Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Human welfare and social reform'
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Chan, Wing-kit Eric. "An analysis of human resource management in correctional homes of the Social Welfare Department : implications for change /." Hong Kong : University of Hong Kong, 1997. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record.jsp?B18595753.
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Chan, Wing-kit Eric, and 陳永傑. "An analysis of human resource management in correctional homes of the Social Welfare Department: implications forchange." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 1997. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B31965131.
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Sayeed, Yeasmin. "Child Marriage, Human Development and Welfare : Using Public Spending, Taxation and Conditional Cash Transfers as Policy Instruments." Doctoral thesis, Örebro universitet, Handelshögskolan vid Örebro Universitet, 2016. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-47122.
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The theme of this thesis is to analyze the impact of policy interventions such as financing human development (HD), tax reform and conditional cash transfer programmes, under the framework of growth and sustainable development. These policy instruments are evaluated through the application of both partial and general equilibrium models, and the last paper concentrates on developing regional social accounting matrices (SAMs) as a core database for spatial general equilibrium modelling. Essay 1: Trade-offs in Achieving Human Development Goals for Bangladesh investigates the benefits and costs associated with alternative investment financing options for achieving HD goals by applying the MAMS (Maquette for Millennium Development Goals Studies) model. We find that full achievement of these goals would have led to a GDP loss that would have been significantly larger in the domestic borrowing scenario than in the tax scenario. The tax-financing alternative is thus the better option for financing large development programs. In terms of public spending composition, we find that, under some circumstances, a trade-off arises between overall Millennium Development Goal (MDG) progress and poverty reduction. Essay 2: Welfare impact of broadening VAT by exempting Small-Scale food markets: The case of Bangladesh analyses the welfare impacts of different VAT reforms. A general and uniform VAT on all commodities is preferred as it is more efficient and less administratively costly. However, due to equity concerns, food is normally exempted from VAT. On the other hand, exemptions on food mean that an implicit subsidy is provided to high-income households. Hence, we analyze a broad-based VAT regime with a high threshold that excludes small-scale operators (where the low-income households buy their products most, including food) and the simulation result shows that welfare improves for the low-income households. Essay 3: Effect of Girls’ Secondary School Stipend on Completed Schooling and Age at Marriage: Evidence from Bangladesh estimates the effect of a conditional cash transfer programme on education and age at marriage. We apply both difference in differences (DiD) and regression discontinuity methods to evaluate the impact of the policy instrument. Our estimation results show that the girls in the treatment group who were exposed to the programme had a higher average number of completed years of schooling and also delayed their first marriage compared to the girls in the control group. We also show that the DiD approach might produce a biased result as it does not consider the convergence effect. Essay 4: Estimation of Multiregional Social Accounting Matrices using Transport Data proposes a methodology for estimating multiregional SAMs from a national SAM by applying the cross-entropy method. The methodology makes possible the construction of regional SAMs that are consistent with official regional accounts and minimize deviations from transport data.
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Bruckauf, Zlata. "Parental human investment : economic stress and time allocation in Russia." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2013. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:99cf2f7a-7bd0-4931-9efa-14f67bf85cc1.
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A decade of growth and wealth generation in Russia ended in 2009 with the collapse in GDP and rising unemployment. This Great Recession added new economic challenges to the ‘old’ problems facing children and families, including widening income inequalities and the phenomenon of social orphanage. One question is how the new and existing material pressures affect parent–child relationships. This research contributes to the answer by examining, in aggregate terms, the role poverty plays in the allocation of parental time in this emerging economy. Utilising a nationally representative sample of children, it explores how child interactions with parents are affected by aggregate and idiosyncratic shocks. Drawing on the rational choice paradigm and its critique, we put forward the Parental Time Equilibrium as an analytical guide to the study. This theoretical approach presents individual decisions concerning time spent with children over the long term as the product of a defined equilibrium between resources and demands for involvement. We test this approach through pooled cross-sectional and panel analyses based on the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey dataset from 2007 to 2009. Children in low-income households face the double disadvantage of a lack of money and time investments at home, with both persistent and transient poverty being associated with lower than average parental time inputs in the sample. Moreover, while on average, we find that children do maintain the amount of time they spend with their parents under conditions of severe financial strain, low–income children lose out on play time with the mother. Material resources cannot be considered in isolation from structural disadvantages, of which rural location in particular is detrimental for parent–child time together. The study demonstrates that the cumulative stress of adverse macro-economic conditions and depleted material resources makes it difficult for parents to sustain their human investment in children. The evidence this study provides on the associations between economic stress and pa-rental time allocations advances our knowledge of the disparities of in the childhood experience in modern Russian society. The findings strongly support the equal importance of available resources and basic demand for involvement, thus drawing policy attention to the need to address both in the best interests of children.
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Meng, Ke. "Political institutions, skill formation, and pension policy : the political-economic logic of China's pension system." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:4fd792f6-3b4a-46e0-9566-582de50e7106.
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A central theme in the comparative political economy of the welfare state is the complementaries between political institutions, social policy, and labour markets. Yet little has been written to uncover this political-economic nexus in China, the world’s second largest economy. This thesis partly addresses this gap by studying the country’s public pension arrangement, the most expensive component of the Chinese welfare state. It reveals the working of the political-economic nexus in contemporary China by showing how it leads to two puzzling characteristics of the Chinese pension system, namely the rapid expansion in the absence of electoral pressures and the persistent regional fragmentation despite an authoritarian central government. It argues that the decentralised authoritarianism, in which China’s authoritarian central state delegates to regional governments and motivates them to achieve its developmental goals, drives municipal authorities to compete with each other in generating economic growth. In the inter-municipal economic competition, local leaders adopt an expansionary yet localising pension policy. This facilitates the formation of specific industrial skills, which are productive for particular local industries, and the retention of skilled industrial workers. All of this is important to local economic development in a context of industrial upgrading and labour market tightening. It is argued this is the political-economic logic of China’s pension system.
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Edwards, Natalie A. "Welfare Reform and Leadership: A Case Study." Toledo, Ohio : University of Toledo, 2010. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=toledo1271462610.
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Thesis (M.L.S.)--University of Toledo, 2010.Typescript. "Submitted to the Graduate Faculty as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Liberal Studies." "A thesis entitled"--at head of title. Title from title page of PDF document. Bibliography: p. 45-51.
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Threlfall, Perry A. "Social Capital and Welfare Reform: The Single Mother Quagmire." VCU Scholars Compass, 2007. http://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd_retro/171.
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This paper examines the effects of social capital in the lives of low-income single mothers and how it intersects with the goals of the Personal Responsibility Act (PRA). These explicit goals are to decrease reliance on public assistance through work and marriage; the implicit goals are to enhance social capital by increasing the trust, norms, and values that are evidenced by work and marriage. However, low-income single mothers are faced with limited repositories of social capital, which leaves them in a legislated quagmire. Tested here is the hypothesis that social capital impacts marriage, stable employment, and TANF use. The findings indicate that social capital impacts stable employment and economic stability in low-income single mothers, but it does not increase the likelihood of marriage. Further research that examines how social capital intersects with race and class will shed additional light on the efficacy of policy initiatives that focus on social capital reinforcement in low income female-headed families.
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Feyertag, Joseph. "Varieties and politics of skill protection : a micro level analysis of unemployment protection systems in Europe." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2013. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:c69681da-2da3-4467-985f-b644c1be6c48.
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Varieties of Capitalism theory predicts that the skill specificity of workers determines their demand for social protection. In this thesis, I test this assumption using a measure of occupational mobility between pre- and post-unemployment, which I apply to European workers in different skill groups as defined by Fleckenstein et al., (2011). Using this measure as an indicator of the portability of workers' skills, I then evaluate whether the lower marketability of human capital investments is associated with greater demand for unemployment protection. The findings demonstrate that whilst this relationship is apparent in certain countries, notably Coordinated Market Economies such as Germany, the assumptions do not apply across institutional settings. Consequently, skill specificity cannot explain variation in attitudes towards unemployment protection policies between countries.
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Gigliotti, Katherine M. "Immigration and Welfare: Policy Changes Brought by the 1996 Welfare Reform Law." Thesis, Boston College, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/2345/381.
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Thesis advisor: Timothy DuketThe United States of America's official seal is inscribed with the quote “E Pluribus Unum.” Translated from the Latin, this phrase means “From Many, One.” Modern America is in fact one nation, built from many; many cultures, religions, and citizens from many different origins comprise the American polity. America is a nation of immigrants. The first immigrants to this country were fleeing religious persecution. Others have come escaping a life of poverty or political repression. Whatever the reason, immigrants come to America in hope of a better life. Despite America's strong immigrant tradition, the issue of membership in the American polity has been a contentious issue throughout our history. Chinese Exclusion, and the National Origins Quota System are merely two policies implemented with the express purpose of keeping foreigners out of America. Over time, anti-immigrant sentiment in America has been fueled by nativism and the desire to allow economic prosperity to benefit American citizens. While nativism has played an important role in determining American immigration policy, many modern-day arguments for a restrictive immigration policy are based on economic considerations. It is often claimed that immigrants take jobs away from citizens. Economic research has shown that modern-day immigrants tend to be lower skilled and have a lower economic performance than natives. As a result, the presence of a large number of immigrants does create greater job competition and lower wages for citizens in low-paying jobs. The desire to keep jobs available for American citizens has been a primary cause of existing restrictions on immigration
Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2003
Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences
Discipline: Sociology
Discipline: College Honors Program
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Lee, Soohyun. "The transformation of East Asian welfare states : the politics of welfare reform in South Korea." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2012. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:6975fb9b-3ea0-4d9e-b437-552d21a74572.
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East Asian welfare states have experienced major reforms in the last two decades, raising the question as to whether these welfare reforms signify a fundamental departure from the East Asian welfare model, or merely an adaptation of the model to socioeconomic changes. Overshadowed by the state-driven policy-making model with a strong functionalist bias focusing on socio-economic drivers, the existing East Asian welfare state literature has overlooked the fundamental political change brought by the dual transition (i.e., democratisation and economic liberalisation), which have led to the emergence of pluralistic societies. In order to fill this gap in the literature, this thesis investigates the political underpinnings of welfare reforms in Korea with special attention to societal actors, (notably trade unions, employers’ associations, and political parties) whose role feature prominently in the comparative welfare state literature, are still largely neglected in East Asian welfare state research. Bringing these actors into the analysis, the thesis examines how the rise of societal actors has changed Korean welfare politics by constraining policy autonomy of the state in the domains of employment protection, unemployment protection, and work/family reconciliation policies. To this end, the thesis engages in analysing policy documents and in-depth elite interviews with senior government officials as well as high-profile representatives of employers associations, trade unions and parties. The thesis argues that the politics of the Korean welfare state has undergone a three step transformation process in the post-transition period. The developmental alliance could no longer function as the sole driving force of welfare state development during the first civilian government (1993-1998), when organised labour exercised its newly acquired status of a veto player. Furthermore, the old driving force of social policy-making, the developmental alliance, was replaced by the new alliance between the centre-left party and organised labour during the first left government (1998-2003) Lastly, parties moved to centre stage of social policy-making during the second left government (2003-2008) and the current conservative government (2008-presnet). Drawing on competing theories of the welfare state –in particular, the Power Resource approach, the employer-centred varieties of capitalism perspective, and the state-centred theorem, and the parties-matter thesis – the thesis contributes to developing a comprehensive political account on welfare state transformation in East Asia and to the better embedding of the East Asian welfare state literature into the comparative welfare state literature.
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Scope, Linda Denise. "Perceptions Among African American Women Welfare Recipients in Advocating for Welfare Reform." ScholarWorks, 2018. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/4985.
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The 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act (PRWORA) significantly affected many families by changing public assistance from an entitlement program to a work program for recipients and imposing a 60 month maximum period for receiving assistance. Unanticipated outcomes created deleterious results for many single parents. This multiple case study explored the experiences of four African American single mothers in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States receiving assistance regarding welfare reform, the welfare system and their perceptions of welfare advocacy. Black feminist and empowerment theories framed the study to examine how welfare policy changes affected African American women's families and their abilities to advocate. Data were collected from narrative interviews and artifacts provided by 4 participants and analyzed using thematic content analysis. The key findings demonstrate recipients who had no prior interest in Temporary Assistance to Needy Families advocacy found their voices when invited; offering insights about system challenges and successes as well as strategies for improvement This study will impact social change by informing policymakers, think-tank researchers, community program developers, and public assistance caseworkers for policy discussions regarding PRWORA. Women may also learn strategies for advocacy and organizing from the analysis.
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Kwak, Hyokyung. "THREE ESSAYS ON WELFARE POLICIES IN AMERICAN STATES: EXPLAINING AMERICAN WELFARE STATES IN THE POST-WELFARE REFORM ERA." UKnowledge, 2019. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/msppa_etds/33.
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This dissertation consists of three empirical studies that address questions regarding state welfare policy making in the post-welfare reform era. The first empirical study pays close attention to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) as a federal block grant program, which is a big departure from most previous TANF studies, to ask why American states differ in their decisions to allocate federal block grants across specific programs. Drawing on research on fiscal federalism and state and cross-national welfare politics, the study uses cross-sectional time-series data covering 50 states over the fiscal years 2004-2016 to examine factors that have an impact on state child care spending under the TANF block grant. The results show that several political factors and one socio-economic factor impact states’ TANF child care spending in the hypothesized direction. Most importantly, the study finds that a specific state government’s TANF policy designed to encourage work matters in an interesting way. States’ emphasis on work of TANF recipients, measured by the existence of the TANF job-search rule, exerts a positive, independent effect on the percentage of state TANF child care spending, but the positive marginal effect of implementing the job-search rule becomes negative as the percentage of female state legislators passes 28%. The study shed lights on our general understanding of the factors that influence state allocations of federal block grants for an understudied but increasingly important policy program in the American states—child care.
The second empirical study examines whether the selection of indicators of welfare policy commitment makes any difference for the findings in studies of the determinants of state welfare policy. If so, what difference does it make? While scholars of state welfare politics have long been making efforts to find better explanations for variation in welfare policy across American states, the literature as a whole has paid little attention to how differently scholars operationalize state welfare policy even though they examine a variety of welfare policy measures. To address these questions, I estimate a series of different panel data models with different measures of state welfare commitment for the period after the welfare reform of 1996. Comparing the results across these models shows that the choice of dependent variable measures affects the estimation results, thereby suggesting that empirical findings are dependent upon the measure we use. This finding not only shows that scholars need to be cautious in interpreting their results but also opens up a new puzzle as to why a factor affects a particular welfare measure but not others.
The last empirical study addresses the question: do the effects of party politics differ across welfare policies? In answering this question, the study draws on the literature on deservingness and social construction of target populations and hypothesizes that party politics would play a differential role in explaining the generosity of different welfare policies depending on the perceived deservingness of target populations. To test this hypothesis, I estimate three models each for TANF, Supplemental Security Income-State Supplements (SSI-S), and Medicaid generosity covering the period after the welfare reform. I find that party politics still remains as an important predictor of state welfare generosity, especially where welfare policy for the deserving poor and mixed population in terms of its deservingness is concerned. Also, there are differential effects of party politics across the welfare policies examined, but sometimes in an unexpected direction. This study provides a valuable addition to the literature in that it updates and enriches our understanding of welfare politics.
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Lee, Wonik. "The Effects of Maternal Welfare Participation on Children’s Developmental Outcomes in the Welfare Reform Era." The Ohio State University, 2010. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1263869135.
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Boesenecker, Aaron P. "Defining work and welfare the politics of social policy reform in Europe /." Connect to Electronic Thesis (CONTENTdm), 2009. http://worldcat.org/oclc/461265191/viewonline.
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Russell, Regena Kaye. "Welfare reform in Quebec : implications for single mothers and their children." Thesis, McGill University, 1992. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=61157.
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This thesis examines the process of welfare policy-making in Quebec with respect to single mothers and their children. Historically, traditional notions of the role of women in society and the distinction between "deserving" and "undeserving" poor have inhibited adequate social assistance for single mothers. Chapter 1 examines the 1937 Needy Mother's Assistance Act, the first state assistance program for single mothers in Quebec. Chapter 2 discusses the ideological basis for present-day welfare policy making. The liberal feminist commitment to gender neutrality and acceptance of the marketplace economic model have abetted recent attacks on the Motherwork norm in welfare policy and thus reinforced existing disadvantages of single mothers. Chapter 3 examines the Quebec welfare policy-making process embodied in the 1987 position paper Towards an Income Security Policy and subsequent parliamentary commission hearings. The Return to School Program for single parents, and other provisions, with their renewed emphasis on the marketplace and their attack on the Tender Years Presumption, left single mothers effectively worse off under the new Income Security Act.
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Hewitt, Martin. "Social policy and human nature." Thesis, University of Essex, 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.242258.
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Deering, Joseph A. "Analyzing the beyond welfare reform initiative : a theoretical policy analysis approach /." free to MU campus, to others for purchase, 1998. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/mo/fullcit?p9904840.
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Page, Ivan L. "Social welfare policy: a comparative analysis of the attitudes of middle class White and African Americans toward welfare reform legislation." DigitalCommons@Robert W. Woodruff Library, Atlanta University Center, 2000. http://digitalcommons.auctr.edu/dissertations/2548.
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The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of race, social class status (middle income) and political party affiliation on the attitudes of middle class White and African Americans toward welfare reform legislation. This study focused on the comparison of the two groups: (1) African Americans with an annual income between $35,000 - $99,999; and (2) White Americans with an annual income also between $35,000 - $99,999. Specifically, a comparison was done to identify what similarities and/or differences exist between the two groups in relation to the dependent variable (attitudes toward welfare reform legislation), and the independent variables (race, social class status: income and political party affiliation).
The sample population was randomly selected from a total of ten sites using the systematic sample process. This explanatory study used the survey questionnaire research method to collect data on each independent variable in relation to the dependent variable. The questionnaire contained 46 statements and was divided into three sections: (1) Demographics, (2) Poverty and Welfare Knowledge, and (3) Welfare Reform Attitudes. Data collected were analyzed by employing the Chi-square statistical technique.
The findings of this study suggest that race and social class status (middle income) were not key factors in determining the public’s attitudes toward the issue of welfare reform legislation, while political party affiliation was a issue. Conclusions drawn from the data indicated that White and African Americans have very direct and adamant attitudes about the work ethics of poor people. In fact they share similar concerns about making America a more productive society through encouraging work and self- sufficiency among welfare recipients. Their attitudes about supporting welfare reform legislation transcend racial lines.
Particular attention was given to understanding the level of support for welfare reform legislation expressed by African Americans. Finally, the author concluded this study with a series of recommendations that may assist the field of social work in addressing the issue of poverty. Specific emphasis was placed on the presentation of a strategic model for social work practitioners to address poverty.
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Alfandari, Ravit. "An evaluation of child protection reform in Israel." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2015. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3254/.
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This thesis focuses on efforts to improve the provision of effective help to children and their families who are suffering or likely to suffer from significant harm from abuse or neglect through making better care plan decisions for them. The research evaluates the operation, process and outcomes of a recent national reform in the Israeli child protection decision making framework of Planning, Intervention and Evaluation Committees (PIECs) designed with the ambition of establishing a new way of working so that children and families will get the right help. A systems approach was undertaken as a conceptual framework in order to allow a whole-organisational understanding of what is happening in the field, and why. The research employs a qualitative method of inquiry and a case study design. The cases of 21 families brought before the PIECs were investigated and their situation was followed up after six months. Data were collected through interviews with professionals and parents, field observations of the committee meetings and document review. The key finding of the research is that there is a very limited realisation of the reform’s aims of strengthening practice and improving the safety and well-being of vulnerable children. The reform’s lack of success is explained by being ill-suited to the organisational working environment and culture. The analysis identified key systemic forces that came together to interfere with the reform having the hoped for impact across the various stages of the child protection process, including: workforce lack of skill, time, professional support, and organisational messages about practice priorities. The main conclusion of this thesis is that for good child protection work to be accomplished just drafting good reforms and telling the workforce what to do is not enough. This thesis advocates adopting systemic multi-professional working models to deliver services to children and families.
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Edwards, Sarah Elizabeth. "The significance of social enterprises in the reform of the British welfare state." Thesis, University of Southampton, 2003. https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/192763/.
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Increasingly, the United Kingdom Government is looking towards the social economy to deliver welfare services. The social economy, and specifically social enterprises, are envisaged by New Labour as having the ability to train and employ those disadvantaged in the labour market; engage individuals and communities in service provision and urban renewal; and, provide a model for future forms of welfare service provision. This research investigates the links between the social enterprise and the welfare reforms initiated by New Labour. In addition, the research considers the implications of an expanded role for social enterprises in welfare from the perspective of social enterprise practitioners. Using a grounded theory research design, and qualitative research methodologies, those running social enterprises in the cities of London and Bristol were interviewed (during the summer of 2001). This data, alongside policy documents, ministerial speeches, newspaper articles, think tank publications, and interviews with policy-makers and advocates for the social enterprise sector, provide the evidence presented here. The research develops a definition of the social enterprise as an organisation that uses a commercial venture as a tool to achieve social change. It is shown that the term 'social enterprise' refers to a diverse range of organisations that differ in legal and organisational structure and social mission, but which are linked by the common purpose of service delivery. The research reveals a subtle but important difference between social enterprise activity, and social enterprise as a business model. In spite of their diversity, it is demonstrated that a typology of social enterprises can be constructed by using the attributes identified by those running such organisations. This typology takes into account a diverse range of attributes that coalesce to form this hybrid social institution, instead of considering their organisational structure or social mission as defining features, as has been the case in the past. Using discourse analysis, social enterprises are shown to be significant within welfare reform because they embody the attributes that advocates for reform wish to promote. Social enterprises are shown to embody the postmodern attributes of'empowerment' and tailored localised service provision, alongside the politically attractive attributes of'enterprise', 'effectiveness', and 'efficiency'. These attributes offer 'challenges' to existing forms of public and third sector welfare provision. Through these challenges, the discourse of social enterprise is instrumental in current changes in welfare, not only in changing the practices of service delivery, but more significantly, in changing the culture and the way in which 'solutions' in welfare are sought. The thesis demonstrates how the notion of social enterprise is intertwined with broader academic debates concerning the scale and scope of the emerging postmodern welfare state, and the social enterprise is shown to be emblematic of those changes in welfare at a theoretical level. At a practical level, the social enterprise appears to be unlikely to have significant impact on the mainstay of the welfare state. However, it is suggested here that policy-makers need to take greater consideration of the 'appropriateness' of applying the social enterprise model in welfare than is the case at present.
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Kendrick, Cyril Ignatius. "The roots of welfare reform: "the social forces underlying the Wisconsin Learnfare Program"." Diss., Virginia Tech, 1993. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/40412.
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Two sets of theories are used sequentially in the analysis of the policymaking behind Learnfare. The first series consIsts of theories of the overall pollcymaking process, and includes the rational comprehensive, incrementalist, and two models of "organized anarchy" including the "garbage can" and "policy windows" perspectives. The second series focuses more specifically on the role of policy analysis itself within the larger process, and includes models I abstracted from several recent writings on the subject. The task here is to characterize the nature of analysis and the work of the analyst. These models consist of the "anti-analytic" and "analyst subordination" theses, and the perspective of "policy analysis as art and craft". For the most part, both sets of models afforded helpful and distinct insights into the Learnfare policymaking process.Ph. D.
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Powell, Scott R. "Shifting the Employment Burden: The Social and Economic Foundations of Welfare State Reform." The Ohio State University, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1325176807.
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Kneipp, Shawn. "Women affected by U.S. welfare reform : considering health and its relationship to public policy /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/7371.
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Raj, Shehzad D. "Ambivalence and penetration of boundaries in the worship of Dionysos : analysing the enacting of psychical conflicts in religious ritual and myth, with reference to societal structure." Thesis, University of Essex, 2018. http://repository.essex.ac.uk/23662/.
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This thesis draws on Freud to understand the innate human need to create boundaries and argues that ambivalence is an inescapable dilemma in their creation. It argues that a re-reading of Freud’s major thesis in Totem and Taboo via an engagement with the Dionysos myth and cult scholarship allows for a new understanding of dominant forms of hegemonic psychic and social formations that attempt to keep in place a false opposition of polis and phusis, self and Other, resulting in the perpetuation of oppressive structures and processes. The primary methodological claim of the thesis is that prior psychoanalytic engagements with cultus scholarship have suffered from being either insufficiently thorough or diffused in attempts to be comparative. A more holistic and detailed approach allows us to ground a psychoanalytic interpretation in the realities of said culture, allowing us to critique Freud’s misreading of Dionysos regarding the Primal Father and the psychic transmission of the Primal Crime. This thesis posits that Dionysos needs to acknowledged as a projection of the Primal Father fantasy linked to a basic ambivalence about the necessity of boundaries in psychosocial life. Using research from the classics and psychoanalysis alongside Queer and post-colonial theory, as well as extensive fieldwork and primary source analysis, this thesis provides a grounded materialist critique of psychoanalysis’ complicity in reproducing a false dichotomy between polis and phusis, a dichotomy that furthers the projection onto marginalised groups whose othering is linked to a fear and desire of a return to phusis and denial of its constant presence in the psyche and polis. This re-reading of Dionysos challenges the defensive structures, which are organised around ideas of subjectification that posit that phusis must be severed from polis/ego and projected onto Dionysos and all groups that threaten the precariousness of these boundaries.
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Hahn, Yih-Tsu. "GOVERNMENT-NONPROFIT RELATIONSHIP AFTER WELFARE REFORM— AN ANALYSIS OF GOVERNMENT SUPPORT IN NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS." online version, 2007. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc%5Fnum=case1184284350.
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Li, Yao 1986. "The Impacts of China Housing Reform on Residents' Living Conditions." Thesis, University of Oregon, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/1794/11498.
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xi, 78 p. : ill., mapChina's housing reform has brought significant changes to housing supply and allocation. This thesis uses a 2005 survey of Beijing residents to examine how housing conditions vary among different housing sources and across various population groups. Results indicate that people who owned their housing reported better housing conditions (larger space and better satisfaction with open space and landscape quality) than renters; residents living in privately developed housing reported better conditions than those living in publicly developed housing. People at a younger age (<40) group and higher income residents relied on multiple housing sources to obtain homeownership, while older-age (>50) and lower-income residents relied on purchasing past public housing or public-subsidized affordable housing to achieve homeownership. This research shows that while the reform has led to more housing choices and better housing quality for urban residents, it also resulted in greater inequality in housing and environment qualities among different population groups.
Committee in charge: Yizhao Yang, Chairperson; Laura Leete, Member; Renee Irvin, Member
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Flores-Martinez, Artemisa. "Women's empowerment and the welfare of children." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2013. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/59698/.
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This thesis investigates whether women's empowerment affects children's wellbeing in two developing countries: Mexico and India. The first chapter provides a background on women's empowerment. The second chapter evaluates a conditional cash transfer (CCT) program, which provides poor women in Mexico with tools to be better mothers, in terms of its impact on birthweight. The third chapter analyses whether empowered women, referred as those who have progressive gender attitudes, are more likely to have a firstborn girl in Delhi, India. Specifically, the second chapter evaluates PROGRESA-Oportunidades, a program that pays mothers cash in exchange of their investment in their children's human capital: education, health, and nutrition. Using quantile regressions, the chapter finds a positive and significant program effect, but babies at the upper tail of the conditional birthweight distribution seem to have benefited the most. Moreover, maternal smoking during pregnancy is associated with a 459-gram decrease on birthweights at the 20th percentile of the conditional distribution, completely wiping out any program benefits. This effect is not picked up by least squares regression estimates, which is the technique used by previous literature on the subject. The third chapter turns to India, a country that has lost millions of girls to sex-selective abortions. The chapter first constructs a women's empowerment (progressivity ) index using a latent factor model, and then assesses whether progressive women are more likely to have a firstborn girl in Delhi. The latter territory has, unlike the Indian average, 'missing' women even among first order births. The results show that a one-standard deviation increase in the progressivity index is associated with a 5.8-percentage point increase in the likelihood of a firstborn girl relative to women who have not yet given birth.
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Twitchell, Sarah Jo. "Welfare Reform and Higher Education: The Impact of Postsecondary Education on Self-sufficiency." University of Toledo / OhioLINK, 2004. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=toledo1127816883.
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Wiggan, Jay. "Employment and budgeting decisions of low-income working families over a period of welfare reform." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2005. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/13109/.
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This study examines the implicit assumptions underpinning reforms to the tax and benefit system by the Labour Governments since 1997. It questions whether individuals are income-maximising individuals responsive to changes in the costs and benefits associated with employment. The Working Families' Tax Credit and its replacements the Working Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit, elements of the Government's strategy for encouraging employment and reducing child poverty (HM Treasury, 2001), contain an unspoken acceptance of a particular 'rational economic man' model of behaviour. Recent sociological research around employment and parenting indicates that decision-making is more nuanced than the rational economic model allows. Duncan and Edwards (1999) suggest instead a 'gendered moral rationalities' model, placing specific socially negotiated moral understandings of children's needs at the centre of employment decisions, with financial incentives, a secondary concern. A central question of this thesis is therefore, do prior policy assumptions about employment and budgeting decisions accord with reality? How has the reform of the tax and benefit system affected decision-making around employment and family budgeting, and what has it meant for individuals and their families? Little longitudinal qualitative research has been conducted into the employment and family budgeting decisions made by families in receipt of tax credits and how these alter over time. Based on two waves of interviews with lone parent and couple families receiving income from the tax credit system this study, as such, contributes to the above debates about employment and budgeting behaviour. The study suggests there is a need to focus greater attention on the temporality of decision-making, as economic and social processes are themselves temporally situated. Participants sought a 'welfare balance' that reconciled their current commitments to care and material needs. Decisions shifted in response to changes in policy structures, notions of moral behaviour, caring responsibilities and financial needs over time.
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Tik, Chi Yuen. "Leadership roles of NGO managers in post social welfare subvention reform in Hong Kong." Thesis, Curtin University, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/1051.
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New Public Management has been a worldwide phenomenon heralding many changes in the way public sectors and public services are led and managed. One such change is radical and as such is a worthwhile focus of study. Accordingly, this study investigates a change initiative, Social Welfare Subvention Reform in Hong Kong. Key respondents were NGO leadership and managers. Insights into the challenges and leadership roles after the introduction of Social Welfare Subvention Reform in Hong Kong were gathered. A constructivist ontology, interpretive epistemology and qualitative methodology were adopted. Theoretical perspectives included both symbolic interactionism (the search for meaning) and phenomenology (experiential accounts) and these were reflected in the data collection.Grounded Theory was adopted for its qualities of emergence and systematic procedures. Data collection was by semistructured interviews. Data were analysed using content analysis with utterances as the unit of analysis. Invivo coding and constant comparisons were used to develop core constructs. Findings showed that NGO managers were facing a wide range of challenges and they changed their leadership roles in the process of organizational changes. From those identified leadership roles emerged the overarching core leadership role that was NGO Leadership. Based on the identified leadership roles, and given the exploratory nature of the study a tentative model is presented – Three-Levels Leadership Model. It demonstrated how the NGO managers perform their leadership roles in an NGO setting when they are facing the changes.
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Chang, Tommy. "Charter Schools as Leverage for Special Education Reform." Thesis, Loyola Marymount University, 2014. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=3610317.
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Few studies have examined the intersection of charter school and special education policies. The concerns around the serving of special education students in charter schools must be carefully studied, especially as charter schools continue to grow in numbers and continue to serve a greater percentage of public school students. New policies must not only address equity in access for special education students in charter schools but must also study how charter schools can be leveraged to generate innovative and promising practices in the area of special education.
This study examines a recent policy change in the Los Angeles Unified School District that provides great autonomy and increased accountability for charter schools in their provision of special education services. This policy change promotes key tenets of charter schools: (a) autonomy and decentralization, (b) choice and competition, and (c) performance-based accountability with the aim of increasing access for students with special needs and increasing the capacity of charter schools to serve them. The research design utilizes a mixed method approach to collect qualitative and quantitative data to evaluate the goals of this major policy change within this particular school district.
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So, Kam-chiu Ivan. "Social workers' and NGOs' attitudes towards using computers in social welfare services." [Hong Kong : University of Hong Kong], 1993. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record.jsp?B1374513X.
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Belfrage, Claes Axel. "The neoliberal restructuring of the welfare state : pension system reform in Sweden : a critical case study." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2008. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/7307/.
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This thesis draws on the 'critical case' of Sweden and focuses on the provision of pensions to assess the extent to which the post-war social democratic regime and adherent meanings and practices in daily life have been transformed in a neoliberal direction. The Swedish economy of the late 1990s, still distinctly social democratic, although retrenched and increasingly 'financialised', was not stable. The 1999 pension reform has further privatised financial risk and hence potentially advanced neoliberalism. By subjecting the ability to consume, in working-life as well as m retirement, to financial market performance, the rate of growth of inequity 1s accelerated. The systemic infrastructure and the knowledge-formation required for this pension system to function as intended as well as be accepted as legitimate seem however to be lacking. The system engineers, following neoliberal ideas, sought to fulfil the objective of institutionalising a mass investment culture in the everyday by promoting the notion of risk as potentially profitable if managed well. Yet, as argued in the thesis, due to their politico-ideological preferences, they underestimated the resilience of existing demographic and geographical cleavages formed by the traumas and desires provoked by economic restructuring and financialisation in the post-war period. By analysing subject-formation in the everyday, the thesis shows that for a finance-led accumulation regime to be stable in Sweden, these cleavages and inadequacies have to be regulated. The new pension system in Sweden thus points to the tendential microfoundational limits of the projects of neoliberalism and financialisation.
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Leung, Wai-fan Priscilla. "Reforms of the Social Welfare Department : a case study of family services /." View the Table of Contents & Abstract, 2005. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/recordB31365164.
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Tait, Irvine Wallace. "Voluntarism and the state in British social welfare 1914-1939." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 1995. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/5065/.
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The New Right's critique of the welfare state has generated considerable interest in the history of alternative forms of welfare provision. Recent work has focused upon the continued existence of voluntarism alongside the growth of twentieth century state welfare. In doing this, it has reacted against the tendency of post-war social welfare writing to concentrate exclusively on the statutory social services. This thesis, therefore, adds to a growing body of writing on inter-war voluntary social action. However, it differs from the work of others by focusing upon the interplay of voluntary and statutory sectors in the face of war, industrial unrest and mass unemployment: in other words the upheavals of the early twentieth century. The main body of the research not only deals with the part played by both sectors in the delivery of social services, but also places voluntarism in a wider social context by exploring its ideological response to working-class assertiveness. Indeed, the belief in a British national community with interests that transcended class or sectional divisions was a common feature in voluntarism's attitude towards the above challenges and their implications for social stability. Thus, by highlighting the class objectives of the middle-class volunteer, this thesis avoids treating voluntary groups as simply the deliverers of social services in partnership with the state. As middle-class organisations operating within civil society, the charities covered in the pages ahead are placed alongside the state and capital in the defence of the existing economic and social order. Differences may have existed amongst charities over the correct mix in the statutory-voluntary welfare mix, but, as this thesis seeks to prove, this should not blind us to voluntarism's commitment to an over riding class interest.
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Heggie, Vanessa. "Re-imagining the healthy social body : medicine, welfare and health reform in Manchester, 1880-1910." Thesis, University of Manchester, 2004. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.539231.
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Harley-McClaskey, Deborah. "Developing Human Service Leaders." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2016. http://a.co/aMuymZv.
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"...empowering text for human services students that covers the skills and behaviors essential for leaders to manage themselves, their teams, and the organization. Using a unique coaching voice, author Deborah Harley-McClaskey follows a Reflection–Diagnosis–Prescription approach for leadership development with exercises built into the dialogue. The final chapter, Prognosis, offers a workbook-style exercise to help students make a personal change." --Amazonhttps://dc.etsu.edu/etsu_books/1115/thumbnail.jpg
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Albesa, i. Jové Esther. "Anàlisi comparada de les reformes en els sistemes europeus de cures de llarga durada. Els casos d’Alemanya, Anglaterra, Suècia i Espanya, 2008-2017." Doctoral thesis, Universitat de Barcelona, 2019. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/666828.
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Aquesta tesi analitza l’impacte de la crisi econòmica en els principals Estats de Benestar Europeus i els canvis introduïts en els sistemes de cures de llarga durada —CLD— d’Anglaterra, Alemanya, Suècia i Espanya. Alhora, aborda les tendències lligades als canvis identificats en cada país entre 2008-2017 en relació a: la contracció-expansió dels sistemes; els processos de reestructuració —remercantilització, contenció de costos i recalibració— i la refamiliarització dels sistemes. L’estratègia metodològica utilitzada és el cross-national i l’estudi de cas dins de la variant casos diferents. S’ha considerat als països triats tipus ideals de Benestar: el Continental; el Liberal; l'Universal i el Mediterrani, segons la classificació d'Esping-Andersen (1990) o autors com Moreno (2001) i Ferrera (1996). L'estudi combina tècniques quantitatives i qualitatives, utilitza bases de dades estadístiques i dades qualitatives primàries i secundàries. Una part important de les dades estadístiques s'han obtingut de les bases de dades estandarditzades de l'OCDE i, en menor mesura, de les bases de dades dels serveis nacionals estadístics dels països estudiats. Per a obtenir les dades qualitatives primàries s’han dut a terme entrevistes semiestructurades a informants clau. Hi ha tres nivells d’anàlisi: el primer explora els canvis en la provisió de servei de CLD; el segon revisa les reformes legislatives i el tercer nivell recull la percepció dels entrevistats quant als canvis i els factors explicatius.This thesis analyses the impact of the economic crisis in the Welfare Stats across Europe and the changes caused within the long-term care systems of England, Germany, Sweden and Spain. Furthermore, this scrutinises the ensuing tendencies linked to the identified changes in each country within the analysis’ timespan regarding: the system’s contraction-expansion; the restructuring mechanisms (re-commodification, costs’ containment and re-calibration) and the re-familiarisation process. The methodological strategy used in the study is cross-national and the case’s study method within the variant of different cases¨. The chosen countries are considered to be ideal types of each Welfare State: the continental; the liberal; the universal and the Mediterranean, according to the classic categorisation of Esping-Andersen (1990) and other authors like Moreno (2001) and Ferrera (1996). The study combines quantitative and qualitative techniques and uses statistical data as well as primary and secondary qualitative data. A major part of the used statistical data has been obtained by turning to the standardised databases of the OECD and in a minor way, the databases of the statistic national services of the studied countries. In order to obtain the primary qualitative data, the technique of semi-structured interviewing for the key informants has been used. There are also three analysis levels: the first explores the changes within the LTC service provision; the second reviews the legislation modifications within the LTC systems and the third level compiles the perception of these interviewees in terms of these changes and the explaining factors.
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Laidlaw, Emily. "Internet gatekeepers, human rights and corporate social responsibilities." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2012. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/317/.
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Access to the Internet and participation in discourse through the medium of the Internet have become integral parts of our democratic life. Facilitation of this democratic potential critically relies on a governance structure supportive of the right to freedom of expression. In western democracies, governance is largely the preserve of the private sphere. This is because of two reasons. First, the communication technologies that enable or disable participation in discourse online are privately-owned. In order to find information, we use search engines. In order to sort through the clutter, we use portals. In order to access the Internet, we need to use Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Thus we inevitably rely on these companies to participate in discourse online and they thereby become gatekeepers to our digital democratic experience. Second, governance of such technologies has been largely left to companies to address through corporate social responsibility (CSR) frameworks such as in-house codes of conduct found in Terms of Service, through the work of bodies such as the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), and industry initiatives such as the Global Network Initiative (GNI). The state has stayed out of it, rigidly retaining the focal point of free speech laws on government. This has fractured the administrative structure of free speech between free speech as a legal concept and as an experienced concept. It is in this fissure that CSR has grown and taken shape. This thesis argues that the CSR frameworks that currently govern the activities of these information gatekeepers are insufficient to provide the standards and compliance mechanisms needed to protect and respect freedom of expression online. Equally, topdown legal controls are too blunt a tool for this tricky arena. What is needed is a framework that embraces the legal and extra-legal dimensions of this dilemma. To that end a new corporate governance model is proposed to help mend the deficiencies identified in the case studies and move forward with a democratic vision for the Internet.
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Adams, E., and Jamie Branam Kridler. "A History of Socials Welfare in America." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2006. https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu-works/5850.
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Jensen, Ann L. "A chance to do some good in the world an enquiry into frontline children's welfare workers in the climate of change created by welfare reform /." View thesis, 2009. http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/43677.
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Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Western Sydney, 2009.A thesis submitted to the University of Western Sydney, College of Arts, School of Social Sciences, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Includes bibliographical references.
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Green, Donna L. "The sustainability of the social democratic welfare state in recessionary periods : a case study of Barbados 1974-1994." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2014. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/72937/.
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This thesis examines the factors and forces which contributed to the continued existence of Barbados’ social democratic welfare development model, despite changes in the global economy which favoured neoliberal policies promoted by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. This is achieved through an assessment of three World Bank funded education projects which were negotiated and implemented from 1974 to 1994. During this period the Government of Barbados also entered into three stabilisation programmes and a structural adjustment loan with the International Monetary Fund. These periods create the ideal analytical platform to investigate the impact of, and resistance to, the neoliberal ideology espoused by the World Bank and the IMF on Small Island Developing States. The thesis therefore contributes to the dearth of information on the welfare states in developing countries and highlights the importance of understanding the socio-political history, especially the role of colonialism, when assessing the emergence of social policy and planning in the global South. A thorough investigation of this period (1974 to 1994) was conducted, and the data collected from interviews and public archives disclosed that in times of crisis the social democratic welfare state model is challenged but it is the labour unions who strategically organise themselves to confront what they perceive as a movement away from the core principles of the model. They confront both the local policymakers and the international financial institutions. This study therefore demonstrates that even in difficult times some level of agency can still be expressed. This however, in the case of Barbados, did not happen at the level of the technocrats but from the level of organised labour. The case of the labour movement in Barbados, specifically the teachers’ unions (Barbados Union of Teachers and the Barbados Secondary Teachers’ Union) demonstrated that at the height of the neoliberal agenda organised labour was and still is significant in determining the direction of state policy.
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Brown, Charlette. "The impact of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act on access to postsecondary education for temporary assitance to needy families recipients in Jackson, Mississippi in 2011." DigitalCommons@Robert W. Woodruff Library, Atlanta University Center, 2013. http://digitalcommons.auctr.edu/dissertations/761.
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This study examines the extent to which the educational component of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act impacted African-American TANF recipients' access to postsecondary education in Jackson, Mississippi in 2011.
This study was based on the premise that policies within the legislation restrict opportunities for welfare recipients to pursue postsecondary education as a pathway to self-sufficiency. For welfare recipients who often believe that college is inaccessible due to financial means, access is especially important for them. Participants in this study were thirty-two African-American women receiving TANF benefits from the State of Mississippi who were either enrolled in a college program or participated in the job readiness training supported by the Mississippi Department of Human Services. A qualitative research methodology was used to analyze the data. The data revealed that there is total consensus among the participants on the importance of postsecondaryeducation as a measure of future economic well-being for themselves and their families. Findings specifically revealed that many of the participants strongly believe that policies associated with welfare reform have prevented or denied them full access to education and that some of the policies should be changed.
The conclusions drawn from the findings suggest that the 1996 Welfare Act impacted access to postsecondary education for TANF recipients in Jackson, Mississippi to some degree; and that after 15 years of stagnated welfare reform policies, specifically policies associated with work requirements, TANF recipients in Mississippi are longing for better educational opportunities that will allow them to enjoy a self-sustaining lifestyle.
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Tang, Nap-wong Sammy, and 鄧立煌. "Welfare of rural-urban migrant workers in China's economic reform era: a case study of Dongguan." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2009. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B48183210.
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Rural-urban migration in China during the reform era since 1978 is considered the most massive migration in the history of humankind. This migration is creating complex problems that attract continuous and extensive academic investigations. This paper aims at reviewing some of the dynamics that have facilitated this migration and the resulting welfare problems associated with the rapid economic development and urbanization in China. The binary structure of China (not only limited to the economic aspect but also the political and social aspects), the ‘Three Rural Issues” and the Chinese Household Registration (hukou) System are the core factors leading to the rural urban disparities. The disparities have resulted in this massive migration and thus created the bi-polar welfare states between the rural and the urban sectors.
The study provides an overview of the marginalization of the rural-urban migrants despite the Chinese leaders’ ongoing appeals to improve the welfare treatment of this group of people. The study focuses on the less studied location of Dongguan, considering that well over 80% of the population of Dongguan are rural migrants. In reviewing the selected welfare indications of the migrants, this study challenges the improvements that the migrants obtained. Comparisons are made between the migrants’ situation in Dongguan and in their hometowns. Comparisons are also made to the selected welfare indicators (wages, social insurances, housing and education) of the migrants and their urban counterparts.published_or_final_version
China Development Studies
Master
Master of Arts in China Development Studies
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Jensen, Ann L. "A chance to do some good in the world : an enquiry into frontline children's welfare workers in the climate of change created by welfare reform." Thesis, View thesis, 2009. http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/43677.
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This thesis is about disenchantment with work through the loss of moral meaning. I set out to explore the reasons women do low-paid and stressful work in non-profit organisations to better understand the relationship between welfare reform, work place ecology and staff retention. I found that women who wanted to make a difference among children and their families often experienced conflicts of values that were a source of distress and attrition. Familiar values had been lost in the rapidity and complexity of changed social attitudes through welfare reform. Reform processes have reshaped the way Australians think about poverty, unemployment and welfare dependency. A media discourse has stigmatised welfare dependents, and in the public imagination it has also conflated poverty with the dark spectre of child abuse and parental failure. As a result there is a turbulent confluence where welfare policy constrains the services, and child protection failures lead to public calumny of workers. Frontline workers, often cast in the ambiguous role of family supporter and mandated reporter of suspected child abuse, experience powerlessness through resource poverty and blame. Welfare reform devolved many children‘s services from the government sector to the non-profit sector through policy processes that included vigilant auditing, constant evaluation, and a demand for inter-agency cooperation as well as competitive tendering between agencies for program funding. The frontline workers in non profit agencies are subject to the intense scrutiny of government, as well as the suspicion of media and the public, and the hostility of their clients. My methodology was critical social theory (Habermas, 1984, 1985, [1967] 1988) and Gadamerian ([1960] 1989) hermeneutics informed by constructionism (Berger and Luckmann, 1966; Burr, 2003). I was concerned with issues of justice in all aspects of my research. A fair report would include textured multiple perspectives or horizons. This meant giving full expression to the thoughts of the frontline workers as well as inviting the perspective of people working at other levels in the non-profit organisation, such as middle and senior managers. Methods were long in-depth interviews, a focus group, and the analysis of relevant literature. A total of 25 people were involved in the research: 10 frontline workers and five non-profit managers participated in long individual interviews, there was a focus group of eight middle-managers, and two email correspondents who were not interviewed personally A chance to do some good in the world Ann Lazarsfeld Jensen 2009 provided feedback on the emerging themes, contributed their own ideas through material they had written, and validated developing concepts. This thesis makes a significant contribution to the understanding of how moral meanings operate motivationally at work. It demonstrates that in non-profit organisations there is an expectation that values will be central to practice, yet individual moral identity has become compromised by policy constraints on agency resources, tighter management and increased bureaucracy and social hostility to the child welfare clientele and workers. The significance of moral symbols is argued from the utilisation of moral symbols and language in the corporate and consumer worlds to enhance loyalty, commitment and worker sacrifice. The purpose of the argument is to show that moral community is an aspect of work place ecology in a non-profit organisation, and the central component is the integrity of its moral agenda which is a tool of recruitment and retention of value-driven workers. Four aspects of moral motivation are the thematic discussion of this thesis. In my analysis workers were suffering from what I described as moral distress, a frustration of their capacity to enact their personal principles in their work, and an apparent conflict between their personal and agency values. Other workers had made
what I described as an altruism audit, which was a more pragmatic approach to protect their own interests without abandoning their desire to do good work. I found there was an absence of moral community, through the loss of traditional value systems, and the corporatisation of non-profit organisations. There was also a need to retrieve a sense of moral proportion, which would signal to workers and agencies what was possible in the light of the policy demands for greater financial audit and practice accountability. Moral proportion is a new secular value that I suggest could be constructed in a moral community of practice, increasing the possibility of values agreement both within and between agencies. This thesis is a sobering reminder that human beings cannot become efficient machines capable of solving complex human problems through protocols and formulas. Children‘s welfare work is driven by compassionate dispositions attempting to engage the hearts of recalcitrant parents. In order to sustain an emotionally engaged frontline workforce, support structures must address the moral core of the worker and the work.
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Rowe, Robyn. "Gender and the politics of welfare : a study of social assistance policies towards lone mothers in Britain, 1948-1966." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2017. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3561/.
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The thesis is a study of social assistance policies and practices towards separated wives and divorced and never-married women with children between 1948 and 1966 in Britain. It uses historical analysis of archival documents to address questions regarding gender and welfare state change. In doing so, the thesis builds on and critically examines existing social policy discourse concerned with the historical shift away from assumptions that women would be wives and/or mothers towards an assumption that all adults are, or should be, workers that has been linked to restructuring, the rise of neo-liberalism and social-economic change. The research focuses on policies towards this group of women because they have long been identified as a kind of ‘litmus test’ of women’s more general position within the welfare state. Policy towards this group of women offers a window into the relationship between ideas about gender, class, race, political economy and the state. The research makes three distinct contributions to different areas of scholarly debate. First, it further develops the conceptual analysis of gender and welfare state change. In contrast to much of the existing literature that has emphasized the significance of recent changes in the structural context and principles that shape policies, this research draws attention to important continuities in the interaction between social-economic shifts, political ideas and the position of women in relation to the state. Second, the research brings to light a great deal of previously unexplored archival material that provide new perspectives on the 1950s. While they support and build on recent revisionist histories of the decade, they challenge the conventional wisdom about the postwar welfare state and the idea of postwar ‘consensus’ that social policy scholarship tends to rely on. Finally, the research provides an empirical study of the role of institutions and bureaucratic agents in policy development, and demonstrates the important insights gained from multilayered historical analysis in understanding the complex interactions between actors, ideas and structures that underpin the policy process.
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Rasell, Michael. "Social citizenship, disability and welfare provision in contemporary Russia : views from below." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2011. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/3190/.
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This thesis uses an area studies approach to examine the complex relationship between citizenship, disability and welfare provision. It does so through a bottom-up analysis of how the state welfare system affects the everyday lives of physically disabled adults in contemporary Russia. Drawing on thirteen months of qualitative fieldwork in the city of Kazan, I study how tensions between guaranteeing rights and providing care are balanced in social provision. My focus on physical disability offers a sharp insight into the socially constructed tropes of control and exclusion that can mediate experiences of citizenship and also seeks to rectify the lack of research on disabled people in non-Western contexts, especially the postsocialist region. My research is underpinned by a theoretical and methodological framework that sees ‘social citizenship’ as an explicitly relational, emotional and embodied phenomenon and therefore values lived experiences of welfare provision. Each of my four empirical chapters considers a particular dimension of citizenship: needs interpretation, livelihoods, mobility and personal agency. Together they highlight that welfare provision is not always empowering and can create powerful inequalities. At the same time, I show that citizenship is often reworked from below through actions and discourses that challenge official ideas about the capacities and needs of disabled people.
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Sulaiman, Munshi. "Social protection and human capital accumulation in developing countries." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 2012. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/227/.
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My thesis comprises of three stand‐alone papers, which are connected by the theme of social protection and human capital accumulation. In the first paper, using experimental data from South Sudan, I focus on evaluating the effects of food transfer on household labour supply decisions and crowding‐out of informal private transfers. I do not observe significant impact on either of these two domains, except reduction in child labour. This effect corresponds with increased school enrolment of children. I find that positive income shocks from short‐term food transfers induced the households to invest in durable goods, and child ‘non‐work’ is a luxury good for the ultra‐poor. The second paper evaluates the effects of a policy related to exam standard on labour market performance of secondary school graduates in Bangladesh. Using a natural experiment, the paper shows that lowering standard reduced labour market returns for the graduates. General equilibrium effects of increased supply of graduates and lower human capital accumulation due to lower standard have been identified as possible mechanisms underlying this labour market effect. In my third paper, I evaluate the effects of an asset transfer programme for the ultra‐poor in Bangladesh on children’s enrolment. I find that despite exceptionally large positive impact on household income, asset transfer did not increase enrolment rates. Moreover, there was increased demand for child labour in these households. The evidence suggests that asset transfer may not be sufficient to increase school enrolment among households in extreme poverty and may have unintended effects on child labor.
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Low, Rebecca. "The Effect of Housing and Food Expenditures on Diet Quality of Low-Income Households in Salt Lake County." DigitalCommons@USU, 1996. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/etd/4669.
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During a time of national and local debate over welfare reform, research is needed to determine the effectiveness of specific welfare programs and the impact on the lives of households participating in these programs. The objective of this study was to determine the effect housing and food expenditures have on the diet quality of low-income families. Participants for the study were drawn from government-subsidized housing rolls and housing assistance waiting lists. Diet quality was measured by 16 variables: percent RDA protein, fiber, vitamin A, vitamin C, iron, and calcium consumed; percent calories from protein, carbohydrates, fat, and alcohol; and the number of servings from each food group: bread and cereal, fruit, vegetable, meat and protein, dairy, and fats and sweets food groups. Pearson's correlation coefficient was used to analyze the relationship between the percent poverty level of the household and the percent of income spent on housing and food with each diet quality variable. No statistically significant correlations were found. Mann-Whitney U tests and t tests were used to determine if diet quality of participants who received housing assistance was different from participants who did not receive assistance. No statistical significance was found. Participant's diets who received food assistance and diets of participants who do not receive food assistance were also analyzed to determine any differences in diet quality. Again, no statistical significance was found between the two groups. The diets of the sample population were found to be fairly average in comparison to overall food consumption patterns of the United States. Consumption of fiber, fruits, vegetables, and dairy products was low. Increased consumer education programs are recommended to improve overall diet.
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Hicks, David. "Support and advocacy needs on Merseyside for parents who misuse substances in respect of children's welfare and child protection concerns." Thesis, Edge Hill University, 2014. http://repository.edgehill.ac.uk/6169/.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis explores implications of support and advocacy with substance-misusing women during and after pregnancy in promoting parental involvement and children’s welfare within the regulatory child care framework. It is uniquely situated in relation to social construction, juridification of family lifeworlds, relations of power, and theorisation of an enabling process informed by a rights discourse that facilitates communicative action. Chapter 1 introduces the rationale for this research and contextualises the work of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children’s (NSPCC) Liverpool Families and Substance Support Team (FaSST) service for substance-misusing parents. It utilises observation evidence, outlining FaSST’s relationship to wider professional and agency networks. An expanded overview of chapter organisation makes the distinctiveness of this exploratory research clear; as it relates theory and practice within the previously little researched area of advocacy with substance misusing parents to promote the best interests of children’s welfare. Chapter 2 develops issues of social construction, identity, risk and relations of power vi affecting substance misusing parents within the modern state. Chapter 3 considers the development of child protection, children’s safeguarding, actuarialism and issues of governance. Chapter 4 examines Habermas’ theory of communicative action, rights discourses and how support and advocacy might develop. Remaining chapters examine research fieldwork. Chapter 5 explains the qualitative research design, research method and ethical considerations. Chapter 6 analyses data in terms of governance and risk and tentatively theorises those matters, and chapter 7 analyses data and theorises possibilities for support and advocacy. Chapter 8 formulates conclusions regarding how the FaSST has addressed parents’ concerns and promoted involvement in their children’s interests within the regulatory child care framework. It theorises support and advocacy in that context, and it identifies implications for its further development.