One of the motivations frequently cited by Sen and Nussbaum for moving away from a utility metric towards a capabilities framework is a concern about adaptive preferences or conditioned expectations. If utility is related to the satisfaction of aspirations or expectations, and if these are...

This study used data from the British Cohort Study to examine the relationships between childhood background experiences and a variety of indicators of adult well-being. Similar to an earlier study that analyses the National Child Development Study, we use a rich array of childhood background...

UK government policy encourages mothers of young children in low-income families to enter or return to work, via tax credit subsidies and support for childcare. Maternal employment is seen a central plank in the campaign against child poverty, both because it raises income immediately and...

Despite prolonged economic growth, poverty has become a more notable and noted feature of Chinese society. The paper examines three phases of development since the foundation of the People's Republic: the central planning era (1949 -1978); the pro-urban growth model (1978 - 1999); and more...

Evidence on intergenerational income mobility in the UK is dated. This paper seeks to update our knowledge by introducing new estimates of mobility for later measures of earnings in the 1958 and 1970 birth cohorts. Given poor or non-existent data on more recent cohorts we adopt an indirect...

Richard Titmuss was one of the world's leading public analysts and philosophers. He was highly influential in shaping the post-war welfare state and created the subject we now call social policy. What would he make of the present state of welfare? This lecture reflects on the man and the times...

The way we run urban neighbourhoods in Britain is a key to reversing social exclusion, crime and poor performance on almost every front in our cities. This study for the Social Exclusion Unit of seven models of neighbourhood management analyses the reason for its key position in the national...

The government's pensions Green Paper 'a new contract for welfare: partnership in pensions' proposes fundamental changes to the UK's retirement income system. Members of CASE and the Department of Social Policy at LSE have looked at the likely implications of the reforms for pensioner poverty,...

Cash transfers (benefits and tax credits) are crucial to the way that inequalities develop over time. This paper looks at how Labour's aims, policies and achievements on poverty and inequality related to its reforms of and spending on cash transfers. - Labour's aims for poverty and inequality...

This article examines the role of family and the state in relation to the living standards of the elderly in East Asia. It tries to test whether familial arrangement according to Confucian ethics, which are still taken seriously in East Asia, secures the minimum standard of living for the...