At the beginning of the 21st century the welfare state is under pressure from two sides. On the one hand, there is "globalisation", on the other hand seems to be some sort of normative crisis of the welfare state’s moral foundations. The welfare state is said to curtail individual freedom and autonomy. <br>This article rejects this assumption by exploring the philosophical and moral foundations of the welfare state, thereby demonstrating that it is essentially necessary for individual freedom and autonomy. Furthermore, it is shown that individual freedom is also the core principle of liberal democracy and that the welfare state is therefore an indispensable prerequisite for democracy itself.

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Most LDC regimes, especially those with a colonial past, suffer from a deficit in legitimacy. Basing their rule on the personality and achievements of one person, these regimes have failed to pass on their legitimacy to their successors, or sometimes even secure legitimacy for the state. They have drawn up a social contract with their populations that entailed obligations to achieve objectives such as industrialisation, national and economic independence, and welfare of their societies. In return, their populations were expected to support their regimes, and surrender their political rights and liberties. In this research, we focus on the social contract in Egypt, as an example of an LDC state where the regime has suffered from a lack of legitimacy since the country gained its independence in 1952. Over the last five decades, Egyptian regimes have forged a social contract with their populations in order to legitimise their rule. The social contract encompassed achieving objectives adopted by the regime on the domestic and international level according to their visions. The formula of the social contract has been modified by the regime in response to changes in domestic and international factors. One of the main obligations that the regime has committed itself to since 1952 has been welfare provision by the state. The commitment of the regime to provide welfare for the population has been an effective tool to generate legitimacy. Thus, the maintenance of a 'welfare state' has constituted a central component of the social contract since 1952. However, a social contract based on welfare provision has not been durable; this type of contract has secured the regime legitimacy only as long as it has been able to deliver welfare products. As industrialisation failed to take off, Egyptian regimes found it difficult to sustain the welfare state. Their attempts to withdraw from welfare provision, without compromising their legitimacy, have been unsuccessful. This is because the regime has marketed welfare provision by the state as a right of the public based on citizenship; the populace has proved resilient in defending this right. Hence, the regime had to rely upon aid and or external borrowing to postpone the crisis; and modify the social contract by introducing some measures of political liberalisation.

Thesis advisor: James E. Lubben / The fact that destination countries in contemporary migration are predominantly welfare states marks a distinct departure from historical patterns. While the impact of international migration on the welfare state is highly contested in the literature, the other side of the relationship--the ways in which advanced welfare states influence the incorporation of immigrants--has barely been examined. This study tests the applicability of an extension of the Welfare Regime Theory in the incorporation of foreign-born as compared to natives across 24 European nations clustered in 5 different welfare regimes. Specifically, it explores how much of the variability in self-reported economic and social capital indicators of incorporation is attributable to the nature of the welfare state and to specific theoretical traits associated with different welfare regimes. Results indicate that immigrants fare economically better in countries with comprehensive welfare systems of social protection and that country's amount of social spending has a positive influence in the economic incorporation of foreign-labor. The impact of the welfare state on individuals' economic well-being is higher for the native-born population than for their immigrant counterparts. Generous welfare systems are also beneficial for the social capital formation of immigrant communities. Immigrants residing in countries representative of the Scandinavian regime report higher levels of generalized trust, trust in institutions and frequency of informal social contacts than immigrants residing in countries representative of other welfare regimes. The same pattern is observed for the native-born population. Country's spending in social benefits increases the social trust and frequency of socialization of both groups, although the impact is larger for the native-born population. Country's spending in means-tested social benefits decreases social trust while country's spending in non-means-tested benefits increases it. Native-born individuals report higher levels of generalized trust and socialize more often than equivalent immigrants. However, the level of trust in country's institutions is higher for immigrant than for their native peers. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Social Work. / Discipline: Social Work.

The aim of my thesis is the analysis of changes of the Welfare State and society in Great Britain during Margaret Thatcher's and Tony Blair's premiership. The first part will focus on the analysis of the Welfare State, which preceded Thatcher's premiership in 1945/51--1979. In the second part I will analyse selected changes that PM Thatcher realized during the years 1979--1990. The third part is a basic analysis of the development of the British Welfare State after the electoral victory of the New Labour led by Tony Blair in 1997. Tony Blair governed Britain until 2007. Second and third parts are focused on the economic impact of unemployment policy and access to state ownership in Great Britain. At the end of my work I will briefly compare these two premierships within approach to the Welfare State.

Contrary to popular belief, teenage mothers are a declining proportion of birthing women; however they receive much negative public attention. Of particular public concern is the high cost of supporting teenage mothers, in terms of financial, health and welfare resources. Historically, the typical founding mother of white Australia was single, but post-war changes in the family structure incorporated the expectation that children be born into two-parent households with the male as the breadwinner. Policy changes in the seventies saw the introduction of the Sole Parents Pension which meant that many birthing teenage women could choose to keep their infants rather than have a clandestine adoption or an enforced marriage. The parenting practices of teenage mothers have been criticised for being less than optimal, and mother and child are reported as being disadvantaged cognitively, psychosocially, and educationally. One widespread nursing service which provides support for new mothers in Victoria is the Maternal and Child Health Service; however, teenage mothers appear reluctant to use such services. Why this should be so became an important question for this research, since little is known about the parenting practices of teenage mothers. This study therefore sought to explore mothering from the perspective of five sole supporting teenage mothers each of whom had a child over six months of age. The research methodology took an interpretive ethnographic approach and was guided by feminist principles. The data were collected through repeated interviewing, participant observation, informal discussions with key informants, field notes and journalling. Data analysis was aided by the use of the software, program NUD-IST. It was found that the young women in this study each chose to give birth with full realisation that their existence was dependent on the Welfare State. Unanticipated, however, were the many structural barriers which made their lives cataclysmic, but these reinforced their determination to prove themselves worthy and capable mothers. The young women negotiated motherhood through a range of social supports and through maternal practice. Unquestionably, their social dependency on the welfare system forced them into marginal citizen status. Moreover, absolute and intrinsic poverty levels were experienced, brought about by inadequate welfare payments. Formal support agencies, such as the Maternal and Child Health nurses were rarely approached to provide childrearing support beyond the initial months following birthing, since the teenagers' basic needs such as shelter, food and clothing took precedence over their parenting needs. Additionally, some nurses were perceived to hold judgmental attitudes towards teenage mothers. It was far easier to forestall confrontation with nurses and the other 'older' women clientele by avoiding them. Thus XI they turned to charitable agencies who provided a safety net in the form of emergency supplies of money, food, or equipment. Informal networks of friends provided alternative modes of support when family help failed to materialise. The children, however, provided the young women with an opportunity to transform their lives by breaking free of the past, and by creating a new, mature existence for themselves. Despite being abandoned by family, friends, lovers and society, in the privacy and isolation of their own homes, they attempted to provide a more nurturing environment for their children than they themselves had received. Each bestowed unconditional maternal love on the child and were rewarded through the pleasures of watching their children grow and develop into worthwhile individuals. The children became the focus of their attention and their reason for living. In the course of their welfare dependency, the young women became public property, targets of surveillance, and were subjected to stigmatising and condescending public attitudes wherever they went. In this way, it was evident that they were an oppressed group, but each found ways of resisting. Rather than focussing on their oppressive or disabling lives, or dwelling on their disadvantaged status, the young women sought their identities as mature women through motherhood and by demonstrating that they could do this important job well. Through motherhood their lives had meaning and a sense of purpose. The thesis concludes that motherhood in the teenage years is difficult. However, if appropriate supports are made available, teenage mothers need be no different from non-teenage mothers. But with state resources shrinking, and their own resources limited, teenage mothers are disadvantaged. In some ways, this study showed that all levels of support were inadequate, although those provided through the charitable organizations were seen to be the most appropriate. This reflects the current policy of economic rationalism adopted by most Western liberal democracies in the 1980s and 1990s and no less by the former Keating Labor Government in Australia.

In the early 1970s, the Canadian welfare state began a radical transformation in which Canadians were left with a weaker social safety net in the areas of income supports, social services, and social legislation, a transformation that Canadians are coping with today. This thesis is an investigation of the extent to which Canadians found this transformation in their welfare state desirable. Using the Canadian Election Study from 1965 to 2011, I demonstrate that Canadians underwent an ideological shift within this time frame in which “being Canadian” has acquired connotations of self-reliance through work and the market, a phenomenon I refer to as the individuation of the Canadian citizenry. I conclude that while Canadians may have undergone significant individuation from the 1970s to the present, Canadians are still considerably collective with respect to more inclusive social policy areas such as healthcare and education. / October 2015

This project examines the extent to which industrialized countries’ national social policy orientations (welfare state regimes), which shape social cohesion and inequality, reflect the structure of their healthcare policies and/or population health characteristics. Hierarchical cluster analysis is used with data from 17 OECD countries in order to assess inductively the extent to which established welfare state regime groupings emerge when a wide range of population health and health policy measures are analyzed. Overall findings are that welfare state regime typologies are evident when child health measures are used, but not when other measures of population health (adult health measures, chronic and infectious diseases) or health policy measures are applied. This has implications for emerging work within the population health field that has used child health measures to argue that welfare state regime orientations have direct impacts on population health in general. Results also question the extensive reliance on infant mortality rates as a summary of national population health. Finally, results cast doubt on the assumption that welfare state regime types share parallel healthcare policy structures and orientations. Rather, it appears that different historical, political and popular pressures, which result from specific historical events, have driven policy areas in different directions within national welfare states. A more detailed model of population health, welfare states and health-specific policies is developed to guide future research.