More and more studies indicate that leisure plays a fundamental role in active ageing. Our study describes the current leisure patterns of older adults, comparing them with other age groups. Consequently, 445 adults, stratified by age (young, middle-aged and older adults), were selected and subsequently administered a set of tests. The results indicate that older people claim having more time for their leisure activities; however, the diversity of activities performed is lower, showing a negative gradient based on age. The leisure patterns of older people reflect a predominance of passive leisure, little cultural leisure time and moderate levels of social and physical leisure activities. Older people’s leisure seems to be influenced by ageist stereotypes and attribution biases. Our findings imply that these results could be used to design and implement programs aimed at promoting leisure styles that contribute to increase active ageing.

Definitions of frailty are much debated. The focus of this article is on the representation of frailty; who employs the terms ‘frail’ or ‘frailty’ in social care, about whom and with what meanings? We report secondary analysis of interview data from two waves of a longitudinal study starting in 2008. Study participants were 240 social care managers/practitioners working in four English localities. Social care managers and practitioners did not talk at length about frailty as characterising the increasing needs of care users. The minority who talked about frailty used the term in three ways: describing a physical state not including dementia; describing a stable state, as distinct from those dying; and as a combination of physical and mental disabilities (i.e. dementia). Differences among the participants in this study about the meaning of frailty could have implications for policy makers and for communication with other staff, health professionals, older people and their relatives.

The concept of ‘underclass’ evokes a multiplicity of attitudes and beliefs about its meaning, existence, causation and, therefore, its resolution. This paper draws upon the philosophy of the social sciences to explicate the contending philosophical perspectives on the ‘underclass's’ causation and resolution by reference to a taxonomy of methodologies, so enabling the articulation of each methodology's analytical strengths and weaknesses when used to investigate the ‘underclass’. The conclusion drawn is that policy analysts must be critically reflective before they seek to describe, explain, understand, judge and address ‘underclass’-related problems and issues by drawing upon any theories and methods grounded in anyone of these contending methodological families.

The Norwegian Parliament passed new rules for child maintenance determination in 2001. This article discusses the 2001 reform, and the debate preceding it, in the light of literature on changing ‘breadwinner assumptions’ in social policy. It is argued that the reform was a clear example of the politicisation of fatherhood in Norway, in that a key concern was to encourage continued care from non-resident fathers. Much less attention was paid to the situation of custodial parents, and to children's material needs. In assuming that parents living apart will conform to the (yet unusual) dual earner/dual carer model, policy makers may be putting undue stress on vulnerable families.

Many of New Labour's welfare initiatives were underpinned by a stated desire to combat social exclusion among disadvantaged sections of the population. Allied to this, a commitment to end street homelessness/rough sleeping was an enduring feature of their term in office (for example SEU, 1998; DCLG, 2008). Of course, concerns about social exclusion predate New Labour, and a lack of meaningful involvement in many key areas of wider social life (for example, democratic and legal systems, the labour market, the welfare state, familial and (local) community networks) have long been identified as symptomatic of social exclusion (Commins, 1993). Previous research has also noted that homelessness rarely occurs in isolation and that many homeless people often carry with them a variety of other problems and experiences. It is clear that many homeless people experience ‘exclusion across more than one domain or dimension of disadvantage, resulting in severe negative consequences for [their] quality of life, well-being and future life chances’ (Levitas et al., 2007: 9), and, as such, can be viewed as experiencing multiple and/or deep social exclusion. This situation has been recognised by Carter (2007) who, noting a lack of resources, rights and opportunities, adopts the phrase ‘multiple exclusion homelessness’ (MEH) as a shorthand term to characterise the reality of many homeless peoples’ lives.

The history of welfare states is marked by divisions between capital and labour and these divisions are replicated at the international level. At the heart of these divisions is enduring class interests which accord different priorities to social and economic factors. That these divisions exist is neither surprising, nor necessarily a problem; the problem, this paper argues, is the increasingly high priority given to business interests by ever more powerful international governmental organisations. This paper presents an analysis of power in the global economy before investigating the social policy preferences of key international capital and labour organisations. It argues that international class mobilisation has failed to produce very much of a compromise on the part of capital, and that, if anything, international social policy discourse is today even closer to business than it has ever been.

This themed section focuses on parenting support as a social policy phenomenon within and across the five Nordic Countries of Europe: Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark. As in other parts of Europe, parenting support has received increased attention in social policy making in the Nordic region. In reviewing developments in the Nordic countries, the themed section seeks to identify and discuss similarities and differences between parenting support policies in the North versus other parts of Europe. It considers whether the aims and the provision of parenting support in the Nordic countries differ significantly from those identified in studies of parenting support policies in other European countries.

Under post-welfarist realignments in neoliberal democracies, the provision of welfare is increasingly conditional on claimants fulfilling certain (behavioural) obligations. Under these shifts, an increased focus on the cultural dimensions of conduct and belonging redefines the basis for citizenship and extends the risk of subversion to include incivility or cultural difference. Critically, this recasting of the state-citizen social contract occurs with potentially exclusionary effects by legitimising ethnic and culturalist explanations that attribute blame to individuals/groups based on their perceived failure to follow normative models of social and spatial integration. The significance of these neoliberal welfare shifts for many of those most at risk of exclusion—black and minority ethnics (BME) and indigenous populations—has received little attention. Responding to this gap from within housing studies, this article reports on qualitative research on the fulfillment of government responsibilities for tenancy support provision under reforms to Indigenous housing welfare in Australia. Based on interviews with Indigenous housing stakeholders, it identifies programmatic, organisational and operational issues hampering tenant support provision that challenge how the ideal of ‘fair reciprocity’ was satisfied at the outset of the reforms. Given contemporary policy discourse on community cohesion and integration, the ways in which current programmatic oversights signal this neoliberal programme and its attempts to reinforce perceptions and constructions of cultural difference to politicise and pathologise the behaviours of particular individuals and communities is significant. Key questions arise about how the needs of minority groups might inform the types of ‘opportunities’ required to achieve the conditions for fair reciprocity within the contractual welfare state.

Across the industrialised nations, the labour market participation of older workers (i.e. those aged 50 and over) continues to attract considerable attention, as the numbers in employment decline and those who are inactive or retired increase (for a 21-country review see OECD, 2006). Against a background of concern over the economic and social implications of low employment rates among the over-50s, much public policy has come to focus on extending the average working life by encouraging people to work for longer and to delay retirement (see, for example, House of Lords, 2003; and on European policy, von Nordeim, 2004).

Qualitative longitudinal research can make a distinctive contribution to policy discussions and to the assessment of outcomes. This article draws on research with lone-parent families over fifteen years to illustrate how change and continuity can look different over shorter and longer time periods, to discuss presenting longitudinal qualitative evidence through the selection of case studies, and to explore some of the challenges of engaging in policy debates with qualitative data.

In this themed section, the editors and authors take us far beyond the usual thinking about welfare reform. How, they ask, do politicians want us to feel about welfare reform? How do we think we should feel and how do we feel about it? How does the disabled woman who has lost her government-provided caregiver and ‘hasn't been out of the house since Christmas’, feel about it? Or the man who petitions to restore his lost government aid – but fails to do so? Or the wealthy Dutch tax payer? These are are the sorts of questions that arise in the study of a changing welfare states.

A. Hall and J. Midgely (2004), Social Policy for Development, Sage, London, 288 pages.

I. Gough and G. Wood (2004), Insecurity and Welfare Regimes in Asia, Africa and Latin America, Cambrdige University Press, Cambridge, 363 pages.

E. Rieger and S. Leibfried (2003), Limits to Globalization, Blackwell, Oxford, 402 pages.

Little research has been conducted exploring the relationship between public-sector accountability and the law. This is a significant oversight given the potential for this relationship to cause unintended consequences around issues of liability, especially in the context of a growing litigation culture. The purpose of the current research is to explore this relationship, using qualitative studies of public-sector professionals in England. The findings of the study suggest that increasing emphasis on accountability has led to a growing magnification of legal risk in the public sector, with consequences for the ways public-sector professionals perceive their relationships with the public.

In most democratic countries people with intellectual impairments are denied the right to vote in national elections. One important reason for this is that they are perceived as incapable of making independent political judgements and may thus fail to vote on the basis of their own preferences. Their exclusion is consequently defended by appeal to the need to protect the ‘integrity’ of democratic elections. In this article, this assertion is critically examined. The conclusion is that this argument does not hold sway once the connections between political equality and democratic elections have been clarified. Whilst political equality requires that elections are fair in the sense that everyone's preferences are given equal weight, fundamentally political equality also requires that everyone's opportunity to vote securely and without undue interference from others is recognised. Hence, as long as such opportunities have not been granted to people with intellectual impairments, they cannot consistently be excluded by appeal to the values of political equality.

This article showcases a research, dissemination and impact study on the striptease industry that explores why key stakeholders (dancers) are excluded, and ways that inclusion in policy development is achievable. This form of erotic work has undergone increased attention from policy and regulatory officials in recent years with the introduction of a new licensing process as venues are categorised as Sexual Entertainment Venues. The article will demonstrate how community and campaign group voices were heard over that of the dancers themselves, who were not consulted in the process of the legislative change. However, the article shows how small but significant interventions into policy development by direct work with stakeholders (here Licensing Committees and officers) can make steps towards an inclusion of dancer welfare and safety issues. Finally, we propose a set of principles that can ensure dancer and sex worker voices are included in policy consultation and decision making to ensure evidence-based policy making.

In discussions about ‘race’, empire, imperialism – and the decolonisation of the curriculum in European universities – the discipline of Romani Studies has, until recently, been relatively quiet. This article seeks to address this silence and offers commentary on the institutional silences, via both disciplinary historical and contemporary country-specific analysis. A case study is investigated to tease out the ontological and epistemological transitions from early 19th Century Gypsylorism to 21st Century Critical Romani Studies: the teaching and learning of Romani Studies at the Central European University (CEU) in Budapest. We argue that the legacy of Gypsylorism, as much as the political climate in which the teaching and learning of contemporary Romani Studies occurs, are important aspects to consider. In moving forwards, we suggest that the models and pedagogies adopted at CEU since 2015 offer a useful and critical template for other universities and departments to consider adopting in progressing Romani knowledge production.

The project that we report here provided free home computers and a one-year broadband subscription to a sample of 108 older people diagnosed with coronary heart disease. The sample was divided at random and the experimental group had ‘facilitated learning’, based on access to a dedicated website, while controls did not. The results suggest that many participants needed to overcome their fear of new technology before they could learn how to use it effectively. Significant differences in computer skills were found between the experimental and control groups after six months of being involved in the project.

This introductory article offers an analytical framework to understand the limits of approaches that stress the diffusion and transfers of international norms within the field of disability policy over the last three decades. It also aims to provide alternative ways to frame some of the important changes that have occurred through the concept of layering, in order to better account for the intricate processes of national translation but also for the contradictions, conflicts, and obstacles that the promotion of disability rights have faced in different countries. Finally, this article serves to introduce the contributions that make up the themed section in this issue of Social Policy and Society.

‘The big society’ was a central theme in the Conservative's 2010 general election campaign. Opinion polls at the time of the election suggested that ‘the big society’ had little resonance with the public. Nevertheless, ‘the big society’ has been the subject of a number of prominent re-launches since the election. It appeared to underpin the Coalition government's policies in a range of areas and the Prime Minister invested considerable personal capital in it. This article examines public attitudes towards ‘the big society’. Drawing on public opinion data, it focuses on public recognition and understanding of ‘the big society’ and more broadly on whether the government's approach to rolling back state provision has prompted an increased public appetite for involvement in the delivery of services.

The provision of services in the contractual welfare state is conditional. If one wants to receive a service, one has to comply with the demands of the provider. If one fails to do so, the organisation threatens to terminate its services, and indeed often does so. There are, however, people who breach their contracts time after time, falling back into the same dire situation that prompted them to ask for help in the first place. Social workers must then visit these people to help them re-enter the contract. This article draws on an in-depth analysis of such ‘behind the front door’ policies, focussing on single mothers on welfare. It argues that for many single mothers on welfare, social security fails to provide emotional and relational security, which undermines their ability to fulfil the terms of the contract. So long as the welfare state is based on the idea of (material) social security, ‘behind the front door’ workers remain urgently needed.