Abstract Regarding refugees’ social protection studies in social policy and migration, research emphasises the importance of different local framework conditions as well as individual strategies of refugees. While the debates in these disciplines have so far been largely separate, this article sheds light on the interplay between strategies and local framework conditions in the context of flight. Based on qualitative interviews with refugees and local actors in twelve municipalities in Germany, we illustrate the practices of refugees in accessing and utilising social rights and services against the backdrop of fragmented local worlds. The municipalities analysed differ in terms of local policies, migration-related narratives and space. Firstly, we show that refugees pursue diverse strategies of access and participation in education, healthcare and the labour market, which are initially independent of municipal framework conditions. Secondly, we illustrate the extent to which these strategies are associated with different consequences for access to and utilisation of educational, healthcare and employment opportunities for refugees depending on local conditions. Based on our findings, we argue that social protection of refugees must be understood as an interplay between local conditions and individual practices.
Abstract This paper examines what happens to performance when public services transition to social enterprises that combine a public social value focus with private commercial revenue generation. We focus on England’s health and social care sector, which has seen the transition or ‘spin-out’ of some government-run services into social enterprises with the goal of combining high-quality services with a business focus that would allow them to be more efficient, flexible and innovative. Drawing on 2017 English Care Quality Commission (CQC) data, we use ordered logit multi-variate regression to compare quality ratings of government-run providers and social enterprise Community Interest Companies (CICs) while differentiating spin-out and non-spin-out CICs. Our study shows that services spun out into social enterprise CICs did better overall across all CQC quality ratings than government-run services; however, they did not perform as well as independently established CICs. We draw on and contribute to publicness theory to explain divergent performance across these organisational models and provide important information for policymakers deciding where to direct limited public funds for health and social care.
Abstract This paper explores recipients’ and professionals’ attitudes towards the Basic Income for Care Leavers in Wales pilot. Qualitative interviews were conducted with forty-one professionals and forty-four basic income recipients in the first year of the scheme (2022/2023). The findings are situated within Van Oorshot’s CARIN framework that aids analysis of attitudes towards the ‘deservingness’ of others. The findings indicate that there was an almost unified agreement among these participants that care leavers deserve additional support but much less agreement on whether the basic income pilot is the right way to provide this support. The findings are situated in a context where strong views have been expressed by a small number of politicians and media outlets who question the deservingness more overtly, especially when considering former unaccompanied child asylum seekers. Meanwhile, the Welsh Government, which implemented the pilot, emphasises the state’s obligations to this population and the opportunities that a basic income might facilitate. Implications of the findings relate to how future basic income schemes are justified to the public, recipients and those administering the scheme at a local level.
Recent governments, both in the UK and internationally, have increasingly used their power to attempt to alter the behaviour of people in receipt of social security benefits. This can be seen in the case of the UK's benefit cap, a policy introduced with the specific goal of changing behaviour by capping social security support at the household level. Alongside promoting transitions into employment, there was also a focus on encouraging households to move to cheaper accommodation, something which was portrayed as achievable by those defending the policy. Drawing on case studies from qualitative longitudinal research with parents affected by the benefit cap, this article demonstrates that individuals are, in fact, relatively powerless to change their housing situations, which are routinely already overcrowded and of poor quality, even where rents are very high. Instead, affected households experience state-imposed hardship. We problematise both the cap itself and the governmental narrative that knowingly ascribes social security recipients with a power they do not have.
Italy's active labour market policy (ALMP) regime is marked by a paradox: despite limited investment in training, job placement services, and direct job creation, the country allocates above-average resources to employment subsidies. While this subsidy-heavy approach is often explained by the structure of Italy's low-skill, low-productivity economy, this article proposes a complementary explanation grounded in political economy. We argue that the dominance of employment subsidies reflects the influence of a powerful discourse promoted by business interests, which frames excessive labour costs as the core challenge of the Italian labour market. This narrative has steered policy decisions towards cost-reduction strategies, crowding out more transformative measures aimed at human capital development. To unpack these dynamics, we employ a mixed-method research design combining qualitative and quantitative text analysis. We map stakeholder narratives in national media using Natural Language Processing techniques (BERTopic) and analyse parliamentary debates to identify ideational drivers. Our findings reveal how business-driven narratives have driven policy preferences towards employment subsidies. The article makes three main contributions. First, it situates employment subsidies within Italian ALMP. Second, it demonstrates how ideas structure labour market interventions. Third, it introduces an innovative methodological approach that integrates computational text analysis with traditional qualitative methods.
Despite a UK policy focus on extending working lives and delaying retirement, the number of workers aged fifty-plus in the workforce has declined post-Covid. The reasons for this decline are not entirely clear. Based on face-to-face interviews with fifty-four UK workers age sixty-plus, this study highlights the important role subjective financial wellbeing plays in the decision-making process regarding retirement timing. Findings show that the current UK state pension age is rarely seen as the ideal retirement age. Notably, the study reveals that mortgage redemption significantly enhances subjective financial wellbeing amongst mid-later life workers. However, prioritising mortgage redemption can lead to pensions being cashed in early and could ultimately lead to poorer long-term financial outcomes. Accessing pensions before retirement is viewed as a way of reducing the risks of income pressures prior to receipt of state pension, and of facilitating phased retirement. The study also highlights the relative and context-dependent nature of how individuals assess their financial situation and overall financial wellbeing as they age.
Using an original representative survey of 3,179 participants, we study the determinants of support for reintroducing inheritance taxation in Mexico. Two scenarios are analysed: a universal tax and a progressive tax applied only to inheritances exceeding USD 1 million (purchasing power parity [PPP]). While support for the universal tax is low (13.3 per cent), the progressive tax garners significant backing (41.8 per cent), reflecting a preference for progressivity. Regression and lasso models reveal that perceptions of tax evasion among the wealthy are the strongest predictors of support for the progressive tax. At the same time, trust in government is critical for the universal tax. Contrary to findings in high-income countries, fairness concerns such as the proportion of wealth from inheritance or corruption or reasons for poverty play a limited role in shaping attitudes. These findings provide valuable insights for tax policy design in unequal societies and emphasise the importance of addressing perceptions of compliance.
Unemployment benefits can cushion negative consequences of job loss on subjective well-being by providing both income support and assistance in job search. However, their capacity to mitigate effect of unemployment varies by benefit type. We focus on differences between Germany's unemployment insurance benefit and basic income support. As expected, findings of fixed effects models on transitions from employment to unemployment demonstrate that a loss in life satisfaction is imminent, but more pronounced among recipients of basic income support. Mediation analysis shows that the increase in material deprivation explains a greater proportion of the reduction in life satisfaction than the loss of household income, both for recipients of basic income support and unemployment insurance benefits. The most significant domains of material deprivation are restrictions on the financial security of the household, such as not being able to save or handle unexpected expenses, and fewer means for social activities.
For survivors of domestic violence, public safety net benefits, including housing, food, and cash assistance, are often critical resources in establishing independent, safe lives. Using a reflexive thematic analysis of qualitative data from a local housing programme collected from August 2023 to January 2024, this study explores the intersection of trauma-informed care (TIC) and administrative burden within public safety net programmes for survivors of domestic violence. Findings demonstrate that barriers to accessing and participating in the public safety net, including learning, compliance, and psychological costs, hinder survivors' recovery and stability, and clash with TIC principles. Conversely, TIC-aligned practices at the local housing programme, including strong case management, peer support, and flexible programming, mitigate these challenges. Research and policy implications related to how the integration of TIC principles can ease administrative burden in the public safety net are discussed.
Any experience of childhood poverty affects life chances, but longer exposure is particularly detrimental to education, health, and future earnings. This study examines trends in long-term childhood poverty in Britain. Using a life-course perspective, we tracked poverty from birth to age ten among 1991–2017 birth cohorts. Our findings show that, on average, 17 per cent of children spent at least half of their childhood in poverty. Long-term poverty affected 25 per cent of those born in the early 1990s, markedly declined to 13–14 per cent for cohorts born after the post-1997 welfare reforms, and rose again to 23 per cent for children born following the 2013 austerity reforms. These trends are driven by shifts in the penalties associated with work-family risk factors, rather than by changes in their prevalence. These shifts in penalties reflect broader changes in redistribution and predistribution. The decline in the 1990s was largely due to rising employment and earnings in low-income households, whereas the post-austerity surge stems from reduced redistribution. For cohorts born in the 2000s, social transfers played a substantial role in containing long-term poverty despite worsening predistribution. Overall, the findings show that long-term childhood poverty is a major challenge in Britain and highlight the need to strengthen redistribution and predistribution.
Economic liberalisation and labour market reforms have radically transformed China's socio-economic landscape. Although awareness of disability equality has improved - particularly following the introduction and enforcement of disability quota schemes - existing research has not yet adequately explored the lived experiences of disabled individuals within these frameworks. This deficiency is especially glaring in the context of public-sector employment, which is often considered a more stable and secure option for workers. Using institutional theory and its three-pillar framework from W.R. Scott's Institutions and organizations: Ideas, interests, and identities, this paper aims to fill this research gap by investigating key institutional features of public-sector employment, focusing on bianzhi, pre-employment physical examinations and workplace social dynamics. By doing so, it aims to assess the real-world impact of progressive policies such as disability quotas on disabled workers. Our findings indicate that structural institutional barriers continue to impede and marginalise disabled employees in the public-employment sector, underlining the need for a more robust and collaborative strategy to elevate awareness of disability equality in China.
Young people who are neither in employment nor in education or training (NEET) are at risk of long-term exclusion and poorer wellbeing. Besides individual costs and adverse later life consequences, NEET can impose significant societal costs, making it a major public policy concern and an important indicator of social exclusion. Using high-quality register data on Finnish birth cohorts born between 1987 and 1992, we compared the risk of being NEET at ages 21-27 amongst those born with very low birth weight (VLBW, < 1500 g), low birth weight (LBW, 1500-2499 g) and normal birth weight (NBW). We further studied whether the effects of birth weight on NEET were moderated by parental socioeconomic status (SES), measured as maternal education. To address potential confounding due to unobserved characteristics, we employed Poisson regression with sibling fixed effects. Results indicated that LBW was associated with an increased incidence rate ratio (IRR) of 1.26 (95% CI 1.15-1.38) and VLBW with an IRR of 2.02 (95% CI 1.66-2.40) for NEET status, compared with NBW. The relationship between birth weight and NEET did not vary by parental SES. Findings underline the importance of early health in contributing to the risk of NEET, regardless of parental SES.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, has described the UK economy as being in its worst state since 1945. Unlike the Labour Government of 1945, Reeves has rejected Beveridge-style public investment, in part because of claims of public support for fiscal restraint. We report findings of innovative, iterative mixed-methods survey (1) n = 693; 2) n = 10; 3) n = 2200) analysis of a programme for progressive tax reform designed to achieve comparable post-war outcomes conducted between November 2023 and January 2024 of adult UK residents. We analyse the findings of survey 3 to assess public support for the policy, impact of narratives and associations with demographic, socio-economic and health data. We find high levels of support for tax and spend, particularly where burdens are placed on wealth and business; significant impact of four narratives to persuade initial opponents to support the policy thematically organised around absolute gains, relative gains, security and environmental benefit; and clear associations between risk of destitution and various other socio-economic characteristics, health status and levels of support. We present structural equation modelling (SEM) of these associations and find moderately strong positive correlations with levels of support for key infrastructural policies. This suggests high levels of support for progressive taxation.
