Contemporary welfare policies in many Western countries limit means tested public assistance for the long-term unemployed and spur rapid movement into the labor market. Studies on welfare use determinants that traced these policy changes focused on individuals’ characteristics, economic condition, and various policy components. Little attention was paid to welfare recipients’ job quality or its role in determining welfare exit. The present study examined the contribution of various job quality aspects, beyond wages, to welfare exit among welfare recipients in Israel. We considered the use of workers’ own skills and occupation, existence of standard employment contract (versus temporary), irregular work schedule, and application of mandatory and non-mandatory non-wage compensation attributes. The data derive from a national panel survey of 2,800 single-mother recipients of welfare in 2003. The results indicate the importance of these job components for welfare exit, above and beyond wages. Implications for policy are discussed.

The casework method practised in social work is assessed from a sociological-structural perspective. Social workers are viewed as agents of social control who wield power and authority in order to change their clients' attitudes and behaviour. It is argued that the main weaknesses of casework as a technique for personal change lie in its dyadic structure and isolation from the client's real-life environment. These characteristics impede the operation of the basic processes through which control and influence are generally accepted. It is proposed to substitute small groups of clients for the one-to-one casework setting, to link the treatment situation to real-life experiences, and to emphasize learning processes. It is believed that this restructuring of the worker-client encounter will increase the effectiveness of social work therapeutic intervention.

This article adopts a case study approach to examine the contribution of social science research to health policy. It concentrates exclusively on the recent Royal Commission on the National Health Service. After describing its background and modus operandi the paper goes on to assess the Report's utilization of social science research, both in its diagnosis and recommendations. This assessment suggests that while the Commissioners made relatively little use of research-based evidence in their diagnosis, their recommendations provide the basis for a substantial increase in the contribution of social sicentists, particularly in the field of health services evaluation.

This article is concerned with the extent to which systems of public welfare can be said to have reduced or enlarged personal freedom. It looks, first of all, at the kind of arguments which have been advanced both in support of, and against, the notion of ‘the Welfare State’ as a defender or promoter of individual liberty. Secondly, it examines some of the freedoms which are said to have been threatened or enhanced, including ‘freedom of choice’, ‘freedom of disposition’ and ‘freedom of action’. Finally, it argues that many of these are ‘secondary’ freedoms, contingent upon the primary condition of freedom from economic need. Following Roosevelt we conclude that ‘true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence’ and that, although public welfare may have been partly responsible for an overall ‘levelling-up’ of freedoms, the distribution of such freedoms still reflects inequalities of income, status and power.