The Oxford Handbook Of The Social Science Of Poverty

The Oxford Handbook of the Social Science of Poverty builds a common scholarly ground in the study of poverty by bringing together an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars to provide diverse perspectives on the issue.

This Handbook examines poverty measurement, anti-poverty policy and programs, and poverty theory from the perspective of economics. It is written in a highly accessible style that encourages critical thinking about poverty. What's known about the sources of poverty and its alleviation are summarized and conventional thinking about poverty is challenged.

Poverty is a pressing and persistent problem. While its extent varies across countries, its presence always represents the diminution of human capacity. Therefore, it seems natural to want to do something about it. Have countries made progress in mitigating poverty? How do we determine who is poor and who is not poor? What intuitions or theories guide the design of anti-poverty policy? Is overall labor market performance the key to keeping the poverty rate low? Or, does it matter how well-connected an individual is to those who know about the availability of jobs? Does being an immigrant increase the odds of being poor? Are there anti-poverty policies that work? For whom do they work? If I'm poor, will I have access to health care and housing? Am I more likely to be obese, polluted upon, incarcerated, un-banked, and without assets if I'm poor? Is poverty too hard a problem for economic analysis? These are some of the questions that a distinguished group of scholars have come together to confront in this Handbook. The Handbook is written in a highly-accessible style that encourages the reader to think critically about poverty. Theories are presented in a rigorous but not overly-technical way; concise and straightforward empirical analyses enlighten key policy issues. The volume has six parts: Poverty in the 21st Century; Labor Market Factors; Poverty Policy; Poverty Dynamics; Dimensions of Poverty; and Trends and Issues in Anti-Poverty Policy. A goal of the Handbook is to stimulate further research on poverty. To that end, several chapters challenge conventional thinking about poverty and in some cases present specific proposals for the reform of economic and social policy.

This handbook provides a survey of the American welfare state. It offers an historical overview of U.S. social policy from the colonial era to the present, a discussion of available theoretical perspectives on it, an analysis of social programmes, and on overview of the U.S. welfare state's consequences for poverty, inequality, and citizenship.

Comprehensive and integrative, The Oxford Handbook of Poverty and Child Development describes the contextual and social ecology of children living in poverty and illuminates the biological and behavioral interactions that either promote optimal development or that place children at risk of having poor developmental outcomes.

The Oxford Handbook of the Welfare State is the authoritative and definitive guide to the contemporary welfare state. In a volume consisting of nearly fifty newly-written chapters, a broad range of the world's leading scholars offer a comprehensive account of everything one needs to know about the modern welfare state. The book is divided into eight sections. It opens with three chapters that evaluate the philosophical case for (and against) the welfare state. Surveys of the welfare state 's history and of the approaches taken to its study are followed by four extended sections, running to some thirty-five chapters in all, which offer a comprehensive and in-depth survey of our current state of knowledge across the whole range of issues that the welfare state embraces. The first of these sections looks at inputs and actors (including the roles of parties, unions, and employers), the impact of gender and religion, patterns of migration and a changing public opinion, the role of international organisations and the impact of globalisation. The next two sections cover policy inputs (in areas such as pensions, health care, disability, care of the elderly, unemployment, and labour market activation) and their outcomes (in terms of inequality and poverty, macroeconomic performance, and retrenchment). The seventh section consists of seven chapters which survey welfare state experience around the globe (and not just within the OECD). Two final chapters consider questions about the global future of the welfare state. The individual chapters of the Handbook are written in an informed but accessible way by leading researchers in their respective fields giving the reader an excellent and truly up-to-date knowledge of the area under discussion. Taken together, they constitute a comprehensive compendium of all that is best in contemporary welfare state research and a unique guide to what is happening now in this most crucial and contested area of social and political development.

The Oxford Handbook of Economic Inequality presents a new and challenging analysis of economic inequality, focusing primarily on economic inequality in highly developed countries. Bringing together the world's top scholars this comprehensive and authoritative volume contains an impressive array of original research on topics ranging from gender to happiness, from poverty to top incomes, and from employers to the welfare state. The authors give their view on the state-of-the-art of scientific research in their fields of expertise and add their own stimulating visions on future research. Ideal as an overview of the latest, cutting-edge research on economic inequality, this is a must have reference for students and researchers alike.

The philosophy of the social sciences considers the underlying explanatory powers of the social (or human) sciences, such as history, economics, anthropology, politics, and sociology. The type of questions covered includes the methodological (the nature of observations, laws, theories, and explanations) to the ontological — whether or not these sciences can explain human nature in a way consistent with common-sense beliefs. This Handbook is a major, comprehensive look at the key ideas in the field, is guided by several principles. The first is that the philosophy of social science should be closely connected to, and informed by, developments in the sciences themselves. The second is that the volume should appeal to practicing social scientists as well as philosophers, with the contributors being both drawn from both ranks, and speaking to ongoing controversial issues in the field. Finally, the volume promotes connections across the social sciences, with greater internal discussion and interaction across disciplinary boundaries.