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Particularly in the 1990s, social welfare programs have been cut back in a number of countries. Indeed, the phrases ending welfare as we know it or dismantling the welfare state have been used to describe this trend. In this analysis by well-recognized social welfare scholars, the nature and extent of changes in social welfare programs in key industrial or post-industrial countries is scrutinized.
Determining if and how social welfare and employment prospects have been cut back in the United States, Canada, Sweden, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Japan helps to identify the population groups hardest hit by cutback. In the United States, for example, poor, single-mother families have suffered major reductions in income support, while more powerful groups have avoided major losses. This cross-national study not only sheds light on general trends in social welfare but also provides clues to what constitutes successful reform and what has failed. This major comparative analysis will be of interest to scholars, students, policy makers, and professionals as well as the general public concerned with social welfare issues, full employment, poverty, and economic inequality.
List of contents
Introduction: Three Stages of Welfare Capitalism by Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg
More than Reluctant: The United States of America by Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg
Downloading the Welfare State, Canadian Style by Patricia M. Evans
Sweden: Temporary Detour or New Directions? by Helen Lachs Ginsburg and Marguerite G. Rosenthal
Diminishing Welfare: The Case of the United Kingdom by Jane Millar
The Triple Exceptionalism of the French Welfare State by Mark Kesselman
The Dismantling of Welfare in Germany by Gerhard Bäcker and Ute Klammer
Diminishing Welfare: The Italian Case by nrica Morlicchio, Enrico Pugliese, and Elena Spinelli
Hungary: Retrenchment Amid Radical Restructuring by Phineas Baxandall
Is the Japanese-Style Welfare Society Sustainable? by Masami Nomura and Kimiko Kimoto
Diminishing Welfare: Convergence toward a Liberal Model? by Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg
About the author
GERTRUDE SCHAFFNER GOLDBERG is Professor of Social Policy, Adelphi University School of Social Work, and was for a number of years the director of its Center for Social Policy. Professor Goldberg has published widely on issues of public assistance, the feminization of poverty, comparative social-welfare systems, and social administration. Among her earlier books is
The Feminization of Poverty: Only in America? (Praeger, 1990) and
Washington's New Poor Law: Welfare Reform and the Roads Not Taken: 1935 to the Present.
MARGUERITE G. ROSENTHAL is Professor of Social Policy, School of Social Work, Salem State College. Her previously published works are on the Swedish welfare state, juvenile delinquency policy, and privatization.
