The political ideologies and economic strategies promoted since the early 1980s have created the ingrained welfare conditions that current reforms are meant to address. Behind the reforms is an ideology that not only seeks to reduce the role of the state but also implicitly blames the poor for...

The Work and Social Assistance Act grants a minimum income to anyone with insufficient means to support themselves. Local authorities (municipalities) have been responsible for implementing the Work and Social Assistance Act since 2004, which includes managing the social security budget and...

This article engages in a dynamic comparative analysis of key labour market reforms in Denmark, Sweden and Finland from the early 1990s to the 2000s. During this period traditional egalitarian and collectivist elements of Nordic social insurance were reshaped by workfare reforms. The ways in...

Activation measures in Finland have meant the weakening of the level, qualification criteria, coverage, and time limits of social benefits in a way inimical to the post-Second World War Nordic welfare model. These changes have been accompanied by a growth of labour market flexibility, of...

The language of disadvantaged neighbourhoods, social exclusion and social and spatial segregation has been prominent in policy debates in the UK in recent decades and has been associated with failures in health, education, employment, crime and other policies. But while these patterns are seen...

Japan is rapidly aging, due to longer life expectancy and fewer children. Japanese social policy has tried to reduce the impacts of demographic changes by providing social services and benefits. The dominant Democratic Party of Japan came into power in the 2009 election after promising to extend...

The 30-year rule governing the release of Cabinet papers means that the British people only learned of a covert 1980s policy to manage the decline of northern England in early 2012. We can only guess at what is really being said behind closed doors today. There are some clues in a series of...

Current proposals for welfare reform in the UK are based on a Universal Credit, intended simultaneously to simplify the structure of benefits while offering sensitive and rapid responsiveness to personal circumstances. The two objectives are in conflict, and neither can be achieved by the proposals.

Increased participation in the paid work force is one of the major goals of welfare reform in New Zealand. This goal is unlikely to be achieved given the high proportion of lone parents without a school qualification and labour market demands for skills. The outcome will be even worse outcomes...

Governments across Europe are looking for innovative ways to deliver employment programmes which deliver value for money for the taxpayer. The current UK Government has committed to the concept of Payment by Results (PbR). In the UK’s PbR model, the financial risks of delivering...