Social Policy and Welfare - Essay Example

 Social policy generally refers to the program of action adapted by a government for the welfare and social protection of its citizens. The concept is inextricably linked to the provision of social services and implementation of the ‘welfare state’ with its characteristics determined primarily from economic, political and social conditions present during its development. The study of social policy is concerned with an understanding of social problems such as unemployment and old age, determination of the collective response to these social conditions and the analysis of administrative practices such as social security, community care and housing management (Castles and Mitchell, 1993). Central to the concept of social policy is the idea of welfare. In common terms, welfare refers to the ‘well-being’ of the people (Korpi and Palmer, 1998). However, it is now also used to refer to the range of services provided to protect people from conditions that would affect their capacity to achieve or maintain well-being and can take a variety of forms. The most prominent are the following: Social Security – retirement plans Health – medical coverage for illness and operations Housing – easy-payment plans for prospects Education – subsidized schooling Welfare usually comes in the form of financial assistance through subsidies and vouchers issued by governmental and non-governmental organizations. Funding can come directly from institutions or be paid for by members through a salary deduction scheme to be returned at a premium and in stages. Some aspects of welfare can be universal like health coverage in the NHS in the UK while some can be residual targeting only specific sectors such as the unemployed, people of old age and veterans. The Family and the Labour Market Theoretically, welfare should be provided to all people but services are designed to address key concerns for the well-being of the family as a whole and the individual in the labour market. Welfare provision is designed to target two key aspects of society: the family and the labor market. The underlying reason behind the importance given to the family is that it is considered to be the most important and powerful welfare provider. Families provide ‘emotional support’ and virtually free care which no other external state can provide. Health of family is less likely to be compromised with the presence of a dedicated overseer thus minimizing the need for health coverage. Public support of the family can then be a crucial factor in ensuring that people have peace of mind and are enjoying the company of their family. Intervention in the labour market through regulation is the bane of free-market believers but it has long been recognized. Labour market intervention schemes are usually designed to protect people from market fluctuations. This guarantees them from arbitrary termination, working conditions and compensations. Welfare and its Conceptualization The concept of providing welfare for all the members of society is deeply rooted in democratic and religious beliefs. Social welfare rights are extensions of democratic rights that promote equality and social inclusion. Under democracy, people are entitled to also have the right to self-determination and a democratic society must be able to provide the means to achieve this goal. Several of the world’s major religions, like Christianity and Islam, also value collective community responsibility and charity. Welfare provision can be based also on practical reasons such as better equipped workforce that can suit market demands acquired through free or subsidized education. Medical coverage enables people to overcome sickness and disabilities without entering into debts that can be hard to repay due to absence of income. Welfare in the form of financial help decreases the possibility of crime as decreases the pressure from people to resort to such activities to have sufficient funding for their basic needs. Welfare State Provision of welfare has been formalized and institutionalized through the terms set about in a nation’s concept of ‘welfare state’. In Europe, welfare state is actually equated to social protection and while it varies from country to country, it generally includes the right to employment, right to education, poverty relief, healthcare, safe working conditions and old-age support (Castles and Mitchell, 1993). Welfare states are employed using two different strategies. One is through a redistribution scheme and the other through redistribution. Redistribution schemes are the most discernible form of welfare as it involves marginal income taxes and income substitutions (Meyer, 1994). Labor market risks-oriented redistribution schemes involve unemployment benefits, old age pensions and sickness benefits. These are designed to mitigate the effect of labor market fluctuations. Family-oriented redistribution schemes involve family allowances, free or subsidized health services and education designed to help the most basic unit of society. Regulation strategies involve control and management of the distribution of resources at the labor market and within families. Examples include legislation and formal rulings designed to minimize the inequalities on the labor market and family networks. The labor market approach is two-pronged. First, people in the labor market are endowed with rights to shield them from inappropriate labor practice. Second, politicians get involved in negotiations between labor market parties to come up with optimal solutions on issues that could adversely affect the general welfare of the public. While governing agencies try to reach an amicable settlement, breakdown of negotiations could lead to take over of private organizations especially when the issue has serious consequences. At the family level, the rights and responsibilities of family members are defined by codes. An example can be a government decreeing that a portion of their income be allocated to agencies that provide educational, medical and retirement coverage (Meyer, 1994). Factors Affecting Welfare Provision Governing agencies have long recognized the importance of welfare provision. Politicians have been using it for their platform like the New Deal of Roosevelt and the Great Society of Johnson. The question is not whether welfare should be provided but how much and to what to extent. Differing political and economic ideologies lead to different perceptions on what welfare system should exist. Free market thinkers consider welfare provision, taxation and social rights as impediments to growth and should be kept to a minimum. Socialists, however, stresses that welfare provision is very important to ensure a functional society (Kawachi et al, 1997) The effect of ideologies can be minimized by other conditions such as efficiency of the labor market or the abundance of resources. Welfare provision is primarily dependent on the budget available. Hence, when prosperity is being experienced, the tendency is for generous welfare state interventions. We can see this phenomenon in oil and gas producing countries where the income generated by such industries to private and public organizations is so large that citizens can be provided with free education, generous allowances, health coverage and housing subsidies. Countries like Qatar, Saudi and Brunei are able to provide all of these even without taxation through the income of government owned oil and gas companies. Debt-ridden countries such as Bangladesh and the Philippines offer minimal coverage and higher taxation because the budget for social welfare is redirected to debt-servicing. Welfare State Arrangements There are several models of welfare state depending on the core characteristics selected. In this paper, the well-known and highly accepted model of Esping-Anderson (1991) shall be analyzed. The model is based the ‘decommodification’ of labor in a capitalist economy and the financial arrangements. According to the model, there are three distinctive welfare state regimes. The Liberal Welfare State Regime places much importance to the conditions of the market in determining the extent and kind of social protection benefits. In this regime, private welfare schemes are encouraged with public provisions being minimal, flat rate and needs/means tested. The pervading principle is that people should generally be responsible to take care of themselves and not rely on subsidies to improve their conditions. Welfare should be provided only to those whose living conditions are found in the lower part of the stratification of means as determined by market forces. Canada, Australia, United States have this kind of welfare regime. United Kingdom is also moving to adapt this arrangement. The Conservative Welfare State Regime is distinguished by its ‘status differentiating’ welfare programmes in which benefits are often earnings related, administered through the employer; and geared towards maintaining existing social patterns. The welfare of the family and motherhood is of prime importance. Hence, women are encouraged to stay at home by giving enough benefits, incentives and subsidies to the male breadwinner to support the family. Child allowances and tax rebates are also provided in some countries. Social-Democratic Welfare State Regime, the third type on welfare state, is where high levels of social protection are implemented. The state is generous in providing high standards of material conditions. The social democratic countries is characterised by universal and comparatively generous benefits, a commitment to full employment and income protection; and a strongly interventionist state. Like the Conservative Welfare State, the preservation of family and traditional values are very important. The difference is that the Conservative regime requires high levels of taxes from its populace. This, in turn, is returned through high levels of social services. Finland, Norway and Denmark are employing this type of arrangement. There are countries where welfare provision by government authorities is not given too much attention. Welfare politics in countries such as Italy, Greece and Spain is minimal as welfare is mostly left to the household subsistence economy. Only a Rudimentary Welfare State Regime is present in these countries. Also, theoretical boundaries between the welfare state regimes are becoming blurred and that many countries have a combination of welfare provision schemes. Welfare state strategies are also experiencing constant change. Probably the most important development is the shifting of family provided welfare to the welfare state as women are increasingly becoming interested in pursuing careers like their male counterparts. Community Care through Healthcare Provision Provision for health care is widely recognized as a necessary element of welfare. However, different nations apply different programs. Inequalities in health status are largely considered to be a result of income inequalities, distribution of wealth and other social and class inequities (Acheson et al., 1998). Welfare provision in its entirety is designed to address these issues of inequality and should therefore have a bearing upon health outcomes (Coburn, 2004). Welfare distribution is actuated by a combination of regulation and redistribution schemes. Welfare states have a decommodifying effect on the labour market as it sets a minimum standard returns for the labour provided by the people. Essentially, the people are not at the mercy of the market anymore. In this way, welfare states mediate the income inequalities in the country thereby making it as a social determinant of health. That is, countries having a highly decommodifying welfare state package (i.e. more cash and benefits) will have less income inequalities and better national health outcomes as compared to countries with a lesser decommodifying system (Coburn, 2004). The more the government provides for health care, the greater is the health situation and the more productive the nation can be. This is basically the rationale for healthcare provision. An example of a health provision is the National Health Service in the UK. The reader is reminded that the main goal of the preceding section is not to determine the efficacy of the welfare provision but to provide only a view of the developments in health care provision. The National Health Service In the United Kingdom, public health welfare is provided through the National Health Service (NHS). Established in 1948, the NHS was seen as answer to the poor state of public health care. Before, medical consultation and treatment were only accessible to low income workers and did not extend to their family. Health services were determined by local authorities and while hospitals were established, only rudimentary procedures were available. Mentally ill people where confined to large foreboding institutions while the elderly were left to end their lives in Public Assistance Institutions. The Service aimed in improving the situation by applying the following principles (Doran and Whitehead, 2003): Health care is to be universal. Even temporary residents and visiting persons are eligible. Referral can be made to any hospital or medical care provider. Medical expenses shall be paid for by the government through funding from central taxation. Care shall be free at the point of use. As with all public endeavours trying to provide free services, the NHS initiative was faced by budgetary problems. Public authorities tried to comply with the third principle but prescription and dental charges were later introduced due to financial constraints. NHS was also established in a time where there was a housing crisis due to the destruction during the Second World War. The New Towns Act of 1946 sought to prioritize the reconstruction of cities and residential areas leaving little construction materials for hospitals. With the reconstruction came new centres of population that needed health services putting further strain to the already limited budget available. Most medical care practitioners also preferred to practice in urban areas leaving little expertise in rural areas. Demand was always increasing leading to longer waiting lists. A major cultural shift happened when the Community Care Act of 1990 was established which introduced the concept of the ‘internal market’. In this strategy, ‘purchasers’ such as doctors and health authorities were given budget to buy medical services from ‘providers’ such as hospitals and organizations providing care for the elderly and mentally ill. The Act called for providers to become NHS trusts that are, by nature, independent organizations with their own management and are competing with each other. There were still pitfalls in the internal market scheme such as issues regarding equal access as people who had GP fund holders were more likely to obtain faster than non-fund holders. To address the shortcomings, the NHS Plan of 2000 was drafted. In this system, the NHS Foundation Trust was formed and was comprised of 10 strategic health authorities responsible for 200 primary care trusts. These trusts were given the power to form contracts with public and private providers. Essentially, the plan no longer necessarily involved healthcare provision from public owned infrastructure as private partners came to build and operate hospitals, independent treatment centres and NHS walk-in centres. Essentially, the NHS ensures free health care for everyone in the United Kingdom. This example just goes to show the importance being ascribed to health care. Other nations have also their own health care systems but the trend is placing more importance in health care especially now that the population is ageing. Gender and Welfare Provision Women and Defamilisation Previously, we have considered Esping-Anderson’s three typologies but the increased interest in feminist issues have led researchers to conclude that the typology is deeply flawed because it marginalized women in its analysis. The issue is that whether welfare is universal or residual, opportunities for women are not yet well defined. Aside from the overt absence of women in Esping-Andersen’s analysis, the critique revolves around three other issues: the gender blind concept of decommodification, the unawareness of the role of women and the family in the provision of welfare, and the lack of consideration given to gender as a form of social stratification. These criticisms have in turn led to both theoretical attempts to ‘gender’ Esping-Andersen’s analysis and the construction of alternative welfare state typologies in which gender has been a more overt and centralised part of the analysis (Bambra, 2004). Central to the discussion of gender and the welfare state is the concept of ‘defamilisation’. The concept of defamilisation originates in the feminist literature on citizenship and it has been appropriated by, and used intermittently within, the post-‘worlds of welfare’ debate (Korpi, 2000). The term ‘defamilisation’ has often been, inappropriately, defined by commentators as the extent to which welfare states support the family. For example, Esping-Andersen utilise this conceptualisation of defamilisation and their typologies subsequently rely on factors which assess the extent to which welfare states support the family or different family models (Esping-Andersen,1999) such as overall public family spending or overall public commitment to the subsidy of child families. There is an alternative definition of defamilisation that seems more relevant. Defamilisation refers to the extent to which the welfare state undermines women’s dependency on the family and facilitates women’s economic independence (Taylor-Gooby, 1996). Hence, we see two diverging models for welfare provision. First are the services and benefits provided to enable women, especially mothers, to spend more time with their family. Second are those services that enable women to be economically independent and less reliant on the family. Nations trying to provide welfare for women typically adapt the following strategies (Mackenbach, 1999): Securing higher relative female labour participation rate; Maternity leave compensations; Compensated maternity leave duration; Average female wage. Relative female labour participation indicates the extent to which the economy of the welfare state facilitates female employment. It is ‘relative’ because it is measured in relation to male employment levels, thus reducing the influence of different national unemployment rates. This provision gives a measure of one way in which women gain economic independence from the family, enter the public realm; and gain access to certain social rights (Meyer, 1994:67–68). Maternity leave compensation and compensated maternity leave duration are benefits provided by welfare states. The degree to which it is pursued by authorities show whether the welfare state provides economic support when women decide to have children or if it encourages reliance on the family. Maternity leave compensation is the level of replacement income which women receive when they are absent from work due to pregnancy. Compensated maternity leave duration, indicates the length of time for which women can take paid maternity leave (Raphael and Bryant, 2004). Average female wage is a regulatory mechanism and is an indication of the ease with which women can independently maintain a decent standard of living and, as it is expressed as a percentage of the average male wage. It also shows the extent of gender pay inequality. Furthermore, the level of a woman’s independent income is an important factor in providing women with a choice between family/state dependency and paid employment. In the following figure, we are provided with a measure of the degree of defamilisation of different nations as compared to their typology. It can be seen that when welfare states are engendered, there can be significant variation in Esping-Anderson’s typology: Table 1: Gender Typology of Welfare States (Bambra, 2004) Lesbian and Gay People Homosexuality is another gender issue that have been studied in light of welfare states. One interesting study was conducted by O’Connor and Molloy (2001). The authors sought to understand to elucidate welfare provision in terms of providing home for lesbian and gay people. In the United Kingdom, there are housing and homelessness accommodation provided to runaway and ethnic minority youth. As part of the New Deal for Young People, British authorities also recognized the vulnerabilities of homosexual people. The British government were to provide housing services exclusively for gay and lesbian people. Some housing agencies also provided for the needs of bisexual and transgendered young people. While this represents a significant development in the welfare provision, O’Connor and Molloy (2001) found that none of the lesbian and gay youth used the housing or homelessness services that have been exclusively provided for them. Instead, they were using generic services or a combination of generic and specialized services. The problem was not that there was inadequacy on the services provided by the accommodation but because of the absence of knowledge that such services exist. Conclusion Social policy is concerned with the values that a society have regarding its welfare. Adherence to moral values form the primary basis for the provision of welfare but financial factors determine the benefits and services provided in the welfare state. There are basically three different typologies of welfare states targeting two aspects of society: the family and the labour market. 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