In the UK in recent years, a dramatic growth in media concern with same sex relationships has led to the suggestion that the resulting visibility is indicative of the extent to which the intimate lives of non-heterosexuals are becoming more acceptable. In this article we question this using data drawn from the Families of Choice Project, a qualitative research project based on interviews with over a hundred non-heterosexual women and men, which highlight the ways in which they are prevented from participating as full citizens in civic, political, economic, and legal society. Using Plummer's (1995) notion of intimate citizenship, we discuss first how respondents talk about the ways in which their intimate relationships are not recognised or validated legally, economically, politically or socially. We then analyse the respondents, ideas about what policy options could be considered to include their ‘families of choice’. Finally, we argue that the family model on which most legislation and policy is based is too narrow, exclusive and inflexible to include families of choice.

The expansion of ‘social duties’ has been a prominent feature in the development of social policy and the welfare state. Drawing on unique time-series data in the database of SCIP (Social Citizenship Indicators Project), this article describes and analyses the development of ‘social duties’, primarily in the form of taxes and social insurance contributions, in eighteen countries from 1930 to 1990. In focus are the institutional and longitudinal variation in the increase and change in these duties and how they have been distributed among employers, the insured and state authorities.

Contents

1 Social security and income maintenance

2 Health care

3 Education

4 Housing and environment

5 Personal social services

6 Law and the treatment of the offender

7 Unemployment and the labour market

8 Race relations

9 The voluntary sector

10 Local government

11 Gender

12 Demography

The role of means-testing within social policy has become more important and more central in the 1990s. However, extensive reliance on means-testing brings with it the accompanying problems of the unemployment and poverty traps. In the 1990s these take on more of the form of a poverty plateau, accentuated by a new savings trap. This article uses hypothetical calculations of benefit entitlement in order to explore the extent of the poverty plateau, and looks in particular at the impact on this of the growing use of means-tested rebates by local authorities. Means-tested rebates have been developed by authorities because of a concern that the new charges for services that they are making might disadvantage poor local citizens. Drawing on work of one typical authority, this article reveals that these rebates do add significantly to the poverty plateau, and yet that this is an issue which is little understood by both local and national policy planners.

This article responds to the view that it is now time to move on from debates about post-Fordism and the new sociology of welfare. It argues that it is important to retain the traditional agenda of social welfare (redistributive state policies designed to promote social integration and challenge the outcomes of the market) at a time when an influential position in sociology is playing down the significance of structural factors as an obstacle to progress in welfare.

Contents

1 Social security and income maintenance

2 Health (formerly Health care)

3 Education

4 Housing and environment

5 Personal social services

6 Law and the treatment of the offender

7 Unemployment and the labour market

8 Race relations

9 The voluntary sector

10 Government (formerly Local government)

11 Gender

12 Demography

Contents

1 Social security and income maintenance

2 Health (formerly Health care)

3 Education

4 Housing and environment

5 Personal social services

6 Law and the treatment of the offender

7 Unemployment and the labour market

8 Race relations

9 The voluntary sector

10 Government (formerly Local government)

11 Gender

12 Demography

This paper examines the costs of unsustainable home ownership in Britain as manifested through mortgage arrears and possessions. It suggests that there are a widely drawn set of costs that have an impact on a range of different actors and institutions, and offers a simple conceptual framework for developing an analysis of such costs. Further, the paper suggests that an examination of these costs has the potential to contribute to some key debates within social policy, not least to a series of issues about the development and maintenance of social and economic inequality. This claim is illustrated via an analysis of the financial costs of arrears and possession. The paper concludes that the financial losses incurred cannot be regarded as marginal either in terms of the number of people affected, the sums of money involved or the continuing social disadvantages that follow possession. The article concludes with a discussion of whether these issues can be regarded as ‘yesterday's’ problem or whether they should be viewed as a continuing feature of the contemporary social and economic landscape.

Contents

1 Social security and income maintenance

2 Health care

3 Education

4 Housing and environment

5 Personal social services

6 Law and the treatment of the offender

7 Unemployment and the labour market

8 Race relations

9 The voluntary sector

10 Local government

11 Gender

12 Demography