John Myles - Böcker

Leading scholars in the field examine the highly topical issue of the future of the welfare state in Europe. They argue that welfare states need to adjust, and examine which kind of welfare architecture will further Europe's stated goal of maximum social inclusion and justice. The volume concentrates on four principal social policy domains; the aged and transition to retirement; the welfare issues related to profound changes in working life; the new risks and needs that arise in households and, especially, in child families; and the challenges of creating gender equality. The volume aims to promote a better understanding of the key welfare issues that will have to be faced in the coming decades. It also warns against the all-too-frequent recourse to patent policy solutions that have all to often characterized contemporary debate. It intends to move the policy debate from it often frustrating vague and generic level towards greater specificity and nuance.

All advanced democracies have faced the pressures of globalization, technological change, and new family forms, which have generated higher levels of inequality in market incomes. But countries have responded differently, reflecting differences in their domestic politics. The politics of who gets what and why is at the core of this volume, the first to examine this question in an explicitly Canadian context.In Inequality and the Fading of Redistributive Politics, leading political scientists, sociologists, and economists point to the failure of public policy to contain surging income inequality. Government programs are no longer offsetting the growth in inequality generated by the market, and Canadian society has become more unequal. The redistributive state is fading due to powerful forces that have reshaped the politics of social policy, including global economic pressures, ideological change, shifts in the influence of business and labour, changes in the party system, and the decline of equality-seeking civil society organizations.This volume demonstrates conclusively that action and inaction -- policy change and policy drift -- are at the heart of growing inequality, calling into question Canada's record as a kinder, gentler nation.