Based on research in Australia, this article offers explanatory concepts about how welfare workers deal with contradictions between the rationalising ‘informationalisation’ of welfare system governance and the demands of people-centred welfare practice, or ‘technologies of care’. While the situation in Australia with respect to the relationship between government, funders and welfare workers may not be mirrored in other places, the concepts are relevant for the development of local research, insights and practice.

Suggestions are also made for further action to bridge the gap between information systems design and welfare practice through the adoption of a dialogic and representational system for more effective interoperable design that reflects the needs of the major parties involved, including funders, designers and particularly welfare workers.

This article examines recent Japanese and UK policy recommendations on parenting practices and highlights the absence of material resources in these discussions. Parenting has gained increased prominence in recent decades. In the realm of policy, there has been an expansive shift; from a narrowly focused concern with detecting neglect and abuse to the wider project of promoting ‘good’ parenting. Focusing on advice offered in relation to education and food, we note that in both Japan and the UK the relationship between money and the ability to perform idealised parenting practices is rarely mentioned. Our comparative analysis also highlights that this silence is handled differently in the two national contexts, and we suggest that this reflects different historical interests in poverty and inequality. In Japan, parents are encouraged to undertake activities that require financial resources, but the question of how poor parents should manage is left largely unanswered: in the UK, the parenting activities given greatest attention are those that do not rely on money, meaning that poverty can be left off the positive parenting agenda.

The UK Government has recently implemented large-scale public-sector funding cuts and substantial welfare reform. Groups within civil society are being encouraged to fill gaps in service provision, and ‘social innovation’ has been championed as a means of addressing social exclusion, such as that caused by worklessness, a major impediment to citizens being able to access money, power and resources, which are key social determinants of health. The aim of this article is to make the case for innovative ‘upstream’ approaches to addressing health inequalities, and we discuss three prominent social innovations gaining traction: microcredit for enterprise; social enterprise in the form of Work Integration Social Enterprises (WISEs); and Self Reliant Groups (SRGs). We find that while certain social innovations may have the potential to address health inequalities, large-scale research programmes that will yield the quality and range of empirical evidence to demonstrate impact, and, in particular, an understanding of the causal pathways and mechanisms of action, simply do not yet exist.

The extent to which social protection programmes in general, and targeted programmes in particular, actually alleviate poverty has been a central issue in development debates for decades. The objective of this article is to contribute to the debate by empirically examining the poverty-alleviation effects of one of the largest targeted programmes in the world: the Minimum Living Standard Assistance (MLSA) or Dibao in China. Using newly available data on MLSA spending and a unique panel survey dataset covering the 1993 to 2009 period, this research investigates the impact of the MLSA on poverty alleviation. The analyses using fixed-effects and random-effects logit models and hierarchical liner models offer insights that go beyond the existing studies on the subject. Findings from the study confirm that targeted social protection programmes are an effective tool for reducing poverty.

Social innovation (SI) is an increasingly prominent but contested issue in discussions of social policy reform. Although not yet a familiar concept, nor widely understood (least of all by policy makers), it has entered mainstream policy discourses. However whether SI marks a significant departure in either theory or in practice, or merely in rhetoric, remains to be determined. This Review Article, and the Themed Section as a whole, aims to set out some of the questions social policy analysts should ask about SI, and to help clarify whether or not it is a significant development which merits attention. The Review begins by considering some of the reasons for the recent interest shown in SI before clarifying the meaning of the concept and outlining some of the different forms SI has taken. This discussion is followed by a consideration of some of the practical and theoretical questions which SI raises for social policy analysis. The Review concludes that social policy analysts cannot afford to ignore SI, but that the most effective contribution the discipline can make is to apply a critical empirical perspective to test the significance, value and impact of SI.

This article rounds off the themed section by reviewing broader debates within welfare state modelling relevant to Greater China. More specifically, it examines the now well-established literature around the East Asian ‘model’ of welfare, and related debates on the notion of a ‘productive welfare’ model. In so doing, it challenges simplistic classifications that present the region as representing a single model of welfare and, instead, highlights the diversity of welfare provision found within both Greater China and East Asia more generally. Building on the authors’ earlier published work comparing East Asian welfare systems with those found across the OECD, it also challenges claims that the region is home to a distinct ‘productive’ model of welfare. The article ends by highlighting some key drivers that will shape future debates.

Whilst stigma and shame are central features of the experience of poverty in capitalist societies, we know relatively little about crucial aspects of these phenomena, particularly how these experiences differ according to variety of capitalist formation. This article draws on the available empirical literature to examine these relational aspects of poverty in two very different societies, the UK and Japan. Through comparing these literatures, we are able to comment on the ways in which stigma is manifest in differing social, personal and institutional contexts and, therefore, is internalised as shame in similar and divergent forms in these respective societies. We note the very different social values and forms of welfare that constitute these societies which are at times responsible for contrasting experiences of shame, yet conclude that stigma and shame perform important functions within capitalist societies as a means to legitimate the continued existence of poverty within these social systems, and are therefore universal phenomena.

The literature on welfare in Greater China is large and growing. The references for the articles in this themed section provide a good starting point for exploring the literature for each of the cases in the region.

There is now a considerable literature on poverty and inequality in the UK and Japan. This section details key publications, and particularly those which have addressed these issues from a comparative perspective. Details of relevant websites are also included.