John Hills - Böcker

In 2000, the first social agenda in the history of the European Union was launched, and the endeavor to combat poverty came increasingly to the forefront as a specific area for EU policy cooperation and coordination. Regrettably, however, little progress has been achieved so far, either at the national or European level. On the contrary, the EU's social fabric is under major stress: convergence in national living standards has halted or reversed while progress in terms of poverty reduction in the last decades has been disappointing in most EU Member States. In Europe, despite high social spending and work-related welfare reforms, poverty often remains a largely intractable problem for policymakers and a persistent reality for many European citizens. In Decent Incomes for All, the authors shed new light on recent poverty trends in the European Union and the corresponding responses by European welfare states. They analyze the effect of social and fiscal policies before, during, and after the recent economic crisis and study the impact of alternative policy packages on poverty and inequality. The volume also explores how social investment and local initiatives of social innovation can contribute to tackling poverty, while recognizing that there are indeed structural constraints on the increase of the social floor and difficult trade-offs involved in reconciling work and poverty reduction. Academics and graduate students in comparative social policy, inclusion and anti-poverty policy, sociology, and public economics will find the book to be a particularly helpful resource in their work.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.The term `social security' has a very different meaning in underdeveloped countries and is best understood as poverty alleviation. This book attempts to define social security in the Third World and to examine what sort of programmes are most suitable for developing countries. The authors review current literature on the subject. Some chapters explore broad themes, others describe social security provisions in various regions in India, China, Latin America, and Southern Africa. Western systems are compared and broad assessments made of the traditional social security systems in Third World village societies. The editors aim to put the subject of social security firmly on the agenda of development economic research with a view to stimulate much further research in this area. The book is written in a way that will be accessible to a much wider audience.

The Beveridge Report of 1942 captured the public imagination with its principles of universal social insurance in Britain. Beveridge's idea was to use universal benefits to remove the poverty caused by certain contingencies, such as unemployment or disability. This book considers the influence of Beveridge's ideas on social security and argues that the reality, over the subsequent fifty years, has been very different from the principles and from the vision he expressed.The first group of papers in this volume examines the recommendations of the Beveridge Report, the concessions that were made before implementation was possible, and the history of the postwar social insurance system. His biographer, Jose Harris, explains how Beveridge's beliefs were formed in the years preceding the War. The important aspects of the social insurance system are considered in depth, such as the state pension, and the principle of flat-rate rather than means-tested benefits. The second group of papers deals with the adoption or dismissal of Beveridge's recommendations in several countries: Germany, Poland, Holland, Israel, Sweden, and Australia. The authors generally conclude that there has, in Britain, been a move away from universally available benefits to means-tested income support.Despite this, the editors argue that Beveridge's important legacy has been the notion of a national minimum income: a safety net covering all. This idea has substantial present-day relevance as the countries of the European Community debate the issue of political as well as economic convergence.Contributors: John Hills, John Ditch, Howard Glennerster, Brian Abel-Smith, Jose Harris, Peter Baldwin, Martin Evans, John Macnicol, John Veit-Wilson, Rodney Lowe, Fritz Grundger, Maciej Zukowski, Saskia Klosse, Teun Jaspers, Mies Westerveld, Abraham Doron, Tor E. Eriksen, Edward E. Palmer, Bettina Cass, John Freeland

This book examines key issues connected with the distribution of personal wealth in the UK. It studies why wealth is now such an important factor in social differences and public policy. It presents the most recent information on current wealth inequalities and a detailed discussion of trends in the distribution of wealth. It uses newly available data to compare wealth inequalities in the UK with the USA, Canada, and Sweden. It uses longitudinal data, which track the same people over time, to examine trajectories in wealth accumulation over the decade to 2005 and inequalities in inheritances over the same period. It looks at how parental wealth levels and people's asset-holdings early in adulthood affect outcomes later in their lives. The final part looks at the way in which policies towards wealth-holding developed historically, and the contradictory ways in which a wide range of public policies relate to people's wealth levels, including through taxation, means-testing, and the encouragement of saving, and discusses what the key issues for policy towards wealth and wealth inequalities now are. Personal wealth in the UK totalled £5.5 trillion by 2010 (£9-10 trillion if occupational pension rights are included). Inheritance flows are now equivalent to 4 per cent of national income each year. All households in the wealthiest tenth have more than 75 times the wealth of any of those in the bottom tenth. Absolute differences in wealth levels have increased substantially over the last 15 years, so wealth differences represent many more years of income than in the past. This makes them of great importance to life chances. This makes the book highly relevant for public policy, but also for academic and student understanding of a crucial dimension of social difference. As well as bringing together existing information on the area, the book contains considerable new analysis on wealth inequality, inheritance, and their impacts, drawing on work which is at the forefront of recent research.

A careful and precise presentation, from leading experts in the field, of the development of the welfare state in the UK. Looking at both historical processes and the welfare systems current state, these excellent contributors provide an authoritative analysis, packed with data. The United Kingdom had one of the oldest and most extensive welfare states in the world. The economic crisis of 1976 and eighteen years of Conservative Government have tested the welfare system to its very foundations. Much changed, yet much remained the same after two decades. Did the Conservative Government dismember the welfare state or reform it? Did the changes of the past twenty years make any difference and to whom? This second edition of the widely-acclaimed State of Welfare reviews the changing fate of social policy in the years since 1974. It details changes in policy but also charts trends in spending in real terms over the period and analyses the outcomes of spending on education, the National Health Service, the personal social services, housing and social security. There is no other consistent published time series of spending on these services over this period in real and volume terms. The General Household Survey is re-analysed to produce a common source of information on the way changes in these services have affected families. Other available sources of information on the impact of past government reforms are drawn upon to provide a comprehensive account. This completely revised edition uses the successful framework adopted in the first volume to bring the story up to the end of the Conservative Administration with the latest available expenditure figures. This adds nearly a decade to the account detailed in the first edition - a decade of remarkable change. The book is clearly structured, with core chapters covering each of the five service areas of education, health, housing, personal social services and social security, and a concluding chapter summarising the key findings of previous chapters to provide an overview of the current state of welfare. Each chapter is then subdivided, with sections on the ultimate aims of welfare policy in the particular area covered, public expenditure, the outputs for that spending, and the outcomes in terms of indicators of individual welfare. Each chapter is summarised in an in brief section at the end, and has a further reading list. Illustrated with approximately 150 figures and tables, the book presents a substantial amount of quantitative information (much of which comes from Local and Central Government sources) in accessible formats. The book contains a substantial bibliography, including many government papers as well as published books and journal articles. The book can therefore be used as a bibliographical database, besides functioning as a textbook. The State of Welfare functions as an ideal text for public economics students, or those studying social or public policy.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.The term 'social security' has a very different meaning in underdeveloped countries and is best understood as poverty alleviation. This work seeks to define social security in its various forms and to examine what types of programmes are most suitable for developing countries.The authors review current literature on the subject. Some chapters explore broad themes, while others describe social security provisions in various regions in South Asia, China, Latin America, and Southern Africa. Western systems are compared and broad assessments made of the traditional social security systems in village societies.The editors aim to put the subject of social security firmly on the agenda of development economic research with a view to stimulate much further research in this area. The volume is written in a way that will be accessible to a much wider audience.

England is unusual in relying so heavily on central government to finance its social services. Citizens expect to be able to access services of similar standards wherever they live. This raises difficult theoretical and practical issues. How are the needs of different areas to be measured? How are the different costs of providing services in very different parts of the country to be assessed? This book reviews the economic theory that underpins thinking about the problem. It then traces the way governments have distributed resources from the end of the last century until today. It critically analyses current methods for three services - the National Health Service, schools, and housing.

This book explores the issue of social exclusion. It asks three main questions: How can social exclusion be measured? What are its main determinants or influences? And what policies can reduce social exclusion? The authors aim to consider how a focus on social exclusion may alter the policy questions that are most relevant by fostering debate in government, research, and academic circles.

If the objective of creating a society with opportunity for all is to be achieved, understanding the roots and impacts of social exclusion is essential. This book is the most comprehensive attempt to examine the causes of social exclusion and the policies necessary to tackle it.It is based on recent research carried out in the ESRC Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE) at the London School of Economics. This research draws on all the social science disciplines, particularly economics, sociology, demography, and area studies. It will be of interest and importance to students and teachers in the social sciences and to all those concerned with social policy in Britain and more widely.Social exclusion is not a matter solely of cash poverty, although that is an important dimension of it. The concept of social exclusion is relatively new, both in political and academic prominence. This book analyses the concept and examines the extent of exclusion measured in different ways. Contributors examine and explain the latest developments in research on income dynamics and movements in and out of poverty and low pay; links in social disadvantage across generations; the long-term effects of the growth in lone parenthood, early motherhood, and other changes in family structure; neighbourhood deprivation and community organization; and the prospects for success of government policies towards child poverty, education, and social security.

This book is about inequality, how the State affects distribution through its spending programmes and through taxation, and what the public thinks of these three issues. It describes and analyses one of the biggest social changes in Britain since the Second World War: the dramatic widening of the income distribution since the end of the 1970s, the growth of poverty, and the factors that have driven them. And it examines how government social spending and the taxes that pay for it affect this distribution, and why they take the forms they do. Each part of the discussion is set in the context of public attitudes as revealed by the rigorous and long-running British Social Attitudes survey, and of Britain's position by comparison with other countries.Against this background, the book analyses changes in policy since New Labour came to government in 1997, discusses the impacts of these changes, and looks at the constraints and pressures on future policies, before concluding with a discussion of the dilemmas facing policy-makers as they try to meet competing aims in reducing poverty and inequality, growing demands on social spending, and the constraints and opportunities created by public attitudes.

This book is about inequality, how the State affects distribution through its spending programmes and through taxation, and what the public thinks of these three issues. It describes and analyses one of the biggest social changes in Britain since the Second World War: the dramatic widening of the income distribution since the end of the 1970s, the growth of poverty, and the factors that have driven them. And it examines how government social spending and the taxes that pay for it affect this distribution, and why they take the forms they do. Each part of the discussion is set in the context of public attitudes as revealed by the rigorous and long-running British Social Attitudes survey, and of Britain's position by comparison with other countries.Against this background, the book analyses changes in policy since New Labour came to government in 1997, discusses the impacts of these changes, and looks at the constraints and pressures on future policies, before concluding with a discussion of the dilemmas facing policy-makers as they try to meet competing aims in reducing poverty and inequality, growing demands on social spending, and the constraints and opportunities created by public attitudes.

This book examines key issues connected with the distribution of personal wealth in the UK. It examines why wealth is now such an important factor in social differences and public policy. It presents the most recent information on current wealth inequalities and a detailed discussion of trends in the distribution of wealth. It uses newly available data to compare wealth inequalities in the UK with the USA, Canada and Sweden. It uses longitudinal data, which track the same people over time, to examine trajectories in wealth accumulation over the decade to 2005 and inequalities in inheritances over the same period. It looks at how parental wealth levels and people's asset-holdings early in adulthood affect outcomes later in their lives. The final part looks at the way in which policies towards wealth-holding developed historically, and the contradictory ways in which a wide range of public policies relate to people's wealth levels, including through taxation, means-testing, and the encouragement of saving, and discusses what the key issues for policy towards wealth and wealth inequalities now are.Personal wealth in the UK totalled £5.5 trillion by 2010 (£9-10 trillion if occupational pension rights are included). Inheritance flows are now equivalent to 4 per cent of national income each year. All households in the wealthiest tenth have more than 75 times the wealth of any of those in the bottom tenth. Absolute differences in wealth levels have increased substantially over the last 15 years, so wealth differences represent many more years of income than in the past. This makes them of great importance to life chances. This makes the book highly relevant for public policy, but also for academic and student understanding of a crucial dimension of social difference.As well as bringing together existing information on the area, the book contains considerable new analysis on wealth inequality, inheritance and their impacts, drawing on work which is at the forefront of recent research.

Ideas drawn from family and systemic therapy form the basis of many interventions in mental health and childcare. This brief introduction offers an ideal starting-point for non specialists and new students keen to develop their skills. Taking a step-by-step experiential approach, it explores key concepts in vivid practice context.

It is recognised that the gap between rich and poor in Britain is widening faster than in any comparable country. This important issue is attracting increasing attention after long neglect. Economists and others concerned with problems linked with inequality are investigating factors contributing to the situation. Based on results of the first recent major research programme in this area, this book, first published in 1996, examines wealth distribution in the United Kingdom over the last two decades. Leading specialists in the area tackle the problem from a wide variety of perspectives. Contributions include: the analysis of income distribution; the effects of greater female participation in the labour force; social security reform; and geographical variation at the national and local scale. Understanding the complexity of these factors is crucial to designing policies which can begin to cope with income inequalities.

It is recognised that the gap between rich and poor in Britain is widening faster than in any comparable country. This important issue is attracting increasing attention after long neglect. Economists and others concerned with problems linked with inequality are investigating factors contributing to the situation. Based on results of the first recent major research programme in this area, this book, first published in 1996, examines wealth distribution in the United Kingdom over the last two decades. Leading specialists in the area tackle the problem from a wide variety of perspectives. Contributions include: the analysis of income distribution; the effects of greater female participation in the labour force; social security reform; and geographical variation at the national and local scale. Understanding the complexity of these factors is crucial to designing policies which can begin to cope with income inequalities.

Two-thirds of UK government spending now goes on the welfare state and where the money is spent - healthcare, education, pensions, benefits - is the centre of political and public debate. Much of that debate is dominated by the myth that the population divides into those who benefit from the welfare state and those who pay into it - 'skivers' and 'strivers', 'them' and 'us'. This ground-breaking book, written by one of the UK's leading social policy experts, uses extensive research and survey evidence to challenge that view. It shows that our complex and ever-changing lives mean that all of us rely on the welfare state throughout our lifetimes, not just a small 'welfare-dependent' minority. Using everyday life stories and engaging graphics, Hills clearly demonstrates how the facts are far removed from the myths.

Social Policy in a Cold Climate offers a data-rich, evidence-based analysis of the impact Labour and coalition government policies have had on inequality and on the delivery of services such as health, education, adult social care, housing and employment in the wake of the greatest recession of our time. The authors provide an authoritative and unflinching analysis of recent approaches to social policy and their outcomes following the financial crisis, with particular focus on poverty and inequality. Through a detailed look at spending, outputs and outcomes the book offers a unique appraisal of Labour and the coalition’s impact as well as an insightful assessment of future directions. This volume offers a much-awaited follow-up to the critically acclaimed ‘A more equal society?’ (2005) and ‘Towards a more equal society?’ (2009).

Social Policy in a Cold Climate offers a data-rich, evidence-based analysis of the impact Labour and coalition government policies have had on inequality and on the delivery of services such as health, education, adult social care, housing and employment in the wake of the greatest recession of our time. The authors provide an authoritative and unflinching analysis of recent approaches to social policy and their outcomes following the financial crisis, with particular focus on poverty and inequality. Through a detailed look at spending, outputs and outcomes the book offers a unique appraisal of Labour and the coalition’s impact as well as an insightful assessment of future directions. This volume offers a much-awaited follow-up to the critically acclaimed ‘A more equal society?’ (2005) and ‘Towards a more equal society?’ (2009).

Two-thirds of UK government spending now goes on the welfare state and where the money is spent – healthcare, education, pensions, benefits – is the centre of political and public debate.Much of that debate is dominated by the myth that the population divides into those who benefit from the welfare state and those who pay into it – 'skivers' and 'strivers', 'them' and 'us'. This ground-breaking book, written by one of the UK’s leading social policy experts, uses extensive research and survey evidence to challenge that view. It shows that our complex and ever-changing lives mean that all of us rely on the welfare state throughout our lifetimes, not just a small ‘welfare-dependent’ minority. Using everyday life stories and engaging graphics, Hills clearly demonstrates how the facts are far removed from the myths. This revised edition contains fully updated data, discusses key policy changes and a new preface reflecting on the changed context after the 2015 election and Brexit vote.

When New Labour came to power in 1997, its leaders asked for it to be judged after ten years on its success in making Britain 'a more equal society'. As it approaches the end of an unprecedented third term in office, this book asks whether Britain has indeed moved in that direction. The highly successful earlier volume "A more equal society?" was described by Polly Toynbee as "the LSE's mighty judgement on inequality". Now this second volume by the same team of authors provides an independent assessment of the success or otherwise of New Labour's policies over a longer period. It provides: · consideration by a range of expert authors of a broad set of indicators and policy areas affecting poverty, inequality and social exclusion; · analysis of developments up to the third term on areas including income inequality, education, employment, health inequalities, neighbourhoods, minority ethnic groups, children and older people;· an assessment of outcomes a decade on, asking whether policies stood up to the challenges, and whether successful strategies have been sustained or have run out of steam;chapters on migration, social attitudes, the devolved administrations, the new Equality and Human Rights Commission, and future pressures.The book is essential reading for academic and student audiences with an interest in contemporary social policy, as well as for all those seeking an objective account of Labour's achievements in power.

When New Labour came to power in 1997, its leaders asked for it to be judged after ten years on its success in making Britain 'a more equal society'. As it approaches the end of an unprecedented third term in office, this book asks whether Britain has indeed moved in that direction. The highly successful earlier volume "A more equal society?" was described by Polly Toynbee as "the LSE's mighty judgement on inequality". Now this second volume by the same team of authors provides an independent assessment of the success or otherwise of New Labour's policies over a longer period. It provides: · consideration by a range of expert authors of a broad set of indicators and policy areas affecting poverty, inequality and social exclusion; · analysis of developments up to the third term on areas including income inequality, education, employment, health inequalities, neighbourhoods, minority ethnic groups, children and older people;· an assessment of outcomes a decade on, asking whether policies stood up to the challenges, and whether successful strategies have been sustained or have run out of steam;chapters on migration, social attitudes, the devolved administrations, the new Equality and Human Rights Commission, and future pressures.The book is essential reading for academic and student audiences with an interest in contemporary social policy, as well as for all those seeking an objective account of Labour's achievements in power.

Public policy for the 21st century is a collection of essays in memory of Henry Neuburger, an economist whose career spanned half a dozen government departments, and who was for much of the 1980s an adviser to the leadership of the Labour Party. His original contributions to economic policy analysis across the field of public policy are the starting point of the essays, whose contributors between them cover the same broad span of economic policy. The essays look forward to the new century and together form an introduction to key issues in contemporary policy making.Policy issues covered include macroeconomic policy, the impact of the National Minimum Wage, the distributional effect of tax and benefit policies since the 1997 change of government, the debates around an 'urban renaissance', and the impact of European integration on policy making. Contributors also examine and explain debates around different approaches to economic analysis, and show how analysis can be carried beyond the conventional confines of the money economy and of the household as a 'black box'. The book concludes with a discussion of Henry Neuburger's career, looking in particular at the role of economic advisers within policy making.This is a timely book on economic policy making and commitment to making that policy work. It is important reading for students and academics concerned with public, economic and social policy, and government economists.

This major new book provides, for the first time, a detailed evaluation of policies on poverty and social exclusion since 1997, and their effects. Bringing together leading experts in the field, it considers the challenges the government has faced, the policies chosen and the targets set in order to assess results. Drawing on research from the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, and on external evaluations, the book  asks how children, older people, poor neighbourhoods, ethnic minorities and other vulnerable groups have fared under New Labour and seeks to assess the government both on its own terms - in meeting its own targets - and according to alternative views of social exclusion.

Social policy is now central to political debate in Britain. What has been achieved by efforts to improve services and reduce poverty? What is needed to deliver more effective and popular services to all and increase social justice? How can we make social policy work? These are some of the questions discussed in this new and wide-ranging collection of essays by a distinguished panel of leading social policy academics. The book covers key issues in contemporary social policy, particularly concentrating on recent changes. It examines the history and goals of social policy as well as its delivery, focusing in turn on the family and the state, schools, higher education, healthcare, social care, communities and housing. Redistribution is also examined, exploring child poverty, pension reform and resources for welfare.The essays in this collection have been specially written to honour the 70th birthday of Howard Glennerster whose pioneering work has been concerned not only with the theoretical, historical and political foundations of social policies but, crucially, with how they work in practice. It is a collection of primary importance for those working in and interested in policy and politics in a wide variety of fields and for students of social policy, public policy and the public sector.

Social policy is now central to political debate in Britain. What has been achieved by efforts to improve services and reduce poverty? What is needed to deliver more effective and popular services to all and increase social justice? How can we make social policy work? These are some of the questions discussed in this new and wide-ranging collection of essays by a distinguished panel of leading social policy academics. The book covers key issues in contemporary social policy, particularly concentrating on recent changes. It examines the history and goals of social policy as well as its delivery, focusing in turn on the family and the state, schools, higher education, healthcare, social care, communities and housing. Redistribution is also examined, exploring child poverty, pension reform and resources for welfare.The essays in this collection have been specially written to honour the 70th birthday of Howard Glennerster whose pioneering work has been concerned not only with the theoretical, historical and political foundations of social policies but, crucially, with how they work in practice. It is a collection of primary importance for those working in and interested in policy and politics in a wide variety of fields and for students of social policy, public policy and the public sector.