International Journal of Social Welfare最新文献

There has been considerable public discourse around courts allegedly “dismissing” mother's allegations of domestic violence and child abuse when a father alleges that he is being alienated from his children by their mother. The purpose of this project is to test whether this discourse is based on an illusory correlation. Published court decisions from 200 family court cases in Canada were sequentially selected if parental alienation was alleged to have happened to the father and abuse was alleged to have been perpetrated by the father. Independent coders recorded the investigative outcomes of the court cases regarding alienation and abuse, and whether the mother lost child custody. Results indicate that there is an illusory correlation between family court cases involving both allegations of abuse and parental alienation, and that mothers are generally not losing custody to abusive fathers in such rarely occurring cases.

In the 2010s, new family benefits were introduced in Hungary, focusing on large families to halt population decline. However, poverty reduction became sidelined, as these schemes benefited higher-income earners. Based on poverty statistics, the article investigates how two family types associated with a higher risk of poverty—large families and single-parent families—fare under this new selective pronatalist system. Furthermore, based on new representative national survey data, the article explores public support for the reforms. Although the income poverty rate for large families significantly decreased during the 2010s, it remained persistently high for single-parent families, especially large single-parent families. The findings indicate strong public support for state assistance to large, single-parent and poor families and state pronatalism. However, the public prioritises support for poor, single-parent families. This underscores a partial mismatch between public attitudes and government policy. Nonetheless, this policy probably secured public legitimacy, chiefly due to the general support for state pronatalism and large families, which were vigorously implemented in family policies, albeit selectively.

Many scholars argue that gender affects welfare attitudes: women support welfare policies more than men in most welfare societies. However, in South Korea, women tend to oppose welfare policies or show no gender gap in welfare attitudes. As welfare programs in South Korea are expanding, I investigate whether women's attitudes towards welfare policies have changed and if they differ based on self-interest. I analysed welfare attitude data from the Korea Welfare Panel Study (KoWePS) for 2013 and 2022 using ordered logistic regression models, finding that women in South Korea supported almost all welfare policies less than men. However, in terms of income redistribution and free preschool and childcare service provision, there were no gender differences observed. Furthermore, cleavages among women were found regarding attitudes towards support for the unemployed and free preschool and childcare service provision based on self-interest. Additionally, progressive women exhibited more supportive attitudes across all domains of welfare.

While the poverty risks of non-standard employment have been explored extensively, this study focuses on the role of activation-oriented social policy in alleviating material deprivation for persons with non-standard employment histories. Using EU-SILC data, individuals over a four-year period were analysed. I focused on substantial earners and distinguished between six non-standard employment histories expected to benefit from activation measures. Multi-level models revealed that compared to standard employment histories, all non-standard employment histories had higher material deprivation risks but to substantially different extents. At the macro level, participation in activation measures, expenditures in formal childcare and minimum income protection reduced material deprivation. Participation in training can be interpreted as an equaliser, as the deprivation gap between standard and most non-standard employment history types diminished. As expenditure- and participation-based measures differed significantly, evaluating the success of activation strategies in reducing inequalities and alleviating poverty highly depends on the measurement of activation.

Severe mental illness (SMI) has long been a focus of public health attention. Due to stigma, people with SMI face strong social discrimination and are one of the most vulnerable groups in a society. Building a sound social welfare system is of paramount importance to address their vulnerabilities. China has accumulated a large body of policy practice, but there is still a lack of critical review in this area. Drawing on the framework developed by WHO, this article provides a comprehensive review of China's policy progress in addressing the health care, rehabilitation, life support and social participation needs of people with SMI, as well as the collaborative governance system and detailed policy arrangements. This review raises a number of policy-related issues for further consideration, such as strengthening community mental health services, improving life support for people with SMI, and reconciling the values of public safety and patients' rights.

This article explored the influence of unemployment perceptions on attitudes towards an EU-wide social policy that guarantees a minimum standard of living for the poor across 18 European countries. The article relied on a theoretical framework that highlights the interaction among economic self-interest, ideology, and perceptions. Using data from Eurostat and the European Social Survey, the results show that Europeans with more negative perceptions of national unemployment or the living conditions of the unemployed were more likely to support an EU minimum income scheme. This association was particularly strong among individuals with non-egalitarian values or right-leaning ideology and remained relatively consistent across different national contexts. Additionally, support was stronger in countries with poor economic and welfare conditions. Overall, the findings reveal a high perceived legitimacy among Europeans for implementing a policy measure that aims to tackle poverty in the EU.

Globally, about 1 billion people have disabilities. Cash transfers (CTs) are social protection programs often explicitly including people with disabilities. There is little research differentiating CT impacts by disability status. We used a triple difference estimation strategy with three-way interaction terms to estimate disability-differential impacts of CTs in Malawi and Zambia on material needs, physical health, and nutritional status among children. Results show CTs reduced the prevalence of illness more among children in households of members experiencing the greatest functional difficulties compared to those in households without disability. The CTs similarly improved access to material needs for all children. This research suggests CTs in Malawi and Zambia affected children in households with disabilities more in terms of health outcomes, despite experiencing similar impacts on material inputs.

Since the late 20th century, a combination of sociodemographic changes and increasing costs of pensions, health and social care challenged the intergenerational welfare contract. Besides, governments have been substituting more parts of care services for informal care. Given this reality, little is known to what extent informal cares prefer a higher government responsibility. Nonetheless, they demonstrate solidarity towards other generations through their actions. In this article, we question whether the intensity of informal caregiving, expressed in hours a week, and age group affects preferences towards welfare distributions and policies supporting informal caregivers. To do so, we have used a unique dataset of stratified, representative data about intergenerational exchanges between individuals in Belgium. We only see a significant effect of high intensity caregiving on general welfare state support. For the policy that targets informal caregivers we see no differences between informal caregivers and non-carers. We argue that informal care status or age cannot fully grasp people's preferences of welfare state support, but lies in the intersection of individual characteristics. A recent study about informal caregivers in Flanders highlighted significant differences in support needs across age groups. Notably, the persons at working age, would feel most helped by reconciliation measures such as paid informal care leave. Moreover, support needs correlated with the intensity of caregiving, as those providing 10 h or more expressed a greater need for financial support, work-life balance policies and help from professional services (Bracke et al. Zorgenquête 2021: Inhoudelijk rapport, 2022). Recognizing the importance of different support needs of informal caregivers, underscores the necessity for comprehensive approaches in family and informal care policies to address both caregiver and recipient needs effectively.

Chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is an incurable global health threat responsible for causing liver disease and hepatocellular carcinoma. During the genesis of infection, HBV establishes an independent minichromosome consisting of the viral covalently closed circular DNA (cccDNA) genome and host histones. The viral X gene must be expressed immediately upon infection to induce degradation of the host silencing factor, Smc5/6. However, the relationship between cccDNA chromatinization and X gene transcription remains poorly understood. Establishing a reconstituted viral minichromosome platform, we found that nucleosome occupancy in cccDNA drives X transcription. We corroborated these findings in cells and further showed that the chromatin destabilizing molecule CBL137 inhibits X transcription and HBV infection in hepatocytes. Our results shed light on a long-standing paradox and represent a potential new therapeutic avenue for the treatment of chronic HBV infection.