The poverty rate is one of the most visible ways in which nations measure the economic well-being of their low-income citizens. To gauge whether a person is poor, European states often focus on a person's relative position in the income distribution to measure poverty while the United States looks at a fixed-income threshold that represents a lower relative standing in the overall distribution to gauge. In Europe, low income is perceived as only one aspect of being socially excluded, so that examining other relative dimensions of family and individual welfare is important. This broad emphasis...

In both Europe and America, the landscape of social policies has undergone fundamental changes in recent decades, especially in endeavors to develop new welfare arrangements. How does this affect citizenship-at-large as defined by the Marshallian triad of personal, democratic, and social rights?

Taking nine European countries as case studies, the contributions analyze the ways that citizenship has changed in key areas such as social security, labor market policies, and social services. Other chapters concentrate on the theoretical and conceptual challenges that result from the...

The last decade of the 20th century was marked by a shift in how welfare-states deal with those at the bottom of the income ladder. This shift involved the introduction/strengthening of work-obligations as a condition for receiving minimum income benefits - which, in some countries, was complemented by efforts to help recipients return to the labour market, namely through the investment in active labour market policies (ALMP).

Based on case-studies of developments in the US and eight European nations (UK, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, Germany, France, Portugal and the Czech Republic),...

Child Welfare Systems and Migrant Children examines where, why and to what extent immigrant children are represented in the child welfare system in different countries. These countries include Australia/New Zealand, Belgium/the Netherlands, England, Estonia, Canada, Finland, Italy, Germany, Spain, Norway, and the United States--all of them having different child welfare philosophies and systems as well as histories and practices in immigration. By comparing policies and practices in child welfare systems (and welfare states), especially in terms of how they conceptualize and deal...

Today's world is aging at a great speed, and although increased longevity represents one of the greatest achievements of the last century, the extension of life expectancy does not necessarily correspond to an extension of healthy lives. Aging populations, particularly those with a high percentage of the oldest old, are often burdened with chronic conditions that require extended long-term care. Deciding who provides said care, and in what forms, are key problems that will soon affect a growing number of post-industrial high- and mid-income countries. Caring for a Living...

International migration has reached new heights since the 1960s. Altogether, some 215 million people live in countries other than their countries of birth, and according to surveys, another 700 million say they would leave their homes and move to another country if they could. Nations-both sending and receiving-have responded to this growing international migrant flow with new laws and domestic programs. In receiving countries, they include laws and programs to control entry, encourage high-skilled immigration, develop refugee policy, and speed assimilation. In sending countries, governments...

Child Welfare Removals by the State addresses a most important (but little-researched) legal proceeding: when the State intervenes in the private family sphere to remove children at risk to a place of safety, adoption, or in other forms of out-of-home care. It is an intervention into the private family sphere that is intrusive, contested, and a last resort. States' interventions in the family are decided within legal and political orders and traditions that constitute a country's policies, welfare state model, child protection system, and childrens position in a society. However, we...

Welfare, Work, and Poverty provides the first systematic and comprehensive evaluation of the impacts and effectiveness of China's primary social assistance program -- Minimum Livelihood Guarantee, or Dibao -- since its inception in 1993. Dibao serves the dual function of providing a basic safety net for the poor and maintaining social and political stability. Despite currently being the world's largest welfare program in terms of population coverage, evidence on Dibao's performance has been lacking. This book offers important new empirical evidence and draws policy lessons that are...

The government performance movement has been in full swing for decades around the world. So, why do so many public programs and organizations continue to underperform? A major reason is that measuring the types of performance that people value most -- real outcomes for citizens -- continues to be an elusive goal. And why is performance measurement so difficult? Because performance managers have not taken full advantage of the tools and knowledge available in the field of program evaluation; the worlds of performance measurement and program evaluation have much to learn from each other, but...