by Citizens' Income Trust | Apr 30, 2011 | Opinion
Ruth Lister, Understanding Theories and Concepts in Social Policy, Policy Press, 2010, xii + 311 pp, hbk 1 861 34794 7, £60, pbk 1 861 34793 0, £19.99.
Not only is this a most useful textbook, but it is also a sustained argument for the usefulness of theory. The back cover says that the book is for students and their teachers, but because it constantly draws connections between social science theory and practical social policy it will also be read with profit by social policy practitioners.
Most of the book’s chapters start with a set of theories or ideologies and then relate them to policy areas. Thus moral hazard and public choice theory inform our understanding of Thatcherism’s quasi-markets; feminism has changed the position of the public-private divide and thus our treatment of domestic violence; post-Fordism has contributed to the change from comprehensive education to niche-marketing academies; Foucault has uncovered the disciplinary networks which now influence many areas of our lives; and the idea of ‘social construction’ tells us where ‘the underclass’ comes from – to mention just a few of the many connections to be found in the book.
Three important chapters then start with social policy concepts – needs, citizenship, community, liberty, equality, and social justice; and these too are related to practical social issues: mental health, the relationship between social security claimants and the state, and press censorship – again, to name just a few.
The structure and method of the book reflects the author’s experience with the Child Poverty Action Group and as a university teacher, and the clarity of expression and organisation of the material have clearly benefited from her teaching experience. The final chapter on social movements similarly reflects Lister’s constant engagement with social policy issues through her involvement in organisations, through her speaking at conferences, and through her articles and books. This chapter would have benefited from a rather more personal approach and perhaps should have included an account of issues she faced while at the Child Poverty Action Group. In general, the last few chapters would have benefited from more practical examples.
This is a marvellously comprehensive and comprehensible textbook. There is bound to be a second edition. It should contain a chapter on future directions in social policy which outlines the options for reform of the welfare state, and in particular extends the material on the argument between universalism and means-testing briefly begun on p.191. The debate over the feasibility and desirability of universal provision will be increasingly important in an age of austerity, and students and practitioners would benefit from an extended treatment of the field.
by Citizens' Income Trust | Apr 30, 2011 | Opinion
Bernd Marin and Eszter Zólyomi (eds), Women’s Work and Pensions: What is Good, What is Best? Designing Gender-Sensitive Arrangements, Ashgate, 2010, 321 pp, pbk 1 4094 0698 3, £35
The chapters of this book started life at a conference organised by the European Centre in Vienna, and it is therefore unsurprising that they contain more about Austria than about any other individual country; but there is still plenty of diversity, and the single country and comparative studies of recent changes in pensions provision contain material on a variety of European countries, including the UK.
Trends identified include: increasing female participation in the labour market, continuing gender-specific employment and caring patterns, population ageing, a transition from defined benefit to defined contribution schemes, increasing numbers of years of earnings being taken into account when pension levels in defined benefit schemes are calculated, and progressive equalisation between women and men of the age at which state retirement pensions become payable. The questions asked could be summed up by ‘Can we create gender-specific and nevertheless fair rules for women and men alike within overall gender-neutral institutional frameworks?’ (p.18)
Annika Sundén, in a chapter on retirement income security, recognises that what is good for women in the long term (e.g., longer formal labour market participation) might not be good for them in the short term – and vice versa (e.g., means-tested benefits, which can be of benefit in the short term, but which create labour market disincentives and thus be detrimental in the longer term). Fornero and Monticone identify the risks inherent in the recent transition from women being largely dependent on men’s accrued pension rights to their increasingly individualised pension entitlements. Ashgar Zaidi et al discuss the surprising fact that the poverty risk for older women is ‘higher in EU15 [the first fifteen European Member States] (23%) than in the new Member States (18%)’ (p.99), and finds that ‘flat rate universal minimum benefits have been … most effective in improving women’s pension incomes’ (p.103). Readers of this Newsletter will be particularly interested in the Dutch residence-based universal state pension discussed in this chapter, especially now that Professor Steven Webb, Minister of State for Pensions, has proposed that the UK should implement a Citizen’s Pension.
Of special interest in the chapters on single country and comparative studies is Gould’s conclusion that partial disability benefits can contribute to labour market participation and thus to income in retirement. Marin’s chapter suggests that ‘women are much less women than men are men – and women are much more different among themselves than they are different from men’ (p.223), meaning that creating the right mix of pension provision is going to be a complex business. The overall message to emerge from this book is that pension provision is generally a highly complex matter, but that lessons can be learnt by studying both the structures and the detail of different countries’ systems, and in particular the effects of those systems on women’s incomes in retirement.
Some of the chapters and a comprehensive annex are packed full of voluminous data: a treasure trove for students, teachers and researchers. (It’s a pity that there is no index, that the chapters aren’t numbered, and that the proofreading is far from perfect.)
Books such as this can sometimes suffer from a lack of coverage of the subject because each of the authors writes about their own very specific speciality. In the case of this book the highly detailed discussion of specific situations enables broad trends to be identified and broad conclusions to be drawn, making it a most useful volume.
