In addition to the references listed at the end of each article, there are a range of further sources that may be of relevance to those interested in social capital, social networks, and resilience, and their relation to child and family policy. Whilst the articles in this journal relate to a number of empirical issues, the references given here are intentionally broad in focus. These sources are in addition to those discussed in detail by Barnes and Prior in this edition.

This article reports the results of a case study on the introduction of the living wage. Three employers in the City of York became living wage employers. Using data derived from a sample survey of their employees and qualitative interviews, this article explores what impact the receipt of the living wage had on poverty and deprivation. It found that not all living wage employees were income poor or deprived, although those on living wage rates were more likely to be poor and deprived than those on even higher wages. The more important determinant of the employees’ living standards was the household they lived in, and there were a high proportion of living wage employees living in multi-unit households. Also important were the number of earners in the household and the hours worked by the living wage employee. Lone parent families and single people appeared to be most vulnerable to poverty and deprivation. In addition, whether the employee took up their entitlement to in-work benefits was critical and, using benefit checks by welfare rights experts, it was found that some were not.

Japan's implementation of the Long Term Care Insurance Act in 2000 provides a good example with which to examine the restructuring process of care services for older people, as these have come to be commodified by the welfare state. By focusing on Welfare Non-Profit Organisations provision, this article explores the significance of gender in the restructuring process. It reveals that care services are stratified with institutional care placed at the top of hierarchy of care services costs, and domestic task services at the bottom. There is an unequal distribution of gender and organisational type for each type of care work.

China is at a turning point in the reform of its social welfare system due to new opportunities and pressures. First, China is in transition to a middle developed country. Fast economic growth has created more wealth for the government and society that could be invested in the social welfare of its citizens. Second, social problems and conflicts have accumulated, partly as a result of past social policies, which were residual only, as was common in Asia (Aspalter, 2006). These residual policies had the primary purpose of securing the economic and political interests of the nation, which were regarded as superior to the interests of individual citizens. The social costs of economic growth at the expense of human rights are widespread and often hidden. In this unsustainable situation, the Chinese public has called for fundamental reforms to China's social policies – not only policies aimed at resolving individual problems, but also reform of the basic principles of the social welfare system as a whole.

This cluster-randomised study analyses the implementation of a family intervention model (the HOLF model) on four target areas: parental employment, the financial and housing situations, and the social inclusion of children. The study compares family coordinators implementing the HOLF model including tools, schemes and supervision structures, with those implementing local family intervention practices. All twenty-nine participating Labour and Welfare offices received two family coordinators per office, with a caseload of twenty-one families. Of the offices, fifteen were randomised to implement the HOLF model, while fourteen implemented local family intervention practices. In a twelve-month follow-up of 862 parents, baseline and T2 questionnaires and administrative data show a significant improvement on financial situation and children’s social inclusion; however, with no differences between offices implementing the HOLF model and those implementing local family intervention practices. The results show the need for further analyses of key elements and implementation practices within family intervention projects.

Social policy in the European Union has developed rapidly in recent years, following the 2000 Lisbon Summit and the subsequent adoption of National Action Plans on Social Inclusion and a set of common social indicators for all Member States. This paper describes European initiatives and examines the role played by social science research in these developments. It refers specifically to the role of theory and conceptual analysis, to the availability and quality of data, and to policy modelling. It draws lessons from the experience of European social policy for the relationship between research and policy formation.

This article maps important trends that mark a new stage in neoliberal capitalism since 2008, with a focus on class struggle and resistance in the advanced industrial democracies. New forms of collective action have arisen in response to austerity which has been imposed, in different forms, across most of the advanced industrial democracies, in a context in which established solidaristic institutions – trade unions, social democratic parties, welfare states – have already been eroded as a result of the preceding twenty five years of neoliberal reform. The article presents an overview of these trends, highlighting austerity policies and anti-austerity responses. The article accounts for the rise of new forms of resistance and collective action as they have emerged differently in different national contexts, focusing on developments in the UK, US, Spain, Japan and Germany.

With the advent of devolution, it is increasingly difficult to talk about a unitary UK social policy as policy developed by the Parliament in Westminster does not apply automatically or equally to the non-English UK nations. Devolution in 1999 created not only opportunities for increasing policy divergence across the UK, but has provided the potential for more research specifically focussed on Scotland. These opportunities are clearly reflected in the growing body of literature in recent years on devolution in general and its impact on various policy fields. This article considers the effects of devolution on social policy in Scotland since 1999. The aim of this review is to identify the key literature and to present the main debates and findings from relevant research.

Consider a social phenomenon which for over sixty years has seen the increasingly systematic and organised (but involuntary) expatriation, migration and resettlement of around one million children around the globe (Selman, 2012). In most cases, this expatriation entails the complete severance of ties with home countries, communities and families of origin; the provision of new families and citizenship; a legal change of identity that may include the issuing of new birth certificates; and, for many, a life among people from whom they remain visibly different just as they remain culturally and linguistically different from the communities in which they were born but from whom they are removed at an early age.

This article contributes to the search for suitable approaches to combat social exclusion faced by disabled people in capitalist wage labour markets. Referring to policy and service examples in Hong Kong, it reviews four social exclusion approaches – the Moral Underclass (MUD), Social Integrationist (SID), Redistributive (RED) and Collective Production (COP) approaches. These approaches are explored in relation to three key issues: (1) the diverse preferences of disabled people; (2) the myth of infeasibility regarding unconventional approaches and (3) the defects of the medical model of disability. The article argues that the MUD and SID approaches are more associated with the medical model of disability and emphasise individual changes. The RED and COP approaches contain more features of the social model of disability and are in favour of social and structural changes. The COP approach stresses the diverse preferences of disabled people and supports innovative services to combat social exclusion.

Implemented as part of the 2005 amendments to the Disability Equality Act, the Disability Equality Duty (DED) placed new and important demands on public sector bodies. All such organisations are required to develop policies and working practices which actively promote the equality of disabled people as employees, consumers or visitors. The promotion of equality has to be proactive as opposed to reactive and must be mainstreamed into the normal day-to-day activities of organisational working practices. Whilst the DED follows on from the framework of previous anti-discrimination legislation set in place over the last 15 years, it represents a significant change in equality legislation and demands that public sector bodies instigate fundamental changes in their approach towards disability. This article reports on the initial stages of the implementation process of the DED across a range of public sector organisations in England, focussing in particular on how this policy has impacted on mainstreaming. Discussion shows that although organisations show awareness of mainstreaming and its implications for disability equality, there is limited evidence to suggest that the public sector has fully embraced this agenda.

Job search is a central element of activation policies, which aim to transform unemployed people into active jobseekers who are subject to checks. We examine a neglected aspect of activation: sanctions. To do so we analyse, through biographical interviews with formerly-unemployed people whose benefit payments have been stopped, what it means when a job search is deemed insufficient. Although these formerly-unemployed people have failed to present enough written and tangible evidence of their job search during checks, they have pursued a different type of job search comprising more informal activities that are difficult to convert into written documents. So, we identify a twin-stranded job search – prescribed and alternative. We also point out that the gap between institutionally-framed job search and experience-based job search widens among unemployed people having low employability attributes, so that ever-stricter checks penalize those who are most vulnerable.

This article is the result of a joint project conducted by University of Roehampton and the Scottish Human Rights Commission, undertaken between March 2010 and April 2011. The article describes the methodological challenges encountered in the data collection phase of the project and addresses the conceptual relationship between social science and human rights research. It argues that social policy and social sciences research has an important contribution to make in the promotion and protection of human rights and demonstrates the use of the Research in Scotland's National Action Plan for Human Rights, being prepared by the Commission during 2012–13.

The purpose of this themed section is to bring together a set of papers that highlight children's perspectives of poverty and disadvantage. The articles selected explore the experiences, paid and unpaid resource contributions, and perspectives of children who face economic adversity in different countries across a range of diverse settings. They reveal some of the complexity of children's lives using different methodological approaches drawn from a spectrum of qualitative research with disadvantaged children that is growing and changing as it responds to new and innovative ways of engaging with children. The themed section includes findings from a qualitative longitudinal study in the UK, findings from a survey of children's views in Norway that includes a qualitative component, and snapshots across time from seven years of research with working children in Indonesia. These papers, coupled with an extensive review of the growing body of literature on children's perspectives on poverty present a valuable insight into a developing field of research.

This article examines the implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) to critically consider its effectiveness as a bill of rights for women. After having discussed the need for such a convention for women it examines the vital role that non-governmental organisations (NGOs) play in the implementation of the Convention. As of March 2005, 180 countries – 90 per cent of the members of the United Nations – were party to this Convention. However, the document is one of the most highly reserved international human rights instruments and although many nations have ratified the Convention they have done so conditionally. Despite these reservations, women's NGOs have used CEDAW as a powerful tool to effect change. Yet, whilst CEDAW has been heralded as a significant step in the development of international human rights, women across the globe still suffer abuse because they are women. There is a need therefore to suggest ways forward in order to ensure the improvement of human rights for women.

Minimum Income Standard (MIS) research involves an innovative methodology that combines consensual decisions made through discussion by members of the public, supported by input from experts. MIS addresses questions about income adequacy, and in particular, what is the income that people need in order to reach a minimum socially acceptable standard of living. The first MIS for Britain was published in the UK in 2008, and in 2010 researchers from Japan and the UK began to collaborate on developing a comparable Minimum Income Standard for Japan. This article discusses the differences and similarities between the UK and Japanese MIS. It looks at the challenges of applying the methodology in a very different setting and compares the results of the research in the UK and in Japan. Although there are notable differences in the lists of goods and services that comprise the budgets, there are also some striking similarities. This research suggests that the MIS methodology offers an approach that can be used in different countries to inform discussions on contemporary living standards and societal norms, and to enable international comparisons to be drawn.

There has been considerable debate about the future of pension provision over recent years and, in particular, the precarious position of many female pensioners. However, scant attention has been given to women contributing to occupational pensions despite gender differences in levels of accumulation. This article uses evidence from interviews with twenty retired female teachers to outline the difficulties women in the teaching profession have faced in building up occupational pension entitlements. Finally it highlights that pensions research needs to consider females with access to occupational pension provision to understand the situation of pensioners with a minimal pension income in retirement.

This article locates the issue of recent migration among Slovak Roma into the Czech Republic within the context of EU enlargement and the recent concerns over immigration control. The small-scale fieldwork undertaken among the Slovak Roma migrants in Czech detention centres revealed – not surprisingly – that the choice to seek asylum is closely associated with the loss of their economic status and employment in Slovakia. To become an asylum seeker in a neighbouring country is a way of looking for work whilst the family members are safe, free from harassment and unwanted hostilities back at home. The link between migration and poverty, however, should not be seen as a causal link for this category of asylum seekers, since increasing poverty among the Roma cannot be dissociated from political issues, such as institutional discrimination that has not been effectively addressed by the government itself.

This paper suggests that current theoretical approaches to the contemporary governance of anti-social behaviour have certain limits which may be overcome by emphasis on its gendered dimensions. It argues that the paradoxical relationship that women have with the state may prove a fruitful starting point. Third way ideologies recognise and respond to the vulnerabilities of the ordinary citizen. The governance at a distance that they practice means that the responsibility for reassuring citizens falls disproportionately on women who have had a historical role in managing the anxieties provoked by proximity. Yet women's acknowledged vulnerability means that this is an incoherent strategy.

This case study investigates strategies used by the NGO Leonard Cheshire Disability Zimbabwe (LCDZ) to promote the SRHRs of girls and young women with disabilities in Zimbabwe. The findings show that LCDZ employed a combination of six strategies. These are: (1) building practical knowledge on SRHRs; (2) increasing community awareness and sensitivity; (3) providing SRHRs-related education; (4) enhancing access to justice and related services for survivors of sexual violence; (5) delivering assistive devices; and (6) promoting the livelihoods and economic empowerment. LCDZ made use of multi-stakeholder partnerships to implement these strategies, leveraging complementary skills and experience in the promotion of SRHRs. In each of these strategies, girls and young women with disabilities are the target group, with other stakeholders brought together to support them.