Welfare and the State: Who Benefits?: Who Benefits? (Sociology for a Changing World, 7)

Annotation Conventional texts on the welfare state have had a narrow gaze, focused mainly on benefits to the poor and relatively poor. Welfare and the State updates and broadens the classic debates on poverty, inequality and the nature of state. It focuses on the widest range of social policies, affecting the wealthy as well as the poor. It directs attention to gender, through examining women's welfare state and men's welfare state. It is concerned with the interests of those of non- dominant races both within nations and internationally. The results highlight the international applicability of the Matthew principle - 'to those that hath shall be given' What are the implications of the current swing to the political right for the development of the welfare state and efforts to achieve greater equality? This is the question addressed in this book. To answer it requires an examination of the distribution of resources to all groups in society. Yet conventional texts on the welfare state have had a narrow gaze. They have focused mainly on benefits targeted to the poor and powerless. They have ignored those going to the rich and powerful. Welfare and the State broadens and updates the classic debates on welfare, poverty, inequality and the nature of the capitalist state in the light of the swing to the political right. It focuses on the widest range of social and economic policies, those affecting the wealthy as well as the poor. It directs attention to gender, through examining women's welfare state and men's welfare state. It is concerned with the interests of those of non-dominant races at both the national and international levels. Within this context, the data show an increasing gap between rich and poor. This highlights the generality of the Matthew principle - "to those that hath shall be given." The book brings together data from a range of capitalist countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Sweden and Japan. It explores the similarities and differences of policies. There is an overall trend away from policies focused on the development of the welfare state to policies which encourage the market. This is shown to be a radical reversal of direction because the modification of the market was the explicit rationale for welfare state development. Earlier optimistic theories that imply inexorable expansion of the welfare state and increasing equality are shown to be ahistorical Front Matter....Pages i-x Introduction: Who Benefits?....Pages 1-8 The Sociological Context....Pages 9-29 Conventional Welfare Discourses: Their Relevance in the 1990s....Pages 30-68 Cross-national Trends in Welfare State Development....Pages 69-120 The Distribution of State Welfare....Pages 121-158 Men’s Welfare State....Pages 159-189 Women’s Welfare State....Pages 190-225 Conclusion: The Welfare State in the Twenty-first Century....Pages 226-234 Back Matter....Pages 235-270 This series evaluates and reflects major developments in contemporary sociology. It will also focus on key changes in social and economic life in recent years and on the ways in which the discipline of sociology has analyzed those changes '...a significant contribution to the 1990s debates on the kind of society to be struggled for into the 21st century.' - Australian Feminist Studies