Japan and South Korea have expanded marriage-related housing policies amid dwindling marriages and childbirths. To examine the extent to which these policies are arranged to support marriage, this article adopts the capabilities approach and identifies key dimensions of housing policy that affect individuals’ capabilities to marry. Despite some merits, the cross-national comparison reveals that they fall short of enhancing individuals’ marriage capabilities. This article highlights that these policies have limited accessibility due to a strict age limit in Japan and more complex legal marital, parental, and economic requirements in South Korea. Regarding direct housing provision, this article finds that stocks in Japan are old – far beyond the average lifespan of residential buildings – and those in South Korea are small and offer inadequate living conditions. Regarding financial assistance, this article underlines the unreliability of direct cash transfers in Japan and low mortgage limits relative to actual housing prices in South Korea.
Abstract This study conducts a systematic review and meta-analysis to evaluate the impact of Pakistan’s Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), the country’s largest unconditional cash transfer initiative, on poverty reduction and women’s empowerment. Using robust variance estimation (RVE) meta-analysis to account for effect-size dependencies and heterogeneity, the study synthesises quantitative evidence from evaluations of BISP. The findings show a modest but statistically significant positive effect on poverty alleviation. In contrast, there is no statistically significant evidence that BISP improves women’s empowerment, although individual studies report some gains in mobility and decision-making. High heterogeneity across studies indicates substantial variation in outcomes across contexts and measures. The findings highlight the limitations of relatively low-value cash transfers in generating transformative improvements in poverty and women’s empowerment. They suggest that complementary interventions and broader structural reforms may be necessary for cash transfers to produce more substantial and sustained improvements in household welfare and women’s agency.
Taiwan exhibits characteristics of a productivist welfare regime, where social policies prioritise economic development over social protection. Disability employment policy traditionally focused on a person’s employability rather than modifying work environments. This article examines how reasonable accommodation for employees with intellectual disabilities is implemented in Taiwan in the absence of legal mandates. Analysis of interviews with people with intellectual disabilities, employers, and employment service providers examined practical strategies they used to facilitate accommodation. The findings were that reasonable accommodation was mostly ad hoc, low cost, and dependent on employers’ discretion. Workers were often unaware of their rights and seldom self-advocated. Accommodation was only provided when it did not disrupt productivity, with little attention to long-term inclusion or career development. Without stronger legal mandates, reasonable accommodation risks remaining a managerial favour. Moving toward a developmentalist model that combines binding obligations with supportive measures would enhance inclusion and align employment policy with UN principles.
Recent research has substantially advanced our understanding of individual preferences towards Universal Basic Income (UBI), yet comparatively little is known about the structural and macroeconomic factors shaping their political translation. This article addresses this gap by examining Catalonia, Spain. Using previously unexplored statistical data, it shows that economically precarious individuals express the strongest support for UBI. Yet, as outsiders of a dualised labour market and losers from a highly contributory welfare system, they constitute a political precariat whose marginal position limits their influence within parties and unions, and among other key political actors. Framing these dynamics within a broader political economy perspective, we argue that understanding individual preferences alone is insufficient: structural barriers rooted in economic and labour-market institutions condition the extent to which widespread support can translate into political mobilisation and the formation of socio-political coalitions advocating for UBI.
Abstract The introduction to the themed section on ‘Labour in Government and Its Impact on Social Policy’ is setting the scene for the following articles in three steps: First, it sketches the social policy landscape at the start of the Labour Party’s current term in government, shaped by New Labour and the following years of Conservative (and Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition) rule. Secondly, to contextualise the broader political backdrop for the different policy areas that are analysed in the themed section, we highlight the tensions between the large scale of social policy challenges faced by the government on the one hand, and the relatively modest ambitions of the Labour Party, due to its self-imposed restrictions around fiscal policy and its political positioning, on the other. Thirdly, the introduction presents the rationale for a collection of analyses of the Labour government’s social policy orientations and impacts after 12 months in office, underlining its relevance and usefulness as a state-of-art resource for academics, practitioners and students. Finally, we summarise the focus and key insights from the articles in the themed section, before presenting a range of cross-cutting considerations that run across the diverse social policy areas.
