‘Just transition’ is a concept originally developed by the labour movement to reconcile workers’ rights with the necessity to combat climate change. More recently, supra- and international organisations have also adopted this idea. However, it remains unclear to what extent these actors follow the eco-social ambitions of organised labour. In this article, we develop a conceptual framework to capture diverse just transition approaches by distinguishing between the goal, policy, and governance dimension. We apply a multi-method approach to gauge the extent of variation in the just transition conceptualisations of three actors: the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the European Union (EU). We identify a cleavage between the ILO where just transition refers to an ambitious eco-social agenda on the one hand, and the IMF’s emphasis on macroeconomic adaptation on the other. The EU takes up a middle position by promoting a ‘green growth’ strategy with medium emphasis on environmental and social risk mitigation.

This paper focuses on the implications of adopting social audit approaches in order to implement equality policies in Scotland, exploring the tension between surface compliance and deep institutional engagement. Drawing on data from an evaluation of pubic sector bodies’ disability equality schemes, the paper provides examples of different levels of engagement, ranging from surface compliance (some education authorities) to institutional permeation of an equalities ethos (the Scottish Arts Council). The paper concludes by considering the future potential of single equality schemes to promote equality across Scottish society. It is argued that unless there is stronger support and challenge from Scottish government, there is a danger that equality schemes may become paper exercises rather than opportunities for institutional reflection and planning. At the same time, it would be a mistake to dismiss equality planning as merely an exercise in managerialism, since measuring the extent of inequality over time is an essential first step in the long process of achieving institutional change.

The aim of this article is to look critically at the implications of gender equality concepts for individual freedom as conceptualised by the philosopher Isaiah Berlin. The scientific literature addressing the problem of freedom and gender equality with regard to public policy is considerably fragmented. Based on contextual literature, this article will offer four concepts of freedom that serve as analytical categories. I will analyse work/family reconciliation policy tools as introduced at the level of the European Union and reconnect them to three traditions of gender equality. The article reflects on historically embedded dichotomy between positive and negative freedom visible in gendered distinction between public and private. The main findings show that the relationship between freedom and equality is mediated by the selected policy tools suggesting that some policy tools expand freedom of all individuals while others indicate a possible limit for freedom.

Social policy research examining citizens’ welfare knowledge, which offers a gateway to their understanding of the policy context, has remained limited. Adapting the opportunity–motivation–ability framework borrowed from the literature on political knowledge to welfare knowledge, this article offers an analysis of new data from a nationwide survey to explore Turkish society’s knowledge of the composition of public social spending. Corroborating earlier findings in the literature, the article maintains that most people in Turkey overestimate the relative size of social assistance spending for the poor. However, different from previous findings, the majority and most pensioners are also ill-informed about the rank of public spending on old-age pensions, the most widely used social benefit absorbing the largest share of welfare spending. The article provides evidence of the social division of welfare knowledge in Turkish society based mostly on three opportunity-related variables: city of residence, gender and income.

The relationship between social policy and inequality has often been contentious in Latin America. In this context, this article analysed the relationship between social spending and income inequality in the region in the short, medium, and long run. For this purpose, data on sixteen Latin American countries in the period 1990-2017 were gathered and analysed through a panel data study. The results showed that, in line with the findings at a global level, increased levels of overall social spending are indeed associated with reduced levels of income inequality in this region. However, each one of the four main areas of social spending were observed to have different effects on income inequality. Additionally, the results showed that, despite the reforms and the increases in budgets, the social protection and social services systems still have problems reaching those at the bottom of the income distribution in the region.

The study examines whether social capital fosters resilience among individuals who are at a high risk of developing mental distress in adulthood. Results suggest that social capital is not associated with a reduction in the probability that high-risk individuals will experience mental distress, while one form of social capital, membership in groups and associations, appears to play a protective role among low-risk individuals. Overall, our research suggests that policies aimed at increasing social capital would not be able to reduce the gap in mental health between disadvantaged individuals and the rest of the population.

This article addresses the issue of low targeting efficiency of the Russian child allowance programme. We look at non-take-up of eligible households and inclusion of the non-eligible, and show that household characteristics are significant determinants of the programme take-up, as they affect households' earning potential and expected level of benefit. We believe that the results of the research give useful suggestions on how targeting of child allowances can be improved in Russia.

This paper is concerned with young people's understanding of the welfare state; who and what is it for, and what is their relation to it? It is argued that such qualitative research into these questions is not common. Exploring these issues increases our knowledge of the presence that ideas and discourses about welfare states have in young people's understanding of the social world. Qualitative approaches such as the one adopted in this paper can tap into meanings and perceptions that young people have in relation to the welfare state that can be glossed over with more quantitative concerns with ‘attitudes’.

R. Blank and R. Haskins (eds) (2001), The New World of Welfare, Brookings Institution Press, Washington, DC.

K. Weaver (2001), Ending Welfare as We Know It, Brookings Institution Press, Washington, DC.

This article discusses New Zealand's experiences with health care rationing policy. It reviews attempts to define ‘core services’, the development of prioritisation techniques for service access and funding, new technology assessment, and the management of subsidised pharmaceuticals. The New Zealand experience offers various lessons: that rationing policy development is, by nature, a ‘messy’ process; that central coordination of rationing policy is crucial unless differentiation in regional initiatives and service access are desired; and that through ongoing highlighting of the need for it, rationing policy development is likely to become an accepted reality.

Rates of homelessness and poor mental health present significant challenges across the globe. In this article, we explore how these intersecting issues have been addressed in Wales through Part 2 of the Housing (Wales) Act 2014 through a paradigm shift towards a prevention model. This article reports findings from a study (conducted between 2016 and 2018) which evaluated the processes and impacts of the Act against the backdrop of welfare reform and systemic changes taking place in Wales and the UK. Using new evidence, we offer a critical examination of how homelessness prevention policy operates in practice and how social values and power affect policy implementation. We offer new evidence of the translation of policy into practice through the experiences of two stakeholder groups: people with mental health needs and service providers. In doing so, we offer a critique of how policy and practice could be modified to improve outcomes for homeless people with implications for prevention policy in Wales and in other contexts and different welfare regimes.

This article aims to account for why the redistributive effect of the Korean welfare state remains meagre. Given the fact that its small size is already a well-known factor, it directs its attention to the design and structural features of key social provisions and their distributional profile. Its findings suggest that the design features of social provisions are progressive but their distributional profiles are not. This is because there are other factors that undermine the seemingly progressive design of the welfare system in Korea. The article argues that in order to establish a fair and efficient welfare state, it is not only any increase in size that is important but also correction of the factors that diminish the progressivity of the welfare system.

The United Kingdom has a long history of a fraught relationship with the European Union, a discomfort demonstrated in the 23 June 2016 referendum on the membership of the EU, in which the UK voted to leave with nearly 52 per cent majority vote. Among the key concerns underlying UK's unease with EU are the interrelated areas of the economy, polity, and society. However, public debate surrounding the event focused on a relatively narrow range of issues. The two official campaigns representing the choice in the referendum, ‘Vote Leave, take control’ and ‘Britain Stronger in Europe’, were marshalled either to support Eurosceptic feelings or to emphasise the benefits of access to the Single Market. Commonplace convictions that the EU is responsible for that which is negative, inconvenient, or difficult to explain circulated alongside (though less frequently than) the recognition of the economic privileges and opportunities that come from EU membership. The political, economic and social concerns were encapsulated in themes of taking power back from Brussels, redirecting resources from the UK's contributions to the EU budget towards nationally determined projects (most famously allocating £350 million a week for the National Health Service), and effective border control to significantly curb migration. Contradictory claims about the EU and the UK's affiliation with it were further complicated by the fact that divisions over the support for or opposition to Britain's withdrawal spanned the whole political spectrum.

We examine an early ‘red flag system’ in the Finnish social assistance system and its efficiency in reducing the length of social assistance spells. We utilise the age-threshold in the policy that requires notifying social services on beneficiaries under twenty-five years of age after four months of social assistance receipt. Using monthly administrative data covering all twenty-three to twenty-six-year-old social assistance beneficiaries in Finland in 2018-2019, we compare the social assistance receipt of those below and above the age-threshold. Our findings show that those who are ‘red flagged’ do not exit social assistance earlier than others. On the contrary, four months after the notification is sent to social services, they are more likely to still have social assistance as their primary source of income compared to the twenty-five to twenty-six-year-old individuals. Our results shed light on the little discussed question on how to combine social work with digitalised and automatised welfare.

Access to safe, clean and affordable water is a basic human right and a global goal towards which climate change poses new challenges that heavily impact the health and wellbeing of people across the globe and exacerbate or create new inequalities. These challenges are shaped by a number of geographical and social conditions that, apart from the risks of weather-driven impacts on water, include water governance and management arrangements in place, including pricing tariffs, and the interplay of social and economic inequalities. Building on examples from Australia, Scotland and England and Wales that illustrate access to water in different types of water provision systems, and regarding to aspects of access, quality and affordability, this paper explores the types of challenges related to water poverty in the context of climate crisis and reflects on the multiple dimensions of water poverty oriented social policy at the interplay of climate change associated risks.

This article examines how Comorian pregnant women in Mayotte, a French overseas department in the Indian Ocean, came to embody an unwanted presence as irregular migrants due to their children’s and their own potential claims to belonging, while they are entitled by law to access perinatal and maternal care. This article argues that framing undocumented pregnant women as a threat led to significant shortcomings in perinatal care delivery and that those shortages in turn worsened access to healthcare services for the Mahoran-French population as well, exacerbating feelings of resentment towards Comorians. Drawing on this case-study, the article foregrounds the malleability of the CARIN criteria (Control, Attitude, Reciprocity, Identity and Need), a theoretical tool to analyse ideas related to deservingness, by demonstrating how actors re-think the meanings of ‘identity’, ‘control’, ‘attitude’ and ‘need’ and assign different weights to them in the context of a dominant frame of undeservingness.

With growing concern that social policies should reflect consumer choice, how is consumer choice expressed? Will consumer choice be the same in all forums? Analysis of incentive structures in different decision-making processes suggests that different facets of consumerism assume greater relevance in different forums. Policies approved often differ systematically from policies prescribed because approval is expressed in collective decision-making processes. Predicted policy responses prove sensitive to the way in which choice is registered. If consumers are empowered, choice will be sensitive to the forum in which they are empowered.

In Finland, older persons are entitled to needs-tested public home care services. Home care mainly assists with personal care, activities of daily living and medical needs. It is complemented with auxiliary services that offer help with instrumental activities of daily living. In Finland, municipalities are responsible for organising public home care services. These services are mainly tax-funded, but user fees are also charged. In this article, we examine the levels of user fees of home care and auxiliary services in Finnish municipalities in 2018. The data analysis consists of descriptive statistics and exemplary cases of costs to the service users. The results show that user fees may represent a significant share of older persons’ monthly incomes. Consequently, home care users, especially those with low incomes, are at risk of economic deprivation and non-take-up of the services. We also found substantial variation in user fees across municipalities, causing regional inequality.

This article is a case study of Brazil, a country where Catholic-based organizations have historically played a key role in providing education and welfare services. Since the 1980s, these organizations have supported progressive changes at both the national and subnational levels. Nevertheless, the influence of religion on education policy has shifted in the last few decades. Pentecostal and Neopentecostal groups have gained prominence through representatives in the National Congress, and, in 2018, formed a coalition enabling the election of a right-wing populist President. We analyse the trajectory of religious groups’ influence on Brazil’s education policy over time (colonization to the 1980s, the 1980s to the beginning of the 2000s, and the 2000s until now) through a qualitative-historical analysis of primary and secondary data. This article argues that both Catholic and Protestant groups have influenced progressive changes in Brazil’s education policy, but they also share conservative ideas impeding further advances.

Public Employment Services (PES) increasingly use automated statistical profiling algorithms (ASPAs) to ration expensive active labour market policy (ALMP) interventions to those they predict at risk of becoming long-term unemployed (LTU). Strikingly, despite the critical role played by ASPAs in the operation of public policy, we know very little about how the technology works, particularly how accurate predictions from ASPAs are. As a vital first step in assessing the operational effectiveness and social impact of ASPAs, we review the method of reporting accuracy. We demonstrate that the current method of reporting a single measure for accuracy (usually a percentage) inflates the capabilities of the technology in a peculiar way. ASPAs tend towards high false positive rates, and so falsely identify those who prove to be frictionally unemployed as likely to be LTU. This has important implications for the effectiveness of spending on ALMPs.