Social Welfare and Social Insurance

Bridging housing studies and social policy, this book analyses competing interpretations of the role and value of social housing in the UK.

The author provides new research on the relationship between housing and wellbeing, and challenges the pervasive policy and social consensus that owner-occupation is the ‘natural’ choice of aspiring people.

This book synthesises the challenges of researching everyday life for families on low incomes during the COVID-19 pandemic to improve future policy and practice.

This timely analysis sets out the full impacts of policy reform, austerity and marketisation on our country’s mental health services. Rooted in the experiences of service users and providers, it provides valuable perspectives on our evolving practical and organisational responses to mental distress.

Welfare states are a major feature of many societies. This book draws on qualitative interviews with people receiving various working age welfare payments in Ireland to analyse welfare conditionality and explore stigma, social reciprocity and the notions of the deserving and undeserving poor.

Exploring why food aid exists and the deeper causes of food poverty, this book addresses neglected dimensions of traditional debates. It challenges neoliberal governmentality and shows how food charity maintains inequalities of class, race, religion and gender.

What kinds of care are being offered or withdrawn by the welfare state? What does this mean for the caring practices and interventions of local activists? Shedding new light on austerity and neoliberal welfare reform in the UK, this vital book considers local action and activism within contexts of crisis, including the COVID-19 pandemic.

Paul Spicker offers an original take on the British welfare state. He outlines the structure of services, the impact of false narratives, the real problems that need to be addressed and how we can do things better.

Experts from around the world review the complex and rapidly changing politics and policies of austerity in this comprehensive collection of essays. The book details the many different means and expressions of austerity since the financial crisis of 2008, as well as backlashes and emerging political alternatives.

In this book, Chris Pierson argues that we will need to think quite differently about the British welfare state after COVID-19. He looks back to the welfare state’s origins and development as well as forwards, unearthing some surprising solutions in unexpected places.

During the consolidation of the Welfare State in the 1940s, and its reshaping in the 2010s, the boundaries between the state, voluntary action, the family and the market were called into question. This book explores the impact of these ‘transformational moments’ on the role, position and contribution of voluntary action to social welfare.

Bryan Fanning traces the development of European welfare states in this accessible analysis of social change from the Industrial Revolution onwards. The book explores evolutions through the lens of three traditions, social democracy, Christian democracy and liberalism, with insights into the people and beliefs that influenced each.

This important text maps out ways in which the disadvantaged have been affected by legal responses to COVID-19. Contributors tackle issues including virtual trials, adult social care, racism, tax and spending, education and more. Offering an account of the damage, this book demonstrates positive and productive future responses.