Lone mother families are seen as a major policy problem facing governments throughout the OECD. Responses to this problem in New Zealand, as in many other countries, are couched in terms of imposing work and training programmes to encourage exit from dependency on government financial support. This article uses ideas of ‘needs talk’ and discourse coalitions to explore the language of policy framing. Two periods in the development of the women's movement in New Zealand during which opportunities within political institutions have been available to women are examined. It is argued that an unintended consequence of naming needs for many women has been to contribute to the marginalisation of needs of lone mothers and indirectly to encourage policies which seek control and normalisation of this group.

This article investigates the unique contribution of specific programme characteristics together with personal stigma, stigmatisation by the public, and claims stigma, to the non-take-up of targeted income support among Hong Kong older adults. Drawing on data from a sample of 3,299 Hong Kong older adults aged 65 or above, we find that between 11-14 per cent of eligible participants did not receive cash transfers from Normal and Higher Old Age Living Allowance (OALA) and old-age Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (old-age CSSA). By combining mainstream economic analysis with attempts to quantify welfare stigma (Baumberg, 2016) we find that transaction costs were most consistently and strongly related to non-take-up of targeted income support; non-take-up of old-age CSSA and Higher OALA but not Normal OALA varied with welfare stigma after controlling for personal and household characteristics of study participants. This article further adds to the literature by examining the effect of recent reforms to asset- and means-tested benefits for the same target population of older adults on take-up in the East Asian context. The article suggests that automatic switching of beneficiaries from Normal OALA to Higher OALA effectively facilitated higher take-up of the latter. The policy implications of these various findings are discussed.

This article analyses the interaction between two policy areas affecting young people in England – housing and student funding. It is the first of its kind exploring a range of dynamics in the relationship between housing and student loan debt. Young people today are far less likely to own their home and are more likely to live with their parents than earlier generations. In parallel, higher education tuition fee increases have led to a growing share of students taking out loans and graduating with higher debt, which they will be repaying for most of their working lives. This research examines the relationship between student loans – having borrowed for higher education and attitudes towards debt – and housing tenure at age 25, using the Next Steps dataset. We find that young graduates who did not borrow for higher education are more likely to own their home and less likely to rent or live with their parents than graduates who borrowed for their studies or young people who never attended higher education. These results suggest that higher education funding policies and student loan debt play important roles in structuring young people’s housing in England.

The Care Act 2014 gave English local authorities a duty to ‘shape’ social care markets and encouraged them to work co-productively with stakeholders. Grid-group cultural theory is used here to explain how local authorities have undertaken market shaping, based on a four-part typology of rules and relationships. The four types are: procurement (strong rules, weak relationships); managed market (strong rules, strong relationships); open market (weak rules, weak relationships); and partnership (weak rules, strong relationships). Qualitative data from English local authorities show that they are using different types of market shaping in different parts of the care market (e.g. residential vs home care), and shifting types over time. Challenges to the sustainability of the care system (rising demand, funding cuts, workforce shortages) are pulling local authorities towards the two ‘strong rules’ approaches which run against the co-productive thrust of the Care Act. Some local authorities are experimenting with hybrids of the two ‘weak rules’ approaches but the rival cultural biases of different types mean that hybrid approaches risk antagonising providers and further unsettling an unstable market.

The paper describes the introduction of National Provident Fund Schemes in the British Leeward and Windward Islands under the guidance of the British Government during the 1960s. Adopted on the recommendations of technical experts from the United Kingdom, the schemes are very similar (except for the inoperative one in one of the territories where unfavourable political developments occurred); they are funded by payroll taxes levied on both employers and employees, cover nonpensionable employees between ages 16 and 60 and make provisions for retirement and other benefits which have mostly been deferred. The operations of the schemes are discussed, with critical attention being given to the use made of the accumulated funds. Many weaknesses of the schemes are discussed, some of which make them inferior, in the writer's view, to alternate programmes suggested several years earlier. The paper concludes with the hope that in spite of the schemes' limitations, improvements will be made so as to improve the prospects for social security in the region.

The absence of considerations of technology in policy studies reinforces the popular notion that technology is a neutral tool. Through an analysis of the role played by computers in the policy processes of Australia's Department of Social Security, this paper argues that computers are political players in policy processes. Findings indicate that computers make aspects of the social domain knowable and therefore governable. The use of computers makes previously infeasible policies possible. Computers also operate as bureaucrats and as agents of client surveillance. Increased policy change, reduced discretion and increasingly targeted and complex policies can be attributed to the use of computer technology. If policy processes are to be adequately understood and analysed, then the role of technology in those processes must be considered.

This paper discusses the various ways in which British Afro Caribbeans are disadvantaged in their encounter with psychiatry. It suggests that far from being monolithic and institutional, racism must be deconstructed and traced to the actions, practices and procedure involved in specific encounters. The procedures of psychiatry are examined through the discourses of psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology. From this analysis it is suggested that psychiatry's relationship to Afro Caribbean populations in Britain arises from the ways in which psychiatry conceptualises notions of ethnicity, race and cultural difference, as well as ways in which it organises and reproduces itself as a form of therapeutic intervention.

Public-Private Innovation Partnerships (PPIPs) are increasingly used as a tool for addressing ‘wicked’ public sector challenges. ‘Innovation’ is, however, frequently treated as a ‘magic’ concept: used unreflexively, taken to be axiomatically ‘good’, and left undefined within policy programmes. Using McConnell’s framework of policy success and failure and a case study of a multi-level PPIP in the English health service (NHS Test Beds), this paper critically explores the implications of the mobilisation of innovation in PPIP policy and practice. We highlight how the interplay between levels (macro/micro and policy maker/recipient) can shape both emerging policies and their prospects for success or failure. The paper contributes to an understanding of PPIP success and failure by extending McConnell’s framework to explore inter-level effects between policy and innovation project, and demonstrating how the success of PPIP policy cannot be understood without recognising the particular political effects of ‘innovation’ on formulation and implementation.

Existing policy research has not comprehensively examined the processes by which young people experience social exclusion: that is, the relationships among different risk factors for exclusion, their actual experiences of exclusion, and outcomes that matter for their life chances. Drawing on data from a survey of Australian 13-14 year olds (N=3,535), this paper adapts the Bristol Social Exclusion Matrix to examine pathways from young people’s personal and family resources, their experience of participation (school engagement; bullying victimization; teacher support), and their life satisfaction – a predictive indicator of wellbeing and mental health in adulthood. The effects of other characteristics or risk factors for young people’s social exclusion (living with disability, being a young carer, identifying as Indigenous, and speaking a language other than English at home), are also examined. This paper shows that experience of exclusion mediates the relationship between young people’s personal and family resources and life satisfaction. Controlling for characteristics or risk factors does not change this relationship, suggesting that processes of social exclusion, enacted in interpersonal encounters, are driven by overarching structural factors. These findings are relevant for policy in Australia, and in other countries with similar policy regimes.

The study reported on in this paper used existing data to create a broad measure of living standards as advocated by Townsend (1979) in developing his concept of relative deprivation. Linked data from the General Household Survey and the Family Expenditure Survey was used to compare the living standards of households at different income levels. A particular focus of the study was the living standards of households on supplementary benefit (as it was at the time of the surveys). Analyses showed that in general they score less well on individual indicators of living standards than other households of the same type on low incomes. A summary index was developed which indicated the similarity of standards of living for households on supplementary benefit (SB) irrespective of household type. The specific indices constructed for each of the family types investigated suggested that families on SB with children have a relatively lower standard of living than other families with children whereas elderly households on supplementary benefit are not so deprived in comparison with other elderly households.

The policy of the United Kingdom government towards the control of smoking has been characterized by a non-interventionist approach such as persuasion and industrial self-regulation, as opposed to more direct intervention through fiscal policy or control over tobacco production and sales. The effectiveness of the policies adopted by the UK government is difficult to assess, although there has been a reduction over the last ten years in the proportion of smokers in the population. However, evidence from other countries shows that a more comprehensive programme including direct legislation controlling tobacco advertising has a much stronger impact on tobacco consumption. The determinants of the UK government's policy position are analysed and the evidence suggests that this policy position is determined in part by the power of the vested interests in the maintenance of tobacco production, as well as the confusion of interests within the government itself.

Employees of the public employment services (PES) are street-level bureaucrats who shape activation policy on the ground. This paper examines how PES staff use enhanced discretion in an innovation project carried out by the German Federal Employment Agency. Applying a bottom-up perspective, we reconstruct PES employees’ logic of action and the dilemmas they face in improving counselling and placement services. According to our findings, placement staff use enhanced discretion to promote more individualised support and an adequate matching of jobseekers and employers. The use of discretion is framed by organisational norms and reward mechanisms and by the current labour market situation. Our analyses are based on qualitative interviews and group discussions with placement staff.

Policy makers across the political spectrum have extolled the virtues of volunteering in achieving social policy aims. Yet little is known about the role that volunteering plays in addressing one of the significant challenges of an ageing population: the provision of care and support to people with dementia. We combine organisational survey data, secondary social survey data, and in-depth interviews with people with dementia, family carers and volunteers in order to better understand the context, role and challenges in which volunteers support people with dementia. Social policies connecting volunteering and dementia care in homes and communities often remain separate and disconnected and our paper draws on the concept of policy ‘assemblages’ to suggest that dementia care is a dynamic mixture of formal and informal volunteering activities that bridge and blur traditional policy boundaries. Linking home and community environments is a key motivation, benefit and outcome for volunteers, carers and those living with dementia. The paper calls to widen the definition and investigation of volunteering in social policy to include and support informal volunteering activity.

Policymakers have increasingly embraced social enterprises as a vehicle to create job opportunities for the disadvantaged. However, there is limited research on social enterprises in the context of disability in relation to labour market integration. Drawing on the perspectives of representatives of work integration social enterprises and people with disabilities employed in these enterprises (n=21), this study examines whether and how work integration social enterprises promote inclusion for people with disabilities, and also explores the role of WISEs in enabling people with disabilities to transition into open employment. Thematic analysis revealed three key emergent themes: Cocooned inclusion but not transition; Reinforced normative demarcation; and WISEs as a deflection from institutionalizing proactive disability policy measures. This article argues that, although WISEs were able to provide job opportunities for people with disabilities, their purported function in enabling disabled people to transition into open employment remains constrained by factors beyond their control including prevailing norms and the absence of proactive disability employment measures. This article cautions against the over-romanticisation of WISEs as the primary means to ensure the rights of people with disabilities to participate in the labour market. Implications on disability employment policies in relation to social enterprises are discussed.

With the evolution towards more service-intensive social investment welfare states across Europe, research on the institutional capacities of subnational welfare provision is increasingly relevant. Based on a comparative case analysis of three post-industrial municipalities in Europe, this article harbors a two-pronged objective: first, empirically, to show how regional and local governance capabilities are crucial to effective SI policy delivery; second, more positively, to bring out the proficiency of vertical coordination between national administration and subnational layers, alongside the critical role of horizontal policy discretion at the local level to align social benefits and capacitating services for the success of SI delivery; and, by implication, the overall responsiveness of national welfare systems to the changing nature of 21st century socioeconomic risks.

This study contributes to the international literature on welfare dynamics, by providing a differentiated picture of paths through the means-tested Basic Income for recipients who are capable of working, after the reorganisation of the basic income system in Germany in 2005. We analyse the employment and benefit trajectories of individuals who became recipients for the first time between 2007 and 2009 by methods of sequence and cluster analysis based on representative administrative individual data. We find a significant polarisation between long-term recipients and those with an early exit from benefit receipt via full-time employment. One in three new recipients remains in benefit receipt for the next years and shows almost no employment activities. Approximately 23 percent leave benefit receipt quickly and work in full-time employment. Several other different paths exist between these two poles. These heterogeneous trajectories should be characteristic for broad basic income systems and require a variety of policies that in part are beyond labour market policies.

Data from household surveys have increasingly been used as a basis for social policy. They are generally inappropriate for obtaining information about the poorest, and therefore for policies concerned with tackling poverty and deprivation. They omit certain groups by design: the homeless; those in institutions; and mobile, nomadic or pastoralist populations. In addition, in practice, they typically under-represent those in fragile, disjointed or multiple occupancy households, those in urban slums and those in areas deemed as insecure. These sub-groups constitute a pretty comprehensive, ostensive definition of the ‘poorest’.

The sources of worldwide estimates of the missing populations are briefly described, with those for the UK discussed in greater detail, paying attention to their likely income and wealth. At least 250 million of the poorest of the poor are omitted worldwide; and in the UK about half a million of the poorest are missing from survey sample frames.

In the UK, these ‘missing’ population sub-groups bias the analysis of income inequalities and affect the validity of formulae that have been developed for the geographical allocation of resources to health and social care.

Australia's post-war programme of mass immigration has been accompanied by growing ethnic and racial diversity. This process of diversification accelerated markedly from the 1970s onwards after the abandonment of the White Australia Policy in the 1960s. Despite this diversification, Australia has been able to sustain itself as a peaceful liberal democracy. It is the contention of this article that Australia's policies of multiculturalism have played an important role in contributing to this state of relative peacefulness. This article seeks to assemble some evidence from the Australian experience to ‘test’ the notion that the peacefulness of Australian society may, in some measure, be understood as a product of the contribution of its policies of multiculturalism to engendering and reinforcing those very virtues which liberal democracies require in order to sustain themselves over time.