While debate on how best to pay for social care in England continues, information about public attitudes on this issue is limited. We asked representative samples of the public whether care costs for older people should be met by the state, met by the service user or shared between state and user. We used an online survey of people aged 18–75 (n = 3,000) and interview survey of people aged 65 and over (n = 466). Respondents were given four vignettes (two home care, two residential care) and asked who should pay at different levels of user resources; and how much users should contribute when costs were shared. Fewer than one-fifth of the online sample and one-quarter of the interview sample considered that the state should meet the full costs whatever users’ resources; considerably lower proportions believed that users should meet the full costs in all cases. Two-thirds of the online sample and half the interview sample thought costs should be shared. The proportion of costs that users should contribute was relatively low (20–50 per cent, varying by user resources). The study illustrates that public views elicited through vignettes can provide evidence to inform policy on social care funding.

Introduced in the United Kingdom in 2012, Universal Credit (UC) is a welfare benefit that replaces six working-age ‘legacy’ benefits for out-of-work and low-income people. Designed with the aim of simplifying benefits and incentivising paid work, UC represents a deepening of conditionality in the British welfare state. Considering these developments, this paper quantitatively investigates the effect of UC on recipients’ life satisfaction. Data from the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study is analysed, primarily using a fixed-effects regression approach. Results reveal a significantly negative effect of UC recipience on life satisfaction. Robustness checks and alternative model specifications, including difference-in-differences and inverse probability weighting, confirm this finding. Additionally, mediation models give credence to the idea that UC also negatively affects life satisfaction indirectly by increasing psychological distress. Heterogeneity tests indicate that UC has a less negative effect on single parents’ life satisfaction compared to non-parents. Meanwhile, UC has a significantly more negative effect on the life satisfaction of people not in paid work (for reasons other than unemployment) than those in paid work. Discussion focuses on the potential effect of welfare conditionality specifically, and implications for future research and policy are explored.

The increasing presence of for-profit service providers in publicly-funded eldercare has transformed care in Nordic welfare states which have a strong tradition of public care provision. Macro-level research on care policies has mainly focused on public institutions, national policies, and marketization. The financialization of eldercare has not received much scholarly attention, and existing studies mostly focus on the UK. The financialization of eldercare refers to the ways in which care is both a site of profit extraction and financial engineering. The Nordic system is relatively universal, and, with rapidly ageing demographics, there is a secured demand for eldercare services. However, these services have been heavily marketized over the past two decades, opening up lucrative possibilities for financialized actors who have established a stronghold over the markets. We analyse these processes through selected empirical examples from Finland, and argue that the financialization of eldercare in the Nordic context demands attention as we are witnessing a new configuration between the constitutional order of the welfare state, public finances, and private profit which is neither transparent, nor democratic.

In many Western countries local welfare agencies retain large responsibilities in the practical organisation of means-tested support. While this may lead to substantial differences in the application trajectories of prospective claimants, what has garnered little empirical research is how local agencies use their discretion to implement practices that may encourage or discourage take-up. In addition, we know little on the extent to which variation in local implementation is attributable to differences in local conditions. Focusing on Belgium as an interesting case, this article addresses this gap by mapping the variation in local implementation practices in specific aspects of social assistance that are relevant in terms of limiting non-take-up. We assess whether certain local political, socio-demographic or economic characteristics favour implementation practices, using structural equation modelling on custom-collected data on the practical organisation of social assistance application trajectories in 119 Belgian municipalities. The results show that local welfare agencies implement coherent practices regarding information provision, accessibility, trust and the locus of initiative in the claiming process. We find the political orientation of the municipality and the share of foreigners in the municipality to be related with, respectively, shifting the locus of initiative away from the welfare claimant and a focus on information provision.

Informal caregiving for older family members is increasingly recognized and encouraged by public policies. This is even more the case in familialistic countries such as Austria. This article aims to examine the role of the family in the care culture of a familialistic care regime through the experiences of care dyads combining upwards intergenerational family care and formal care services. The analysis is based on framework analysis of 48 face-to-face interviews, almost all conducted separately, with 24 care dyads of older care users (average age 86 years old with moderate to high care needs) and their main informal carers in Austria combining formal and informal care. A quarter of caregivers and care receivers were male. We identified four different ideals (family care, preferences, involvement, gendered care) which were distributed across different groups of Socio-Economic Status (SES) and described by women and men.

Paperwork has always been a central part of bureaucratic work. Over the last few years, bureaucratic procedures have become increasingly standardised and digitalised. Based on interviews and ethnographic fieldwork within welfare offices in Switzerland and Belgium, we reflect on the way evidence is constructed within social policy and cases built for or against noncitizen welfare recipients in order to show how paper truths are established and challenged. The focus on digital practices within public policy implementation highlights how it contributes to enhanced control mechanisms on the implementation level and how migration law continues to guide welfare governance for noncitizens. This allows targeting of the most marginalised groups, whose rights to access state support are institutionally impeded. Through database information flows, official forms, paper reports and face-to-face meetings, we further show how a hybrid form of bureaucratic work emerges, where direct contact with the client is still key, yet highly influenced by standardisation processes.

The marketisation of European home care has given rise to significant private for-profit providers growth. However, little research has focused directly on commercial companies to examine the mechanisms through which they emerge, grow and shape long-term care policy – this is this paper’s task. Drawing on the literature on business power, the recent concept of “institutional business power” is introduced, defined as the power flowing from the entrenched position of business actors in the provision of public social services. The paper identifies the mechanisms through which private providers have grown and assesses the extent of their institutional power by examining their influence on policy and the support they obtain from relevant home care stakeholders. The limits of providers’ institutional power are also discussed. The paper relies on semi-structured interviews with representatives of public, private and non-profit home care providers.

This article investigates the impact of NPM reforms on two prominent welfare state professions; medical doctors and teachers. The case study context is Sweden, where the impact of NPM led to a series of reforms in health care and education after 1990. The focus in the paper is on professional autonomy, which can be seen as a core trait in professional work. The findings in the article point to both medical doctors and teachers having lost professional autonomy as a result of NPM-reforms, particularly with regards to the dimensions of work organization and evaluation. Autonomy in individual decision-making seems to have been least affected, even if there are indications of this being infringed upon as well. Despite these broad similarities, the loss of autonomy is found to be more pronounced in the case of teachers. One reason behind this difference, which manifests itself in teachers having become subject to higher level of direct administrative control by school managers while at the same time experiencing a more distinct loss of autonomy to evaluate their work, appears to be that medical doctors have been more successful in establishing themselves as experts in relation to new public audit agencies.

Employment subsidies are important active labour market policy (ALMP) tools, suited to a variety of labour market challenges. This paper engages with recent ALMP categorisation debates by appraising Cronert’s (2019) recent typology of employment subsidies. It uses empirical material to assess the typology’s explanatory power and produce insights to inform further typological development. The illustrative case of the British ‘Wage Incentive’ (2012-2014) is used to assess the typology’s analytical purchase. Cronert’s typology helpfully identifies key distinctions in the distributional profiles of employment subsidies, but further understanding of the category is impeded by the practice of defining them as demand-side interventions. The paper argues for a reappraisal of their supply-side characteristics, maintaining that the (potential) worker should be included in the analysis, and that employment subsidies’ relationship with training and job creation should be acknowledged. It proposes a redefinition of employment subsidies reflecting their real-world use, and suggests a framework for further exploring varieties of employment subsidy design from the perspective of beneficiaries.

Trans people1 – those whose gender identity does not match that assigned to them at birth – are at considerably elevated risk of homelessness, reflecting their marginalized legal, bureaucratic and socio-economic status2. Recent substantial international expansion to the medico-legal rights afforded them operates in tension with cisnormative welfare structures. Based upon a Critical Discourse Analysis of interviews with 35 trans people with experience of homeless in Wales, UK, alongside 12 workers in the system, I argue that anti-discrimination legislation is insufficient in its current form to prevent discrimination against trans people. I suggest that, without addressing deeper structural cisnormativity, service provision for trans people experiencing homelessness and other forms of social marginalisation will remain inadequate. This argument rests upon the following findings. (1) Failing to consider exclusion at a structural level leads to system-gaps and misunderstandings, producing poor service experiences. (2) The specific needs of trans applicants are under considered in system planning, reducing scope for meaningful homelessness interventions. (3) An equalities approach can produce a reductive and potentially pathologizing focus upon trans identity, diverting from specific individual needs. I conclude that provision of inclusive services necessitates consideration of the impact of deep cisnormative assumptions in service design and delivery, and their resultant exclusion of trans people.

The role of street-level bureaucracy in social policy has been taken up by two relatively distinct streams of research, based on Lipsky’s foundational work (2010). One group of literature has focused on the organizational working conditions, practices and coping mechanisms of street-level bureaucrats, their impact on the implementation of political programs and reforms, and the scope for discretion in the face of political pressures and institutional demands (Brodkin and Marston, 2013; Jessen and Tufte, 2014; Breit et al., 2016; Van Berkel et al., 2017; van Berkel, 2020). Starting from a focus on interaction with clients and the direct impact of discretionary decisions ‘on people’s lives’ (Lipsky, 2010, 8), a second group of studies has focused more on differences in allocation of benefits caused by perceived ‘deservingness’ and discrimination among street-level bureaucrats (Altreiter and Leibetseder, 2014; Terum et al., 2018; Jilke and Tummers, 2018).

Policymakers are liable to ‘treasure what is measured’ and overlook phenomena that are not. In an era of increased reliance on administrative data, existing policies also often determine what is measured in the first place. We explore this two-way interaction between measurement and policy in the context of the investment incomes and capital gains that are missing from the UK’s official income statistics. We show that these ‘missing incomes’ change the established picture of economic inequality over the past decade, revealing rising top income shares during the period of austerity. The underestimation of these forms of income in official statistics has hidden the impact of tax policies that disproportionately benefit the wealthiest. We urge a renewed focus on how policy affects and is affected by measurement.

Outcomes Based Commissioning (OBC) – for example, Pay for Success (in the US) or Payment by Results (in the UK) – has been suggested as a way to provide ‘more’ social services for ‘less’ public resources. Such commissioning is often linked with an innovative financing tool called a Social Impact Bond (SIB). Using data from the Social Finance UK Database and focusing on SIBs in the US and UK, we evaluate whether the SIB approach aligns with the theoretical predictions of social innovation. The results provide limited evidence that SIBs facilitate capital injections from the private sector into the production of social goods as well as facilitate parts of the process of social innovation – namely, piloting and scaling. We conclude that there is significant variation, both between the US and UK and within the US, in social innovation ecosystems and the role played by SIBs.

Within the welfare deservingness literature, the question of how people conceive of deservingness criteria is still underexplored. Theoretical insights indicate that identity and reciprocity criteria are more fluidly conceived by people than much deservingness literature describes. Through a qualitative analysis, I explore how Chinese people evaluate the deservingness of a group of Chinese nationals (identity) who contribute (reciprocity) but are excluded from welfare: intranational Chinese migrants. I find that Chinese people have multiple conceptions of identity and reciprocity criteria. Some conceive of identity through larger communities, such as the nation, while others conceive of it through local communities, such as the family. Reciprocity can be conceived of in a less conditional way, which means that contributions generally make one deserving, and in a more conditional way, where one’s deservingness depends on one’s ability to make more specific kinds of contributions. Welfare recipients’ deservingness becomes very dependent on respondents’ conceptions of these deservingness criteria.

Since the 1980s, “personalisation” is at the centre of the evolution of disability policies and more generally of the Welfare state. It refers on one hand to the question of self-determination through the allocation of personalised budgets, and on the other to the adaptation of care to the specificities of a given person, through the development of “person-centred” care. In this article we study the issue of the personalisation of care from a point of view intermediate to these two dimensions, that of the transformation of social care organisations. Using the example of care provided to people with multiple impairments in France, we analyse how new social care organisations have addressed the diversity and specificity of the needs of these people. This analysis thus proposes a new way to think about the personalisation of policy responses implemented by the welfare state.

Changes in the labour market, high rates of working age poverty, major welfare reforms and more recently the Covid-19 pandemic have drawn renewed attention to income security. Existing research has identified the important role of relational support in helping people cope with low income, but less is known about the role of support for those coping with the potentially destabilising effects of income change which can affect people over relatively short periods of time. This article focuses on how relational coping strategies are utilised by those experiencing such income change. The data are drawn from a qualitative longitudinal study of the experience of income change and insecurity in 15 low-income households in the UK which included repeated in-depth interviews and weekly financial diaries completed in periods of up to five months. The article explores the relational strategies adopted by participants to ‘get by’ as well as examining how strategies are adopted by those on different levels of low income and with differing networks. The article argues that these strategies illuminate the importance of income change in the experience of low-income households, develop the concept of income insecurity, and provide lessons for policy in providing flexible and responsive support when income changes.

Non-take-up, i.e. individuals not applying for a benefit they are eligible for, is a widespread problem limiting the reach of welfare and protection systems. This paper seeks to understand it by means of a theoretical framework comprising two levels of analysis: the claimants’ individual characteristics in relation to the information barriers they face, and the administrative logic and functioning regarding the communications strategy used by public institutions. To test the hypotheses of these two levels of analysis, the paper analyses the B-MINCOME pilot scheme, a cash transfer programme implemented in the city of Barcelona between 2017 and 2019. Findings indicate that, although claimants’ characteristics may play a significant role, the administrative functioning and the communications strategy are fundamental in determining take-up rates. The conclusions briefly address some of the technical and moral concerns raised by non-take-up.

Numerous studies have demonstrated that the provision of early childhood education and childcare services (ECEC) is associated with higher women’s participation in the labor market. However, many questions about the causal relationship between the supply of childcare and patterns of female employment remain open. In an effort to overcome common endogeneity problems, we conducted a conjoint experiment in Switzerland, which enables us to analyze mothers’ employment intentions in different – and even in some hypothetical – contexts. Our results demonstrate that improving the provision of ECEC services does affect mothers’ intentions to engage in paid labor. Nevertheless, mothers comprise a heterogeneous group. As expected, ECEC services’ effects are limited for mothers with comparatively high levels of employment. In contrast, mothers with low levels of employment are quite reactive to changing policy contexts, especially if external childcare spots for preschoolers become affordable. Notably, elasticity is present not only in the behavior of women with preferences for supplementary, external childcare, but also in that of women with preferences for parental or home-centered childcare. Our study thus highlights childcare policies’ potential to change the patterns of female employment in contexts marked by persistent traditional gender roles and limited childcare provision.