The paper studies class inequalities in health over the ageing process in a comparative perspective. It investigates if health inequalities among the elderly vary between European welfare state regimes, and if this variation is age-dependent. Previous comparative research on health inequalities have largely failed to take age and ageing into account, and have not investigated whether cross-country variation in health inequalities might differ for different age categories. Since the elderly belong to the demographic category most dependent on welfare policies, an ageing perspective is warranted. The study combines fives data rounds (2002 to 2010) from the European Social Survey. Multilevel techniques are used, and the analysis is stratified by age, comparing the 50-64 year olds with those aged 65-80 years. Health is measured by self-assessed general health and disability status. Two results stand out. First, class differences in health are strongly reduced or vanish completely for the 65-80 year olds in the Social democratic welfare states, while they remain stable or are in some cases even intensified in almost all other welfare states. Second, the cross-country variation in health inequalities is much larger for the oldest (aged 65-80 years) than is the case for the 50-64 year olds. It is concluded that welfare policies seem to influence the magnitude of health inequalities, and that the importance of welfare state context is greater for the elderly, who are more fragile and more reliant on welfare policies such as public pensions and elderly care.

Thesis (M.A.)--Carleton University, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 114-117). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (doctoral)--Göteborg, 2003.

Thesis (doctoral)--Göteborg, 2003.

Placing politics in time can greatly enrich our understanding of complex social dynamics. The question this thesis tries to answer is which mechanism led to the change in attitudes of the German Social Democratic Party and the British Labour Party towards the welfare state during the period from 1990 to 2010 and which effects in consequence these changes had on the existing welfare states. This thesis builds on the welfare state categorization work done by the Danish sociologist Gosta Esping-Andersen ("Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism"). However, the thesis focuses its in- depth analysis on Germany and the United Kingdom as prototypical conservative and liberal states. The heuristic text analysis, as well as the discourse analysis of party leader speeches, party manifestos and programmes, as well as the conducted expert interviews reveal that social, political, technological and economic changes during the given time period radically challenged and changed the norms and values of the welfare providers and with it the given welfare state, as well as the meaning, function and value of work. While many may argue that it was mainly the neo-liberal political and economic style that changed the attitude towards the welfare state, it was in fact just the trigger for a radical change in the interpretation of the basic social democratic values of freedom, justice and solidarity. This change made significant welfare state reforms inevitable and only with further changes can a balance and satisfaction within the welfare state system and within all welfare providing sectors (the state, the market, households and the third sector) be achieved. A new balanced social democratic approach for the 21st century is a ‘symmetrical welfare state’ that stands for mirror-image equality.

The purpose of my thesis is to explain the issue of the welfare state's crisis. To describe its current situation and impacts in modern world of capitalism. I have chosen France as a case study. Social disorders are common and becoming stronger and the sustainability of the social state causes considerable difficulties. In the first part of my thesis I describe the development of the modern welfare state, its basic principals and individual theoretical approaches criticizing the concept. In the second part I illustrate characteristic features of French welfare state: interests groups, primary values of the society and its specifics, situation on labor market, entrepreneurial environment and political progress. The thesis shows that France makes efforts to reform its welfare state. However, suggested solutions are only partial and even deepen social problems in France.

Over the last five decades, a rich literature on the welfare state has developed. Multiple theories and models seek to explain the contemporary welfare state, including structural functionalist, structural-Marxist and Marxist perspectives, culturalist approaches, pluralist analyses, neo-institutionalist theories, power resources theory, Harold Wilensky and Lebeaux’s dual model, Richard Titmuss’s tri-polar model, and Gøsta Esping-Andersen’s tri-polar model, all designed to account for the emergence of and variations among welfare states. However, these theories and models originated within the developed world, and empirical examinations of these theories are largely restricted within this part of the world. The welfare state literature is too confined to the West today. This study examines key welfare state theories and models in the contexts of developing and least developed nations employing a combination of quantitative, qualitative, and comparative methodologies. It suggests that social policies and programs in the developing nations can be systematically understood in the light of mainstream Western theories and models of the welfare state. Therefore, in addition to challenging current practices that limit the study of the welfare state within particular geographical areas, the research presented here provides rationale for increased efforts to understand welfare policies and programs in developing nations. This will increase our knowledge about the applicability of theories in the developing world and will enrich the understanding of the developed world, and thus contribute to the advancement of welfare state scholarship. / February 2016

The work examines the prospects of the welfare state in the light of globalization on the basis of literature. It seeks to outline the development of the welfare state and its future in the form of a global world. This similarity implies specific issues. These issues include the question of solidarity, subsidiarity and justice. The first chapter deals with terms, history and typology of the welfare state. The second chapter deals with the functions of the welfare state and the interconnection of the Czech welfare state with European Union. The third chapter is devoted to justice, solidarity, subsidiarity and participation, the principles of the welfare state. The fourth chapter discusses the typology of welfare state according to Spieker. The fifth chapter outlines the perspective of the welfare state in terms of modernization, prosperity and future. The sixth chapter is devoted to global welfare state. By combining all the chapters, we created a comprehensive view of the prospects of the welfare state in the light of globalization.

This master’s thesis examines the motives behind the establishment of the child and adolescent psychiatry in Sweden as a public health institution during the 1940’s and 1950’s. Children’s welfare was an ongoing question during this period of time and a political matter often discussed. The political perspective used in the thesis has managed to illuminate results of a more political nature in relation to previous research which has been focusing more on the medical reasons behind the institution’s development. The results from my analysis show that the development of the child and adolescent psychiatry can be explained through Kathleen Thelen’s models of explanations including an utilitarian-funcionalistic explanation and a cultural-sociological one, explaining that an institution develops both due to more specific problems with the goal to benefit as many as possible. An institution also develops due to a cultural surrounding where it exists commonly known believes about which solutions are the most moral, legitimate or even the only ways to act. My results show that the establishment was founded on a basis of the Swedish welfare society where certain political goals demanded certain political solutions, the establishment of the Swedish child and adolescent psychiatry being one of the solutions. A range ofmotivesthathasbeenuncovered inthestudycanallberelatedtofeaturesoftheSwedish welfare state, such as universalism, social order, centralisation, state control and state tending. In this political landscape the institution child and adolescent psychiatry became a tool for investing in the future, aiming at sustaining certain achievements and to reach certain goals.

In an economically developing world, the process of modernization has been proven to change people’s cultural and political values. Political scientists Ronald Inglehart and Christian Wetzel’s revised theory of modernization shows evidence that people’s political and cultural values move along two dimensions in a predictable pattern. Economic development shift people’s values from traditional and survival toward more secular-rational and self- expressive. This rise in post-material values has unknown effects on people’s mental health. Using Esping-Andersen’s theory on welfare state regimes the aim of this study is to both examine what effect post-material values have on mental health and, furthermore, if this effect plays out differently in different welfare state regimes. This was done using regression analysis based on data from a large number of countries from all over the world. The results of the analysis show that a rise in post-material values is positively correlated with worse mental health. But when welfare state regimes were brought into the model the relationship between post-material values and mental health did not stay the same but varied in its effect across the different regimes. The conservative welfare state regime stood out as the regime in which post-material values generated the worst mental health. On the whole, results indicate that the relationship between post-material values, welfare state regimes and mental health is a very complex relationship that is in need of further examination.