International Journal of Social Welfare最新文献

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.

This study examines high school diploma or equivalent (HS/E) attainment by mothers who had a nonmarital birth (“unmarried mothers”) and the associations between state-level Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) policies and their postnatal HS/E attainment. Using an analytic sample of 1154 unmarried mothers without HS/E from the restricted-use Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study, we tracked postnatal HS/E attainment patterns for 15 years, and conducted discrete-time event history analysis with mixed effects to test the relationships between states' TANF policies and postnatal HS/E attainment. Only 35.1% of the sample attained HS/E after childbirth, while nearly half of mothers who attained HS/E were not able to do so within 3 years of childbirth. A $100 higher maximum monthly benefit amount is associated with 86.1% higher odds of postnatal HS/E attainment, indicating the need to consider increasing TANF benefit amounts as a means to promote educational attainment among unmarried mothers with educational disadvantages.

East Asian (EA) social welfare has been described as productivist, where social policies are subordinate to economic development. However, EA comparative studies often focus on a few select social policies and seldom examine welfare programs as a bundle. We contribute to the depiction of divergent features of EA safety nets by exploring welfare content (generosity, coverage, protective vs. productive, and work incentives) and welfare outcomes (poverty reduction and income redistribution) for lower-income populations in the largest city in mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. We collected model family (MF) data and analyzed the data through descriptive statistics and regression models. We found that Taiwan and Hong Kong, followed by Japan, have more generous programs for reducing poverty, while Korea focuses on productive programs; Singapore offers wide coverage and strong work incentives for low-income families yet lags behind in generosity; and China appears to be a laggard in welfare provision in the region. Our findings reveal heterogeneity within EA welfare systems, and our synthesis of welfare features using MF data offers a promising, innovative strategy for conducting comparative research in regions with limited comparable data.

To what extent have Latin America's Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs adopted different forms of conditionality? What are the main features of this variation, if any? In this article, we show that conditionalities vary across Latin America's CCTs and across time within programs. Drawing on existing conceptualizations of welfare conditionality and a novel, purpose-built dataset covering 16 countries from 1997 to 2019, we analyze the evolution and variation in the design of welfare conditionality in the region. We find that conditionalities among Latin America's CCTs exhibit many different types and also vary significantly in how the program's main attributes—behavioral requirements, monitoring, and sanctioning rules—combine and evolve across time in each program. These combinations show that governments do not consistently produce “pure” CCT models but instead use conditionality features in many different ways and also adjust them over time, frequently to make more explicit what they expect from CCT recipients.

This paper investigates how being employed in public works exposes workers and their households to poverty. Public works consist of centrally planned and financed works targeting long-term unemployed or inactive. Evidence is primarily negative concerning improved employment trajectories, while we still know little about the poverty outcomes. To examine this, we draw on the 2014–2019 cross-sectional data of the EU-SILC survey for Hungary. Hungary has invested significantly in these programmes over the last few years, and since 2014, it has provided a unique opportunity to access income and public works information within EU-SILC. Results highlight the relevance of both quantity and quality of employment. Public workers are better off than long-term unemployed. However, they show higher poverty risk than non-public workers (about twice as much). Living with non-public workers substantially reduces their poverty risk, while households of only public workers struggle more to avoid poverty.

Little is known about how the tools and guidelines, which are central to current social work practice, are designed. The purpose of this article is to improve understanding of the conditions for social workers' discretion by analysing how the municipal responsibility to meet individual needs is circumscribed in local guidelines for needs assessment in Swedish elder care. The paper applies framing theory to the analysis of guidelines in 51 municipalities and maps the prevalence of guidelines. Framing theory highlights how different designs of local guidelines can create varying premises for the discretion of social workers. By illustrating how the guidelines provide social workers with the necessary guidance on how to interpret the law by circumscribing their discretion in standardised, and varying, ways, the findings point to the importance of further research on how the quest for standardisation in adult social work through local guidelines influences social workers' assessments in practice.

Based on longitudinal data from four waves (2011, 2013, 2015, and 2018) of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, we examined savings and savings changes among older couples in China using hierarchical linear models, explored any cohort differences, and analyzed the effects of the accessibility of the employee pension and the number of children on parents' savings. The results indicate that the savings of older couples continued to increase in old age, but the growth slowed down with age. For the cohort born before 1940, savings declined in later years. The cohorts born after 1940 had higher savings, but their savings grew less in later years. Older adults with access to the employee pension saved more and faster. Older adults with more than two children had lower savings, while those from younger cohorts were less impacted.

The social media platform WeChat is increasingly used by individuals with severe mental disorders (SMDs). However, few studies have examined WeChat use of adults with SMDs and its association with social participation in the Chinese context. This mixed-methods study examined the effects of WeChat use on this population's social participation. The results indicate that WeChat use was positively and significantly associated with social participation among older adults with SMDs, helping them maintain contact with family, relatives, friends, community residents, and mental health professionals. Owing to different life stages and associated social expectations, younger adults with SMDs were mainly concerned with employment or family obligations and were less likely to use WeChat for social interactions with friends and community residents. WeChat can be a useful tool to encourage social participation among older adults with SMDs; age-related expectations for participation need to be considered in the design and delivery of intervention services.