Masters on Economics and Social Policy; Income redistributive social policies aiming to reduce inequality and poverty have been submitted to more regular and in-depth analysis and assessment within the EU and OECD. The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the consequences of assessing income support social policy measures using internationally defined equivalence scales instead of using the nationally defined equivalence scale embedded in each measure. The dissertation addresses two main questions: 1) what are the effects of assessing redistributive social policies with equivalence scales different from the ones incorporated in the respective policy measures? 2) would the assessment of redistributive social policies improve, in terms of poverty eradication and efficiency indicators, if the equivalence scales used for policy design and implementation and for evaluation are the same? On a first section of this text the conceptual and methodological framework regarding the assessment of redistributive policies is presented, focusing on the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke indicators and the efficiency model of Beckerman. Afterwards, the main characteristics of EU-SILC data and the rules for accessing the Portuguese Social Insertion Income (SII) are briefly considered. This redistributive program will be used on simulations with different equivalence scales. Thereafter...

This series New Frontiers of Social Policy aims to promote social development through systematic attention to the underlying social context and the social outcomes of development interventions and public policy. It compels the reader to think of social policy in terms of increasing access to productive assets, infrastructure, and goods and services; strengthening governance and accountability; enabling the rights and obligations of citizens to promote equitable access to development opportunities; and managing the social dimensions of conflict, natural disasters, and climate change. It recognizes the central role of social policy in ensuring that development policies and programs are sustainable. This book series has been conceived and produced for the broader development community, rather than for social policy specialists alone. This book places particular emphasis on, and attempts to overcome, the underlying causes of structural inequalities whereby social groups based on ethnicity, race, tribe, gender...

This book summarizes social policy reform during the transition and European Union accession and analyses the social policy challenges which continue to face both old and new member states. Specifically, the book amplifies two sets of arguments. First, social policy under communism was in important respects well-suited to the old order and - precisely for that reason - was systematically badly-suited to a market economy. Strategic reform directions thus followed from the nature of the transition process and from constraints imposed by EU accession. Secondly, successful accession is not the end of the story: economic and social trends over the past 50 years are creating strains for social policy which all countries - old and new members - will have to face.

This paper examines the experiences in four Latin American countries and South Africa in the application of a human rights approach to social policy. The paper applies an analysis based on a social guarantees framework -- an innovative approach to integrate a rights-based perspective into social policy. The social guarantees approach moves beyond a purely normative framework to give concrete meaning to economic, social, and cultural rights and hence to allow for their operationalization into policies and programs. This document suggests that a social guarantee approach can be used to strengthen the delivery and monitoring of social programs. Firstly, it implies an institutional design that emphasizes synergy and coordination among agencies and providers to help social programs achieve their full potential. Secondly, this approach contributes to reducing gaps in opportunity among citizens by promoting universal access to, and a basic quality standard for, essential services. Thirdly, the social guarantee approach contributes to strengthening democratic governance...

The Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) is the informal dialogue, and cooperative process linking the 15 European Union member states with 10 Asian nations, and who financed the project that brought together the experience of social policy experts, in an effort to highlight imperative thinking on new social policies, following the East Asia Crises of 1997-98. This book is the outcome of such project, which focused on ideas and knowledge exchange, working to develop a series of papers, and seminars drawing together different disciplines, and topics across both East Asia and Europe. A wide range of issues is addressed, including social security reform, the links between macroeconomic and social policy, labor market policies, gender relations, and cross-border migration. While the information is drawn from European experience, it is applicable to East Asia and other regions, and will be of interest to Asian studies, scholars, and students, interested in social policy formation.

In the first half of 1999, Kyrgyz authorities agreed with the International Development Association (IDA) that a review of Kyrgyz social expenditures, giving particular emphasis to health and education expenditures, would be valuable. This report presents findings from the resulting review undertaken between October 1999 and June 2000. The review team looked not only at these expenditures (including social protection) themselves, but also at their efficiency and effectiveness as a means for achieving Kyrgyz objectives in the social policy arena. The review team first examined medium-term priorities for social policy under sharp resource constraints, then considered feasible strategies for achieving these priorities, and finally looked at their implications for policies, administration, and public expenditures. The report is in 2 volumes. Volume 1 provides an overview of the findings on health, education, and social protection. Volume 2 offers more detailed critiques of expenditures and policies on health and education.

In the first half of 1999, Kyrgyz authorities agreed with the International Development Association (IDA) that a review of Kyrgyz social expenditures, giving particular emphasis to health and education expenditures, would be valuable. This report presents findings from the resulting review undertaken between October 1999 and June 2000. The review team looked not only at these expenditures (including social protection) themselves, but also at their efficiency and effectiveness as a means for achieving Kyrgyz objectives in the social policy arena. The review team first examined medium-term priorities for social policy under sharp resource constraints, then considered feasible strategies for achieving these priorities, and finally looked at their implications for policies, administration, and public expenditures. The report is in 2 volumes. Volume 1 provides an overview of the findings on health, education, and social protection. Volume 2 offers more detailed critiques of expenditures and policies on health and education.

Many developing countries assign local governments increasing responsibilities in fighting poverty. This requires local social policy to go beyond the execution of centrally designed and funded education and health programs. Hence, local governments and their partners have both an opportunity and a need to analyze key local bottlenecks for poverty reduction and social development. Drawing on an example from Cali, Colombia, The author describes a tool for such policy formulation at the local level-a rapid city household survey. Although the survey uses pre-coded and closed- ended questions, it is contextual in the sense that it is tailor-made to social and economic conditions in Cali. The survey places particular emphasis on collecting key quantitative information, such as household welfare and service access, as well as qualitative information, such as service evaluations and population priorities. Combining the quantitative and qualitative data allows, for example, the mapping of population budget priorities or service satisfaction levels by welfare group. Rapid city household surveys could provide an important tool for the development of local social policies.

Over the past two decades, one of the leading areas of welfare state change has been in respect of women’s access and entitlement to a range of social policy programs and benefits. The debates which led to these changes have called into question many of the assumptions which underpin welfare state provision in Australia and have gradually shifted our institutional model of welfare state provision from being one which confers social citizenship on women via a male breadwinner towards a model which addresses social rights on an individual basis. Because the welfare state remains an important element in gender equality strategies, the incomplete nature of changes to the institutional structure of the Australian welfare state has created uncertainty about the basis of social policy and raises a several issues for future social policy development: * the need to consider the implications of adopting an individual rights model; * changing employment conditions which overturn the basis on which the Australian welfare state was premised; and * the possibility of finding alternative pathways - institutional designs - outside the breadwinner/individual dichotomy.; no

This thesis argues that social policy is best seen as an attempt to define and encourage a specific relationship between the citizen and the state. Within this view, the paradigms of welfarism and neoliberalism are seen as attempts to alter this state-citizen relationship. New paradigms can be successful if they can establish legitimacy for a new state-citizen relationship, particularly if the existing relationship is sufficiently plastic to allow change. If a new paradigm falls outside of traditional discourses of legitimate relationship between citizen and state, radical policy change is likely to fail. The methodology of the study fuses techniques of institutional analysis and discourse analysis. Institutional analysis is used to show how social policy ideas, along with their preferred practices of citizenship, are formed and articulated across the various bodies which influence policy in both the domestic and international arena. Discourse analysis and ‘governmentality’ studies are used to show how new policy paradigms are constructed as being consistent with traditional state-citizen relationships, in order to create space to accommodate radical policy change. Sweden, France and Britain are used as case studies to illustrate the effect of the state-citizen relationship on social policy change. Each of these countries developed a unique tradition of state-citizen relations over many centuries of political struggle...

This thesis aims to analyse how three different instruments of European social policy with different convergence capacity have been implemented in one member state (Portugal) and try to understand the factors that explain the different degrees of change in domestic policies in response to European pressures. The subject of this dissertation emerged from a paradox: Portugal reveals a noticeable capacity to incorporate pressures from European social policies soft mechanisms, but at the same time shows a consistent pattern of bad compliance when it comes to hard-law instruments. This pattern of asymmetrical compliance creates an appropriate setting to understand how on one hand the Europeanization process affects domestic policies, and on the other, which factors explain the variation in the levels of policy change from one sub-field of social policy to another via policy instruments with different convergence capacities. I claim that the reasons for compliance with Europe should be sought in domestic factors, namely in the combination of a conducive context created by a strong European legacy in domestic policies with the convergence between the European pressure and the domestic policy agenda in policy arenas whose characteristics facilitate policy change. I make the case that there is no dualism between a politicisation and a socialisation approach. In fact...

The objectives of the Uruguay Nonlending Technical Assistance Project (UY NLTA) were to: (i) evaluate the impact of providing a safety net program's (PANES's) social emergency programs; (ii) inform a dialogue about the future role of social programs and of MIDES as a lead authority responsible for the coordination and oversight of social policy in Uruguay; and (iii) strengthen Ministry of Social Development's (MIDES's) capacity to assess, monitor, and evaluate social policy in Uruguay, with considerable weight given to participatory approaches to monitoring and evaluation. Expected outcomes of the project included: (a) increased efficiency in the implementation of Uruguay's social programs through the consolidation of existing and dispersed databases and the strengthening of MIDES's Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) system; (b) increased transparency and strengthened accountability in selected departments through the piloting of a participatory monitoring and evaluation (PM&E) approach; (c) stronger engagement of civil society in public sector reform in Uruguay; and (d) informed decisions about the future of social programs under the Plan Nacional de Equidad...

This series "New Frontiers of Social Policy" aims to promote social development through systematic attention to the underlying social context and the social outcomes of development interventions and public policy. This book series has been conceived and produced for the broader development community, rather than for social policy specialists alone. This book is particularly, although not exclusively, relevant to those concerned with the one-third of the world's population that still depends on the informal economy for its livelihood. By making the case for an asset-based social policy, it moves well beyond social welfare palliatives for needy households toward public actions that give people the means and opportunities to accumulate assets and have greater control over their livelihoods. To be successful, an asset-based social policy needs to address several challenges, initial inequality, informality, imbalance in asset building opportunity, and inadequate state effectiveness, endemic in many developing countries.

The experience of the 1990s suggests that economic growth has been - and will continue to be - a key feature of El Salvador's accomplishments in reducing poverty. This means that there will be high returns for poverty reduction when the Government of El Salvador takes the necessary measure to reinvigorate economic growth in the 2000s - through policies and investments that: (1) increase education levels of the population, (2) develop the country's economic infrastructure, (3) foster greater technology adoption and local innovation, and (4) improve the investment climate (including making efforts to reduce violence and increase the rule of law). The fact that many of the poorest, most vulnerable Salvadorans have been unable to take advantage of recent growth suggests, however, that it will be increasingly important for El Salvador to put in place a coherent set of policies and investments to ensure that the poor can share in and benefit from future economic progress. To build effectively on past achievements, it will thus be important for El Salvador to craft a national social policy that builds on recent accomplishments to strengthen the human capital of all Salvadorans, and strengthens people's access to markets and basic services. For many of the remaining poor...

The Uruguay Non-lending Technical Assistance (UY NLTA) for Uruguay was undertaken at the request of the Government of Uruguay's Ministry of Social Development (MIDES). Following a devastating financial and macroeconomic crisis in 2002, MIDES was established with a view to coordinating social programs and providing a safety net program for Uruguayans affected by the crisis: the National Assistance Plan of Social Emergency (PANES), which was established in 2005. The objectives of the UY NLTA are to: (i) evaluate the impact of PANES social emergency programs; (ii) inform a dialogue about the future role of social emergency programs and of MIDES as the lead authority responsible for the coordination and oversight of social policy in Uruguay, and (iii) strengthen MIDES capacity to assess, monitor and evaluate social policy in Uruguay, with considerable weight on participatory approaches to monitoring and evaluation.

Ce mémoire analyse trois réformes majeures de politique sociale en Turquie, en deux domaines: emploi et sécurité social. En utilisant l'approche "Usage de l'Europe", ce mémoire developpe une analyse empirique et apporte une explication théorique de ces changements qui ont été introduits au cours du processus d'adhésion de la Turquie à l'Union européenne. "Les usages de l'Europe" est une approche d'européanisation qui se concentre sur le rôle des acteurs domestiques, au sein des États membres et candidats, ainsi que de leur utilisation des ressources de l'Union européenne. Les études de cas utilisées dans cette thèse démontrent l'introduction de changements au niveau de l'État-providence; ainsi, l'approche originelle est suppléée par des concepts provenant de la littérature sur la politique partisane, les institutions formelles et l'héritage des politiques. Cette recherche utilise la méthode de l'analyse de processus pour suivre la réforme des règlements du travail par la voie de reconstitution des droits individuels des travailleurs et de l'Agence d'emploi en Turquie jusqu'en 2003, ainsi que la transformation du système de sécurité sociale en 2008. Ces trois réformes représentent des changements majeurs tant sur le plan institutionnel que politique en Turquie depuis 2001. Afin de comprendre "les usages de l'Europe" dans ces réformes politiques...

The World Bank Report 2012 starts with this statement: “Gender equality matters in itself andit matters for development because, in today’s globalized worlds, countries that use the skillsand talents of their women would have an advantage over those which do not use it.” With theframe that suggest that gender equality matters, this paper describes some policy alternativesoriented to overcome gender disadvantages in the formal labor market incorporation of theurban middle class women in Colombia. On balance, the final recommendation suggest that itis desirable to adopt policy alternatives as Community Centers, which are programs orientedto a social redistribution of the domestic work as a way to encourage women participationin the formal labor market with the social support of the members of their own community.The problem that the social policy needs to address is the segregation of women in the formallabor market in Colombia. Although the evidence shows that the women overcome theeducational gap by showing better performance in education that their male peers, womenare still segregated of the labor market. The persistence of high rates of unemployment on thefemale population, the prevalence of the informal labor market as a women labor market...

The present work addresses the State and Social Policy and has as objective investigate how social policy can be considered a form of control of the social-metabolic capital through the activity of the state. To do so, based on the Marxian analysis of the ontological foundations of the state, conducting a study of the socio-historical emergence of the state and its social function as well as the development of the modern state - as the typical capitalism - form of state and its different forms of action, and how nature has to perform its social function. In this direction, performs an analysis on the order of reproduction of capital and the role of the state as a political command structure aimed at defending the interests of capital, complementing it so essential for the maintenance of order socio-metabolic. It also addresses the "social question" and its main dimensions to understand how they originate and develop social policies - as a form of state action in response to their expressions. So, doing a historical restoration of proto-forms of social policies, we seek to capture its ontological foundations, analyzing the process of consolidation during the period of monopolistic capitalism - its highest expression the "Welfare State" - and its social function in the system s social-metabolic capital. It also examines the nature of capital's structural crisis and its determinations...

http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1414-49802007000100004Este texto tem por objetivo analisar a natureza e as principais características da política social do governo Lula, evidenciando a sua estreita relação com a política econômica liberal-ortodoxa legada do governo anterior como uma 'herança maldita', mas mantida e aprofundada pelo novo governo. Portanto, mais do que esmiuçar todos os detalhes e dimensões dessa política social, o objetivo é o de apreender o seu conteúdo e significado político-econômico maior, a partir daquilo que lhe é central e que a define politicamente, inclusive em termos simbólicos, qual seja: o programa focalizado de combate à pobreza denominado Bolsa Família.; The purpose of this article is to analyze the nature and principal characteristics of the Lula government's social policy, revealing its close relationship with the liberal-orthodox economic policy inherited from the previous government as a 'cursed legacy', but maintained and extended by the new government. Therefore, more than reviewing all the details and dimensions of this social policy, the purpose is to analyze its content and broader political-economic meaning, considering its central and politically defining element, even in symbolic terms: the Family Grant program to combat poverty.

  This article seeks to analyze the extreme difficulty of adapting social policy to the current form of capitalism. It aims to stimulate a broad discussion about what can be done in the sphere of social policy, beyond compensatory and marginal programs. It is based on the idea that capitulation does not make sense, because it is a position typical of one who studies, but does not suffer from poverty. It also highlights the formidable barriers to attempts at redistributive and emancipatory social policy. It maintains that some Marxist concepts are essential for an understanding of the current capitalist situation, such as surplus value in relation to the abstract character of commodities.;   Neste texto procura-se fundamentar a dificuldade extrema de compatibilizar política social com o atual capitalismo, numa abordagem ampla destinada a fomentar a discussão em torno do que poderia ser feito na esfera da política social, mas que não seja apenas compensatório e residual. Parte-se da idéia de que capitular não faz sentido, porque seria uma postura típica de quem estuda, não sofre pobreza, mas, no outro lado, cabe vislumbrar os empecilhos formidáveis que atalham as tentativas de política social redistributiva e emancipatória. Em grande parte...