Stigma has long been viewed by some as essential to discourage excessive claims, yet seen by others as a cause of non-take-up by people in need and as a form of symbolic violence. More recently, there has been a resurgence of interest in the links between shame and poverty (including the role of benefits), and particular concerns about media/political rhetoric in the UK. Yet while our knowledge of benefits stigma has been enhanced by theoretical/qualitative contributions, few quantitative studies examine its extent or patterning. This paper therefore reports the results of a 2012 nationally-representative survey in the UK. It finds sub-types of stigma are reported by 10–19 per cent for each benefit, but 34 per cent report either personal stigma (their own view) or stigmatisation (perceived stigma by others) for at least one benefit, and over one-quarter say a stigma-related reason would make them less likely to claim. One-third of claimants themselves report some degree of stigma around their claim. Against the predictions of ‘dependency culture’ claims, however, respondents in high-claim areas were more likely to stigmatise benefits, both before and after accounting for other factors. The paper concludes by considering lessons for future benefits stigma studies, and policy options to reduce benefits stigma.

Governments often introduce financial incentives to citizens in order to encourage ‘personally responsible’ behaviour. Examples of these types of incentives include tax-deferral or tax-free incentives around retirement savings. These types of incentives are shown to matter to investment strategies in the aggregate, but we still lack a full explanation as to how individuals respond to these types of incentives, and what role media play in advertising these incentives. This paper illustrates the potentially vital role that media play in enhancing contributions to one incentive-based policy, the Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) in Canada (2000–2013), using aggregate contribution data, media data, as well as individual-level survey data from the Canadian Financial Capability Survey. Results show that media advertising of the programme influences contribution outcomes and, while media may not outweigh lifecycle effects such as proximity to retirement, it is nonetheless an essential – and overlooked – motivator for contributions to late-life savings.

Despite international growth of, and policy interest in, divorce and separation since the 1970s, there is still surprisingly little known about non-residential fatherhood. This paper presents a ‘father-centric’ analysis and provides one of the first profiles of non-residential fatherhood in early millennium UK. Using data from Understanding Society Wave 1, a nationally representative survey of over 30,000 households in the UK, we found 1,070 men self-identifying as having a non-resident child under 16 years old (https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk). We estimate a prevalence of 5 per cent of British men having a non-resident dependent child. Through latent class analysis, four distinct groups of non-resident fathers are identified: ‘Engaged’ fathers, ‘Less Engaged’ fathers, ‘Disengaged’ fathers and ‘Distance’ fathers. Our analysis finds that non-resident fathers form a heterogeneous group in terms of their socio-demographic profile and family behaviour. It is recommended that legislation and policy concerning fathers in post-separation families are sensitive to variation as well as commonality in socio-economic conditions and family lives and situations.

This article is concerned with the evolving social construction of older workers and retirement. Evolving and competing ‘world-views’ from public policy, and social advocacy of productive and vulnerable older workers, are described and critiqued. Contradictions and disjunctions, in terms of public policies aimed at changing employer behaviour towards older workers, are identified. It is argued that present representations of older workers have serious flaws that provide a weak basis for policy development and may not only undermine the prospects for overcoming prejudicial societal attitudes but may in fact strengthen them. It is further argued that sheltering older workers in employment placements will inevitably limit the extent and nature of their participation. Instead, the mainstreaming of their employment is justified, bearing in mind negative attitudes towards ageing.

Around one in five people in developed countries are ‘financially excluded’. But how meaningful is this when the current definition does not differentiate between those who choose to be excluded and those who are forced to be? This conceptual paper draws on frameworks from social exclusion, resilience and ecological systems theory to critique the current definition of financial exclusion and to introduce an alternative concept. The paper argues that the emphasis of extant literature on an access-point approach has isolated the context surrounding financial exclusion and contributed to simplifying the phenomenon. It puts forward the need for a change in the way financial exclusion is conceptualised in developed countries to take broader contextual settings and a more holistic approach into account and it suggests that a shift to financial resilience may be a way forward.

Despite the growth in studies of Russian social policy, the reality of the social policy process – most of which is regionally based – remains a puzzle. In this article, we stake a claim for the importance of studying street-level social service provision in Russia's regions to advance the understanding of social policymaking in authoritarian-leaning regimes. We show that – albeit in small ways in only some places – Russia has expanded its welfare state, taking on an issue neglected by the Soviet regime in response to activism. Using the lens of work against domestic violence, we conduct a case study of women's crisis centres in Saint Petersburg. We show the limitations of the two usual state-society frameworks – those looking at civil society and at the welfare state. Building on their strengths, we construct a de facto feminist framework that focuses on how much and what kind of help citizens receive from both state and societal actors. In Russia's social policymaking, shaped by federalism, we find mixed success –civic organizations have weakened, but the state has taken on civic initiatives at local levels – and point to the importance of the informal politics of speaking in code and navigating elite networks.

Legislative changes and a recent court ruling allow private schools in England and Wales to determine how to provide the public benefits required to justify their charitable status. We investigate how private school headteachers and other informed stakeholders perceive their public benefit objectives and obligations. We find that schools interpret public beneficiaries widely to include one or more of state school pupils, local communities, other charities, and general society through raising socially responsible adults. Private schools pursue their own goals through public benefit provision, and balance the advantages of public benefit activities against the costs. The schools are not constrained by the ‘more than tokenistic’ minimum set by the regulator. The findings highlight the difficulties faced by governments who seek to pursue redistributive educational policies through charitable law.

Social cash transfers to the poor have mushroomed in countries of the global South and on global agendas since the 2000s. Around 2000, there was no clear picture if social cash transfers would make it to global agendas. By the end of the 2000s, a repertoire of four models of social cash transfers had been codified by international organizations. Based on an in-depth analysis of all major documents by international organizations and applying a model of ideational change in global arenas, we trace the trajectories of the four models: who developed the models during the 2000s, how were they constructed, and what forces propelled the process? We find that the process was driven by an extension of the domains of international organizations (‘socialization of global politics’) and by an opening of global discourses and development policies to ‘social’ concerns. But organizational domains and global discourses, especially on development, also constrained the concept of social cash transfers, reducing it to four models that reflect a fragmented and incomplete universalism. We conclude that global social policy, conceived as ‘socialization of global politics’, is not a simple ‘uploading’ of ‘social’ ideas from European traditions, but an active process of social construction in global arenas.

Using Confirmatory Factor Analysis models in conjunction with the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) this paper reports the first application of the concept of Social Quality to a UK data set. Social Quality is concerned with the quality of society, or social relations, and consists of both a theoretical model and an empirically tested set of measures. Social Quality is explored in relation to the policy issues of low pay and the working poor given the challenges presented by the rising number of households in work and in poverty. This analysis reveals several striking characteristics. In terms of poverty per se poor employees are worse off in terms of economic security, housing, health, human capital, trust, voluntarism, citizenship, knowledge and culture whichever part of the employment structure they belong to. However, in addition, even those in the so-called upper level of the labour market (professional, managerial occupations which require reasonably high levels of skill and motivation) are significantly worse off on these dimensions if they are low paid. Therefore it suggests that measures to raise low pay, such as the living wage, are likely to have considerable implications for Social Quality.