Inequality Social Protection And Social Justice

This thought-provoking book examines the role of social protection in reducing inequality and enhancing social justice. It assesses social protection’s impact on inequality in different parts of the world and shows that if carefully designed, adequately funded and effectively implemented, it can make a significant contribution to reducing income, gender and other forms of inequality. In this way, it can promote egalitarian ideals and enhance social justice.

The heterogeneity of social structures and cultural identities in many developing countries, together with traditional hierarchies, rivalries, and deep-seated biases, has perpetuated inequities. Inclusive States: Social Policy and Structural Inequalities examines the role of the state and society in addressing structural inequalities and identifies a set of policy recommendations to redress them. This book defines structural inequality as a condition arising from unequal status attributed to a category of people in relation to others, a relationship perpetuated and reinforced by unequal relations in roles, functions, decision rights, and opportunities. Inclusive states are those that direct policies to address the needs of all, that respect the rights of citizens to exercise voice and influence on which services are provided and how they are delivered, and that have an interest in strengthening the social contract with their citizens. A central focus of policy remains a concern for equity, both to level the playing field to encourage social mobility and to ensure equity in the distributional effects of policy reforms and development interventions. This book highlights two key challenges for social policy. First, policy design needs to take into account the weaknesses of basic state functions in many developing countries, since these have important ramifications for social policy outcomes. Second, in most developing countries social structures marked by historically rooted structural inequalities pose significant challenges to the provision of services and require a long-term commitment to address underlying questions and problems. This book describes some of the challenges found in different contexts and some of the ways in which these challenges can be and are being addressed. This book is part of a new series, New Frontiers in Social Policy, which examines issues and approaches to extend the boundaries of social policy beyond conventional social services toward policies and institutions that improve equality of opportunity and social justice in developing countries. Other forthcoming titles in the series include Assets, Livelihoods, and Social Policy, and Institutional Pathways to Equity: Addressing Inequality Traps.

A Financial Times Best Book of the Year A hardheaded book that confronts and outlines possible solutions to a seemingly intractable problem: that helping the poor often hurts the environment, and vice versa. Can we fight poverty and inequality while protecting the environment? The challenges are obvious. To rise out of poverty is to consume more resources, almost by definition. And many measures to combat pollution lead to job losses and higher prices that mainly hurt the poor. In Unsustainable Inequalities, economist Lucas Chancel confronts these difficulties head-on, arguing that the goals of social justice and a greener world can be compatible, but that progress requires substantial changes in public policy. Chancel begins by reviewing the problems. Human actions have put the natural world under unprecedented pressure. The poor are least to blame but suffer the most—forced to live with pollutants that the polluters themselves pay to avoid. But Chancel shows that policy pioneers worldwide are charting a way forward. Building on their success, governments and other large-scale organizations must start by doing much more simply to measure and map environmental inequalities. We need to break down the walls between traditional social policy and environmental protection—making sure, for example, that the poor benefit most from carbon taxes. And we need much better coordination between the center, where policies are set, and local authorities on the front lines of deprivation and contamination. A rare work that combines the quantitative skills of an economist with the argumentative rigor of a philosopher, Unsustainable Inequalities shows that there is still hope for solving even seemingly intractable social problems.

This book will be of interest to anyone interested in the technical detail of funding mechanisms, and those not so inclined will still find plenty of thought-provoking material to explore. . . This book is a treasure-trove of empirical data, theoretical discussion, and practical application, and also as a useful indicator of how much of Europe understands social protection. Citizen s Income This book focuses on arrangements for redistributing consumption opportunities over the life cycle and for providing compensation for income losses or large expenditures due to reasons such as illness and unemployment. After extensive coverage of the nature of inequalities in income and wealth in a market economy, and various notions of social justice, the author discusses public and private transfers in cash or in kind related to old age, childhood, illness and the like. Importantly, the book takes into account both equity and efficiency aspects. This concise discussion of the welfare state and its alternatives will be of great interest to students of economics at the intermediate level as well as to graduate students of sociology, social work and other social sciences. It will also appeal to politicians and civil service managers with an interest in the fundamentals of social policy.

This important book brings together many of the leading contributors in the field and provides a compelling manifesto for change in social justice.

This book analyzes how recent welfare state transformations across advanced democracies have shaped social and economic disparities. The authors observe a trend from a compensatory paradigm towards supply oriented social policy, and investigate how this phenomenon is linked to distributional outcomes. How – and how much – have changes in core social policy fields alleviated or strengthened different dimensions of inequality? The authors argue that while the market has been the major cause of increasing net inequalities, the trend towards supply orientation in most social policy fields has further contributed to social inequality. The authors work from sociological and political science perspectives, examining all of the main branches of the welfare state, from health, education and tax policy, to labour market, pension and migration policy. /div

"Social justice is a highly contested term, with all political parties now claiming it for their own. Some clarity about the value base of social justice and what it means in practice is therefore essential to make sense of these claims. This book does that most effectively for a range of key forms of welfare provision. In a very readable way, and with substantial illustrative material, it takes the reader from engagement with key theories and concepts of social justice into the world of social welfare and crime control politics, policy and practice, showing what a socially just world might look like. The authors are to be congratulated on an impressive collection of writing." Gary Craig, Professor of Social Justice, University of Hull, UK This book explores ways of defining and enacting social justice in the context of modern social welfare and crime control policies. It examines how the notion of social justice informs experiences and understandings of the social world, why it appeals to so many people as a mobilising ideal for social change and reform, and how it shapes the claims, demands and actions that people take in the pursuit of the 'good society'. The authors employ an interdisciplinary approach to explore the interrelationship between social policy and criminology. With international content and a sustained focus across the book on different kinds of evidence, it helps readers to gauge the role of evidence in social science and policy development. Designed as an interactive teaching text, the book includes a range of student-friendly learning features, such as case studies, activities and questions for discussion, making it ideal for both classroom-based and distance learners. Social Justice is a key text for students in criminology, social policy and social justice.