect their own views of their care and support needs.

This article examines why employers struggle to include disability as part of their active diversity approach. Drawing on cross-national interview data from Norway and the USA, we point to the common finding of employers – who are the target of regulatory disability employment policies – typically falling into the passive employer category of employer engagement, with positive attitudes but negative hiring behaviour. As a partial explanation, we demonstrate the difficulty of identifying and demographically monitoring disabled people among job seekers and employees. We argue that these problems are linked to unique aspects of disability as a diversity category, and tie these to the significance of disability heterogeneity, lack of disclosure and the difficulty of acquiring information related to health. We conclude that organisations need to go beyond mere legislative compliance and be more proactive towards disability as a distinct diversity category.

In the wake of the financial, food and fuel crises, a fourth ‘F’ shockwave hit the global economy in 2010: fiscal adjustment. It would mark the onset of a prolonged period of budget cuts that is now projected to continue at least through 2020 in high-income and developing countries alike. This article: (i) examines International Monetary Fund (IMF) government spending projections for 187 countries from 2005 to 2020, indicating a decade of austerity from 2010 onwards; (ii) reviews 616 IMF country reports in 183 countries to identify the main adjustment measures; and (iii) discusses the negative impacts of austerity on jobs and welfare, pointing to alternative policies to identify fiscal space for equitable and sustainable development. Note that this analysis was done prior to COVID-19, and the estimates for 2019 and 2020 reflect pre-pandemic projections.

Understanding the interaction between child labour and schooling in rural and urban areas in Ghana is essential to implement the most appropriate intervention. I aimed to establish parental perceptions of the extent child labour interferes with schooling in rural and urban areas in Ghana. The participants recruited were from Ghana purposively sampled across rural areas (Ankaase, Anwiankwanta and Kensere), and urban areas (Jamestown, Korle Gonno and Chorkor) amongst sixty government officials, NGO representatives, and both parents whose children were and were not involved in child labour. The research utilises semi-structured interviews conducted with parents (ten), stakeholders (ten), focus groups (thirty); and participant observation techniques (ten) utilised to gather the needed data. Interviews were recorded, transcribed utilising a framework approach as the data analysis method. This article finds that the child labour in the rural areas is not always inconsistent with school attendance while, in the urban area, the two activities are incompatible.

Extra care housing aims to meet the housing, care and support needs of older people, while maintaining their independence in self-contained accommodation. Evidence from several studies suggests that it has benefits for residents in terms of costs and outcomes, and can provide a supportive environment for people with dementia, although the benefits for residents with greater care needs are less clear. Budgetary pressures and increasing eligibility criteria are altering the balance of care between residents and resulting in more task-focused, less personalised care. An increasing shortfall in provision and incentives for developers to concentrate on ‘lifestyle’ provision raise questions about the long-term viability of the model for supporting local authority-funded residents. Responses to the coronavirus pandemic also raise questions about future housing and care arrangements, and these need to be addressed in the government’s long-delayed plans for social care.

Qualitative data were deployed to explore the spatial needs of homeless drug users staying in hostels and night shelters. Findings indicated that Fitzpatrick and LaGory's four categories of spatial need (‘privacy’, ‘personal space’, ‘social interaction’, ‘safe and defensible spaces’) all had good analytical purchase. However, three further need categories (‘institutional support’, ‘amenities and standards’, ‘spatiotemporal structures and boundaries’) were identified. While hostels and night shelters met the spatial needs of some homeless drug users, there was considerable scope for improvement; indeed, failure to meet spatial needs could result in increased drug use, risky injecting practices, worsening health and a return to the streets. Our seven-fold categorisation of spatial needs requires further empirical study but could potentially inform other place-based approaches to health.

Social capital has become a key concept in Government policy-making and in academic circles. Broadly, social capital concerns norms and networks: the values people hold and the resources that they can access, which both result in and are the result of collective and socially negotiated ties and relationships. Where people share a sense of identity, hold similar values, trust each other and reciprocally do things for each other, then this is felt to have an impact on the social, political and economic nature of the society in which we live. Across the political spectrum, there are concerns that levels of social capital are being eroded in contemporary society.