The German system is work oriented : it excludes some people who have not contributed, and it does not extend to those on the highest incomes. The system in the USA has substantial residual elements, and social policy is often hostile to the poor.
It has fewer people in poverty before transfers than France or Germany, but it fails to bring people out of poverty and the poverty that remains is more severe. Social policy is to a large extent dominated by economic policy, because much of it in practice is determined by government, and economic policy determines the amount that government is prepared to spend.
There are two main views of public spending: monetarist and Keynesian. In recent years both views have been supplanted by a new financial orthodoxy, which combines government regulation with market-based provision, "targeted" expenditure and balanced budgets.
Further material: British economic policy Pathe Video: 50 years progress , celebrating full employment. Many public services are provided not by the state, but by combinations of state, independent, mutual and voluntary activity - a ' mixed economy ' of welfare.
State welfare is often assumed to depend on finance through taxation. However, taxation is supposed to do many things at once: the aims include. It follows that while welfare services can be paid for by taxation, the terms are not simply equivalent. Further material: Public finance. There are competing views of the impact of social welfare on the economy. One view, the 'handmaiden' model , sees welfare as an essential complement to industrial development: social policy helps the economy to grow by serving the workforce, providing services to industry and offering a secure basis for development.
This has been the dominant model in Germany. Keynesian economics sees spending on welfare as a useful economic regulator, helping to balance the economy in periods of recession. On the other hand, both neo-liberals and marxists have represented the welfare state as a major burden on economic performance.
Public expenditure is seen as a fetter on economic growth. There is no consistent evidence to support either view. The relationship of the economy and public spending is complex. Atkinson has brought together evidence from a wide range of opposing studies. Although developed countries generally spend more on welfare than less developed countries, developed countries with higher welfare spending do not generally do better or worse than developed countries which have less.
It is possible to give the impression that the relationship is negative or positive, by selectively excluding some results, but the truth is that it shows no clear pattern. Beyond the OECD - an organisation that covers the main industrialised Western countries - the general trend is that richer countries tend to spend higher proportions of their GDP on social protection. The term "crisis" is used fairly indiscriminately by critics of the right and left. From the perspective of the right , welfare is undesirable and economically damaging.
The migrations to industrialized regions with the impact of industrialization caused new professions, negative life and work conditions, and poverty. In the face of this change in the demographic structure, states adopted the liberal economic understanding as a solution. Free market economy that emerged as a result of concerns that state interventions would damage economic and social balances helped a part of society to have welfare but caused workers who constituted the majority of society to impoverish.
Because social expectations that the state should meet social needs increased, the state got a new character to solve social problems. Affected by the wars which broke out in the first half of twentieth century and economic crisis, the concept of state changed in favor of social policies. However, also affected by globalization, the interventionist approach of welfare state to ensure economic and social welfare failed to ensure economic growth, and the position of state was discussed again.
In this new period, where the increase of social expenditures and taxes was perceived as a threat, it was suggested that the social responsibilities of the state should be reduced. The crises beginning in s and the problems which increased with the effect of globalization led to a transformation in the welfare state. The crisis of welfare state and the constantly increasing discussion about the role of state to determine social policies caused states to plunge into new quests.
Although the quests for the welfare state of Golden Age were different, it is possible to say that the basic attitudes were neoliberal attitudes like increasing the effectiveness of local administrations, leaving ensuring welfare ton on profit organizations, and leaving social services to private sector.
In this period, social policies are determined by civil society, international, and supranational organizations instead of traditional means, and social policy understanding turns into new forms. In spite of all criticisms, welfare state still regulates and implements social policies today. Exposed to some transformations and to some extent replaced by neoliberal policies as a result of changes caused by the globalization and information age, the welfare state is predicted to continue its existence in new forms and remains as an important power to regulate social policies in future.
In this study which has been made under the light of this information and predictions, first of all, the conceptual foundations, targets, and means of social policy will be explained with the factors which paved the way for its emergence in the historical process. After that, the concept of welfare state and the effects and events, which paved the way for its emergence, will be handled in the historical process. Welfare state crisis and globalization will be explained under different headings and determinations, and predictions will be made about today and future, discussing their impact on the social policy.
Some authors argue that these two concepts have the same meaning but some others argue that social policy is a frame concept which encompasses various policies, including social welfare policy [ 1 ]. Differences regarding the definition of social policy also arise from periodic conditions.
To Lauber, social policy is a set of measurements taken at national level in order to change and regulate the financial and cultural life conditions in a definite period of time. Albrech defines social policy as all measures and institutions that are taken to protect the part of society which is in need of economic protection and to ensure social security and peace [ 2 ]. Marshall defines social policy as a set of policies developed by state to ensure welfare in order that it obtains service and income.
Hagenbuch asserts that social policy is an effort to make sure that individuals have minimum standards and opportunities. In narrow sense, social policy is an attitude to address the disputes, imbalances, and conflict of interests between employers and employees and to ensure harmony between classes in capitalist systems [ 3 , 4 , 5 ].
In narrow sense, the aim of social policies is to find solutions for the problems emerging in industrials societies. From this perspective, it serves ensuring the social justice for ending the social inequalities that have been caused by the industrial revolution in social policy. In narrow sense, it represents the policies for making a balance between labor and capital because it encompasses only problems of worker and labor classes [ 6 ].
These policies also include the provision of social justice. In narrow sense, political policy approaches the working life as the basic element that can explain the society. In this context, it also deals with issues such as wages, working conditions, trade unionism, and collective bargaining [ 7 ].
In a broad sense, the concept of social policy means comprehensive practices which address not only the problems and needs of working class but also those of the other segments of society [ 8 ]. With a definition from this perspective, it is possible to say social policy discipline addresses the problems of urbanization, environment, health, and education and those of all segments of society such as workers, the disabled, the elders, children, and immigrants.
In a board sense, social policy emerged together with the concept of welfare state after World War II. Therefore, social policy includes health services, social security, city, environment, and struggling against unemployment and poverty that affect social welfare. In a broad sense, the final target of all these practices is to ensure social peace, social justice, and equality between different groups [ 9 ].
Social policy is determined on the basis of redistribution. The regulatory and distributive view of policies serves to ensure that everyone living in society has social freedoms and equal opportunities [ 10 ]. Ensuring the welfare of each individual is the main objective of the state and other organizations that are social policy practitioners.
The members of society have such needs as education, social security, health services, and housing. Social policy aims to ensure the welfare of individuals through legislative regulations. Because social policy is affected by social developments, it changes based on the needs of individuals. State makes new regulations based on needs. It is possible to make separate regulations for those who are in need of protection from social policy perspective for children and youth, for the disabled, for families with low income, and for the elders.
The factors which affect and determine social policy are not only the needs of society and individuals but also are ideological movements, crime rates, unemployment, media, politics, industrial groups, and violence, such economic factors as debit and recession and the nature of welfare state social democratic, liberal, etc. Social policy can be defined as an area consisting of decisions taken with the participation of many individuals and parties, which is put in force after the state determines its basis [ 12 ].
There is a mutual interaction between social policy and economic policies [ 3 ]. Thus, the development of a country is not possible only through economic growth but also by achieving a fair and balanced growth to solve social problems. From this perspective, the problems in economy and those in social policy need to be handled together. To achieve its goals, social policy needs to have some principles regarding the policies it will determine.
The social policy, which is put in force by the state and other institutions, affects the welfare of society directly. The subjects and basic principles related with social policies are social needs and social problems, equal rights and social justice, efficiency, equity and choice, altruism, reciprocity and obligation, and division, difference, and exclusion [ 13 ].
Welfare state should provide some rights to the people. These are elaborated below. Equality: Achieving equality underlies social policies. Resources need to be distributed fairly in order to achieve equality. Equality has different types: equal outcome, equal opportunity, or equal treatment. Equal opportunity: It means that equal groups should be treated equally. Equal opportunity needs to be given to people regardless of their sex or group.
Moreover, all people must have the same opportunities in educational system or in the labor market. Need: Basic needs are food, caring, and housing. Needs are not limited, and it is not certain which needs should be covered by states. Freedom and rights: There are different types of rights. Civil rights mean the absence of arbitrary arrest and detention but having freedom to discuss any opinion. Social rights mean social welfare and social security, right to education. Political rights include voting and joining political parties and freedom to explain opinion in a democratic way.
All of these rights are provided by welfare state. The individuals who live in society are bound to state through the bond of citizenship. The main goal of social policies is to ensure that everyone in society lives in harmony, afar from conflicts. Thus, the target is to ensure social justice, social development, social balance, social integration, and social peace [ 7 ].
Thanks to social justice , everyone in society will have equal rights in the face of equal risks. In this way, the inequalities and differences caused by the economic chances are eliminated. All the policies that ensure that everyone has fair opportunities with regard to income, taxes, wages, education, and social security contribute to the development of social justice.
Ensuring the social balance is possible if everyone in society lives in harmony and balance. Therefore, social differences need to be reduced. Especially the differences and inequalities, with regard to opportunities, of the individuals living in different regions cause this balance and harmony to deteriorate. It is one of the main objectives of social policy practitioners to eliminate the differences regarding the development level and to ensure that everyone benefits from the same social services.
Social peace is ensured through policies aimed at eliminating the factors that lead to the deterioration of the balance within the social structure. Especially in the capitalist system, the social differences created by the free market can hinder solidarity throughout the society. For the creation of a society dominated by harmony and reconciliation, policies should be implemented in order to eliminate the negative effects on the psychology of society.
Social integration refers to the minimization of political and economic factors that negatively affect unity and solidarity in society. Education, culture, and moral values are issues that affect social resolution in this sense. Achieving the goal of social democracy, it is possible to protect the fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals in democratic order with the legal order in the framework of democratic freedoms.
The social policy, which is considered to have emerged as a result of the economic and social developments in the nineteenth century, started to become meaningful with the industrial revolution. As a result of the change in economic relations with the industrial revolution, social changes became inevitable. With the industrial revolution, increased production gave rise to the need for more labor. The dominance of capital owners on the labor market increased even further through the liberalization of trade.
In a period when the liberal market economy approach Laissez-faire was adopted, the dominant opinion was that government interventions would negatively affect the free market [ 14 ].
The belief that a market created without intervention would enrich the people, on the one hand, ensured the enrichment of the owners of capital and, on the other hand, caused the labor sector to become poor.
The poverty faced by children and women hurts humanitarian feelings [ 15 ]. As a result of liberal approach in the economy, two opposing sections have emerged in society: the bourgeois class who are the capital owners and working class who are the labor holders.
The reduced of wages, poor working conditions, and long working hours have led to social problems in the labor class and to class conflicts. In the nineteenth century, social policies were applied to solve the social problems created by the liberal economy understanding of the state. Providing social peace and justice through the intervention of the state in the working life, working relations, and wages is inevitable.
With the social reform movements that began in England and Canada between and , social policies turned into a descriptive approach from the prohibitive approach [ 1 ]. In this approach, the state was criticized that its role in the work life was limited and rigid, and it was suggested that the state should regulate social conditions in order to eliminate the negativities in the work life.
In this period, there was an opinion that the role of the state in social policies should increase, in the capitalist developed countries, such as France, Germany, and the USA. Consequently, the emergence of social policy in the modern sense is attributed to social conditions created by French Revolution in intellectual-political sphere and those created by industrial revolution in the social and economic spheres [ 16 ].
After World War II, liberal economic approaches in developed countries were abandoned, and Keynesian policy approach was adopted with the belief that the state should intervene in social policies. Another important factor in the adoption of this approach is the economic crisis and its negative consequences. After the industrial revolution, the scope of social policies expanded, and not only the problems of labor sector but also those of the whole society were addressed.
All of the issues such as health services, elderly and child care, struggle against unemployment and poverty, participation of women in working life, protection of the environment, and gender discrimination became issues for which the state struggled under social policy.
The concept of welfare state emerged in s and s. Unlike the concept of state which was adopted during World War II and which aimed for providing sufficient money to cover the need of army in far, welfare state aims at providing social policy, health services and thus providing social needs [ 17 ].
Welfare state concept gains different aspects in different countries according to their cultural, social, political, and economic legacies and historical developments. Welfare state aims at providing welfare of the individual citizens. According to the demands of labor market and civil society, welfare state intervenes in the economy. The difficulties were faced with regard to making definition of the welfare state and justifying its historical development. As mentioned above, each and every state has a different national social security system, a different social structure, and thus, different needs.
Moreover, welfare state determines the policies that are required by the economic, social, and cultural conditions and put in force the legislative regulations accordingly. The development process of welfare state can be handled by categorizing in three periods. The first period was between and , in other words from the late seventeenth century when the industrial revolution took place to early nineteenth century.
The emergence of welfare state dates back to , when Poor Laws were put in force in UK. In this period, most of men were recruited for war. When they turned back home, they lived the rest of their life without any social security or protection but under risks. However, this legislative regulation was not sufficient because the rest of society was also in need of protection. Another legislative regulation was made in as a result of economic and social pressure and because of the developments at the time.
This is the beginning of the stigmatizing effects of social policy. Welfare state really emerged after World War II. Along World War I, all countries spent all of their resources for war. After World War I, it was understood that John Maynard Keynes approach was not sufficient for creating job opportunities and reviving public economy.
After the war, it was believed that a second war could be prevented by means of creating job opportunities and providing new working and life standards. With Social Security report Social Insurance and Allied Services , Lord William Beveridge aimed at creating a health system, providing minimum income and decreasing employment rates.
Poverty has often been described in terms of low income and resources, but this does not capture the huge range of issues which it touches. Several pages on this website deal more specifically with the social services - systems of organisation that deal with essential needs for health care, housing, education, social work and financial support. This site has not been set up as an introduction to British social services, but there are sections in many pages which can be read as an introduction to British social policy.
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