This study examines the extent to which individual's attitudes toward government responsibility for child care provisions are influenced by personal characteristics as well as the social contexts in which these attitudes are formed. The analysis draws on data from a random sample of 24, 240...

A comparative analysis of child welfare systems in 10 countries identifies three broad functional orientations – child protection, family service and child development – around the problem definition, mode of intervention and role of the state: The changes in policies and practices since the...

Policies designed to advance the march toward private financing and delivery of social services follow five main pathways. While some of these approaches to privatization are more direct and transparent than others, all may be pursued simultaneously. Three approaches concentrate on increasing...

In the early 1960s, the motivating theme of social services in the American welfare state was reduction of economic dependency. At that time services were highly selective, aimed mainly at poor people. Between 1960 and 1980 there was a drift toward univeralism, as the welfare state expanded to...

How do we measure and rate the social welfare efforts of nations? Most people consider the U.S. and Japan welfare laggards when compared with European countries. This view derives from a widely used measure of “welfare effort”-direct government outlays for social programs as the percentage...