In most developed and developing nations individuals are actively being encouraged to save towards retirement via a plethora of savings mechanisms. In Malaysia, the reliance on individual savings through the Employees Provident Fund has costly implications for those in low paid, insecure employment, women and those working in the informal sector. Focussing on Malaysia, this paper seeks to present the pitfalls of such over reliance on the provident fund mechanism, which allows early access to savings and diverts members' contributions to subsidiary accounts. In conclusion, the paper suggests paths of reform which would, at the very least, lessen the growing threat of poverty and social exclusion amongst older Malaysians.

A growing body of research quantifies the recent impact of fiscal consolidation and public service reform in liberal welfare regimes. However, less is known about how this is affecting the common terms upon which citizenship status is granted and experienced. With this in mind, this article examines what bearing the political crafting of welfare austerity is having on the status, rights and identity of notionally equal citizens. To do so, this article draws on a qualitative study examining lived experiences of poor and rich citizenship in New Zealand and the UK. Despite policy programmes idiosyncratic to their institutional context, both countries exhibit a similarly bifurcated system of social citizenship that is serving to structure, rather than moderate, material and status inequalities in austere welfare regimes.

Since 1997, Labour has redistributed welfare spending to caregivers, especially parents. Two primary aims of this policy were getting more mothers into paid work and reducing child poverty. But the implications are more complicated than this. All households with children have gained, and especially those on low and middle incomes. But lone parents and mothers and fathers in couple households have each been affected differently. Defining what constitutes ‘money for care’ is a prerequisite for normative discussion on how the social costs of caregiving should be shared between and within households.

This paper argues that agrarianism was a central force in shaping outcomes in Irish social insurance in the post-war period, as Irish policy makers sought to balance the needs of urban and rural Ireland, and the interests of diverse groups in the agricultural sector. Using the Beveridge Report as a policy template, Irish policy makers struggled to apply this model to very different Irish conditions, where the agricultural sector had a profound economic and ideological weight. The paper points to the need for political theories of the welfare state to encompass variation in the way in which agrarian interests are structured.

Successive governments have encouraged the view of users of public services as consumers, choosing between different providers on the basis of information about the quality of service. As part of this approach, prospective students are expected to make their decisions about which universities to apply to with reference to the consumer evaluations provided by the National Student Survey. However, a case study of a post-1992 university showed that not all students made genuine choices and those who did tended to be in stronger social and economic positions. Where choices were made, they were infrequently based on external evaluations of quality.

There is growing interest in how enterprises based on co-operative values can help to meet needs relating to welfare and re-energise public services. The objective of this article is to examine critically the intersection of personalised adult social care services and the co-operative tradition, which emphasises mutual aid and value-led enterprise. We do this by retelling the story of personalisation through a co-operative lens, and ground this reading in case studies of two new co-operative enterprises that were supported under a Department of Health programme in England (2006–2009) intended to demonstrate how personalised adult social care could be extended by developing collaborative, co-operative organisational forms.

We investigate alcohol consumption as one of the main factors contributing to variation in the gender gap in life expectancy in the Russian regions. We consider the socioeconomic indicators and mortality coefficients that enable us to capture the causes of death related primarily to alcohol abuse and smoking. We assume that macroeconomic situation, coupled with alcohol consumption are substantial determinants of the gender gap in life expectancy in the Russian regions. A panel data analysis confirms that alcohol consumption has a significant influence on the gender gap in life expectancy and reduces the life expectancy of men first and foremost, as they are more inclined toward unhealthy behaviours. We have determined that employment and income support policies should be conducted in conjunction with the anti-alcohol policy. Social policy aimed at reducing alcohol consumption should be vigorously reinforced during an economic recovery.

There is an extensive body of literature on the ways in which the family home is often a site of conflict and discord rather than security and safety. Much of this work has focussed on the problem of domestic violence perpetrated by adults and how the state should respond to it (Home Office, 2009). Another form of family violence however, that of the abuse of parents (or those occupying a parental role) by their adolescent children, has not received such public (or academic) recognition (Hunter et al., 2010). In the UK, the issue of parent abuse remains one of the most unacknowledged and under-researched form of family violence.

This article aims to assess ways in which different justice schemes may operate together for an improved legal and political response to victims of sexual crimes in the aftermath of armed conflicts. The article will briefly present the problem of sexual violence against women in armed conflict. It will then consider the evolution of criminal justice in regard to this crime, the results of recent attempts to implement truth and reconciliation processes, as well as briefly assess reparation schemes. Finally it will suggest a series of measures for coordinating the various schemes of justice in a way that guarantees women's rights in the aftermath of a conflict.

In this article, we analyse the social distribution of residential property in Norway post-1945 in light of the concept of social citizenship. Drawing on data from censuses and tax registers, we examine the social stratification of owner-occupation and housing wealth in a Nordic nation of homeowners. Our study shows that residential property and housing wealth is very unevenly distributed, and that the share of low-income homeowners decreased markedly after 1990. The implications of these findings are discussed with reference to three different conceptions of citizenship: the socio-liberal, the republican and the libertarian. Our main argument is that the falling rate of low-income owner-occupation constitutes an erosion of social citizenship viewed from the socio-liberal and republican conception of citizenship. This follows from theoretical arguments and empirical studies linking homeownership to positive welfare outcomes, such as civic engagement and social integration. The latter is arguably particularly true in some high-homeownership countries, such as Norway, where owner-occupation is the cultural norm and rental housing is associated with low quality and insecurity.

In social policy debates and research over recent years, ‘risk’, ‘social inclusion’ and ‘the life course’ have become influential topics. In this themed section we will revisit these concepts and analyse how they have influenced policy debates and research in Australia and elsewhere. The contributions were developed as part of a research collaboration that brings together expertise from social policy, gender studies, risk sociology, social work, youth studies and research on ageing and old age. This introduction outlines the concepts and dimensions we found helpful for analysing social policy practice and research and the key arguments of the contributions.

The role of populism in mobilising support for Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union has been well noted. But a key feature of populist politics – the use of religious discourses – has been largely overlooked. This article addresses this gap by exploring the way in which the Leave campaign framed Brexit in quasi-religious and mythological terms. Three core themes are identified: (1) that the British ‘people’ had a unique role to play in global affairs; (2) that the sanctity of this special status was threatened by elites and migrants; (3) that the referendum gave voice to the sacred ‘will of the people’. These narratives were underpinned by a strategic discourse centring on claims that EU membership was exacerbating a crisis in health and social care. This myth was encapsulated by the so-called ‘Brexit bus’ campaign.

The history of the state, in relation to its ‘dealings’ with Gypsies and Travellers in Britain and Ireland, has not been one worthy of endorsement, praise or special prizes (Hawes and Perez, 1986; Mayall, 1995). Since the emergence of written records detailing the presence of such groups on these Islands (around the fifteenth Century, according to Fraser, 1995: 111–120) a familiar series of tensions has tended to take shape, tensions that are explored by the articles within this themed section and that we might today discuss in terms of core dichotomies, such as ‘integration and assimilation’, ‘inclusion and exclusion’ and, with a social policy focus, ‘care and control’. Indeed, where objective academic analysis has been conducted of the state's enactment of social policy measures in relation to both nomadic and sedentary communities of Gypsies and Travellers a brightly coloured picture reveals itself, illustrating, on the one hand, a desire to ‘help’ (care) for their well-being, safety and security (Parry et al., 2004; Cemlyn, 2006; Mason et al., 2006) whilst, on the other hand, there is also a strong tendency to monitor, classify and regulate (control) their movement, accommodation, work practices and cultural identity (Clark and Greenfields, 2006; Richardson, 2006; James, 2007, forthcoming). No matter what specific area of interest the researcher might have, whether it is accommodation, education or health, the states’ activities regarding the care and control of its Gypsy and Traveller citizens often appears to be confused, shifting between the punitive and restrictive as well as being ill-informed and lacking any kind of joined-up coherent strategy. As we will see, through the articles within this themed section, the tensions between the state and Gypsies and Travellers show little signs of being resolved, although in the last few years there have been (policy) signs and (practice) signals that all parties recognise the fact that current entrenched positions are damaging and unsustainable.

At the same time as failures to adequately protect ‘the most vulnerable’ seem to have become a pervasive feature of the political landscape, policies which seek to address vulnerability have proliferated. Government actors, public officers, researchers, media commentators, charities and members of the public alike use vulnerability to articulate an array of personal and political troubles, yet alongside this seemingly shared narrative a multitude of ideologically inclined assumptions and agendas operate by stealth. How vulnerability is drawn upon to frame social issues reworks and reconfigures long-running contestations related to moral dimensions of the welfare subject, understandings of the ‘self’ and wider beliefs about human behaviour. At a time when the pressures of contemporary life increasingly find release through aggression against the socially marginalised (see Wacquant, 2009; Harrison and Sanders, 2014; Atkinson, 2015), vulnerability has become a key concept for social policy research. As I have argued elsewhere, the concept of vulnerability appears to be something of a zeitgeist or ‘spirit of the time’ (Brown, 2014a, 2014b,2015), extending into and shaping responses to a vast array of policy matters.

The evidence-based policy approach – the view that social policy ought to be based upon supporting evidence that the policy works (and why it works) – is currently in vogue. In this article we reflect upon one aspect of the evidence-based approach: the use of quantitative evidence in health care decision-making. In particular, we discuss both the potential usefulness of quantitative evidence in this context, and the barriers to the appropriate use of such evidence at the decision-making level.

Employability initiatives are becoming increasingly popular in government discourse as a means of tackling worklessness. Here we discuss the findings of a small-scale, qualitative study which mapped the impacts of a multi-intervention programme on participants’ health, wellbeing and employability. Each of the 13 interventions was independently appraised through focus groups or semi-structured interviews. Thematic analyses revealed that participants from all interventions reported increased self-confidence, with several individuals suggesting that project involvement had facilitated their movement into the labour market. While the findings illustrate some positive outcomes, we argue that government policy needs to consider more carefully strategies that also address the demand side of the labour market.

This paper provides an analysis of the New Community Schools (NCS) initiative as developed in Scotland. As our analysis makes clear the evidential base of this development was, at the outset, extremely slender. From that base, however, NCS has migrated to diverse localities within which it has had significant impact while itself being impacted upon by local conditions and contexts. We are particularly interested in the democratic potential of this process of migration: the extent to which, and ways in which, localities can speak back to the centralising sources of power through the mediation of policy. Our analysis focuses on NCS from inception, through formal announcement by the then Scottish Office, to the first year of implementation within a particular local authority in central Scotland. The paper is organised around what we see as three major shifts in the migration of NCS during this early period of its development. We argue that evidence of how, why, and to what effect policy ‘travels’ is crucial not only for the purposes of academic analysis, but also to the effective implementation of policy at the local level. Our central concern is with the self-reflexive development of policy through the formative analysis of evidence relating to its mediation.

During the 2008 federal campaign, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama placed comprehensive health care reform at the centre of his platform. In the light of the growing problems facing the US health care system, the time seemed ripe for another attempt to control health costs while expanding insurance coverage. Elected in the context of the deepest recession since World War II, President Obama nonetheless decided to reform the US health care system at the beginning of his presidency. Drawing on the historical institutionalist perspective, which stresses the effects of existing institutions and policy legacies on social policy development, this article analyzes health politics during the first fifteen months of the Obama administration before assessing the impact of the legislation enacted in March 2010. Although it does not radically break from the past, this legislation should bring about crucial changes to the US health care system.

This article serves three purposes. The first and main one is to introduce the ESRC's Growing Older Programme and its research agenda. Secondly, it outlines the four main challenges confronting the programme and its research teams: the methodological one concerning ‘quality of life’, the democratic one of participation, the challenge of communication and, ultimately, that of policy impact. Thirdly, the demographic and policy contexts that helped to create the Programme and to which it must respond are also discussed briefly.

This article is based on a case study of women apprentices and workers in a ‘non-traditional’ occupation for women, engineering construction. The article argues that the concept of ‘employability’ is not gender neutral, and that gendered assumptions about who is and is not ‘employable’ for particular work can disadvantage women seeking training and work in non-traditional industries or dissuade them from applying to do so. Approaches to employability which emphasise individual attributes underplay the significance of gender inequalities and wider discourses of gender.