International Journal of Social Welfare最新文献

This ethnographic study examines the disaster subculture of impoverished urban poor communities regarding extreme weather disasters, through the case of jjokbang-chon, one of the most marginalized communities in Seoul, South Korea. The findings shed light on how jjokbang-chon residents make meaning of disasters, where a sense of normalcy surrounds extreme weather, developed in response to recurring exposure to everyday hazards. This study offers insights into their lived experiences, revealing that the residents' perception of vulnerability often diverges from objective reality, primarily due to the pervasive “everyday disasters” that continually disrupt their lives. This “every day is a disaster” perspective, born from the chronic distress they endure, challenges their ability to recognize extreme weather events as disasters. This research carries implications for the field of social work by emphasizing the necessity of broadening the concept of vulnerability to encompass “everyday disasters,” and highlights the pivotal role of social work in addressing the multifaceted challenges presented by everyday disasters.

This study examines the patterns and determinants of multidimensional poverty and related welfare interventions in Hong Kong. These patterns unveil which dimension or combinations of dimensions contribute the most to multidimensional poverty. These results are useful in informing poverty-alleviation policies as they help to identify who should be targeted and which welfare transfer programme(s) should be enhanced. Data were drawn from the first wave (2015) of the Hong Kong Panel Survey for Poverty Alleviation (N = 1458). A latent-class analysis revealed four types of multidimensional poverty: severely deprived, housing-led poor, socially and status excluded and neighbourhood poor. A multinomial logistic regression was conducted and identified distinctive determinants of the four types of poverty. The groups that require paramount attention from policymakers are older adults over age 70, households with members with disabilities or chronic diseases and households with five or more members. The assessment of the coverage and intensity of cash and in-kind transfers showed that the coverage of cash transfers for the severely deprived and housing transfers for the housing-led poor was inadequate. The approach proposed in this study exemplifies ways to transform multidimensional poverty research into evidence-based policymaking.

With our analysis of the Korean society we intend to make an innovative contribution to research on intergenerational solidarity by examining how the introduction of welfare policies has changed patterns of intergenerational solidarity. Using aggregated data from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging, the Korean General Social Survey, and the Korean Social Survey, we examine the changing character of intergenerational solidarity by focusing on national trends in both societal practice and intergenerational norms from 2002 to 2018. Our findings show that patterns of Korean intergenerational solidarity have modified in various respects. The normative dimension of the familial/filial contract has profoundly changed along with the developing welfare state, shifting from a dominantly filial piety-centric character to more complementarity contract-based norms in which children, welfare state and society are all assigned responsibility for the well-being of parents. Intergenerational “functional” solidarity, however, in terms of the exchange of money and practical support has not de-filialized.

Individuals encounter and experience different costs, conceptualized as administrative burdens, when seeking access to social welfare programs. Scholars and practitioners suggest that digitalizing and redesigning application processes could alleviate and shift some of these negative experiences. However, empirical research testing whether real interventions achieve this remains scarce. In a laboratory experiment, we randomly assigned participants (n = 120) to one of two application processes for a student financial aid program: the standard paper-based or a digitalized and redesigned application procedure. Students encountering the latter experienced significantly less administrative burdens, were more satisfied, and completed a higher proportion of process steps. Furthermore, functional literacy improved the experience of the bureaucratic encounter. These findings reveal the potential of redesigning and digitalizing application processes to alleviate administrative burdens.

A large body of research has demonstrated that evictions affect already vulnerable groups and are linked to a number of adverse outcomes. However, prior findings largely rely on enforced evictions processed through the legal system and it has been suggested that such an approach might underestimate the number of evictions. Using comprehensive Swedish individual-level register data from 2009 to 2012, this study extends prior literature by focusing on self-initiated moves that occur during a formal eviction process but before an enforced removal. Results from explorative statistical analyses indicate that self-initiated moves during the formal eviction process are four times more common compared with enforced evictions. Although self-initiated moves typically affect the same disadvantaged groups as those facing enforced removals, those who self-initiated their move were younger. Households with children were also found to be more common in that group compared with those faced with enforced removals. Implications for research, policy, and practice are discussed.

Norwegian youth in out-of-home care move three times as frequently as their peers. Such placement instability is linked to negative outcomes in terms of social attachment, well-being, educational achievements, health, and future opportunities. Norway implemented a new child welfare service reform in 2022 that increased the municipalities responsibilities for out-of-home care. The “incentive package” and “Barneløftet” were measures implemented to prepare the municipalities for these changes. This study evaluates how the implemented measures affect the number of moves within out-of-home care in Trøndelag county. An event-study design with difference-in-difference estimates was used to study the effect of the measures. The data are Norwegian registers that include most children in out-of-home care from 2013 to 2021. The findings of this study indicate that increased support for foster care homes significantly reduces the number of moves. Increased placement stability is associated with an increased sense of belonging, thus facilitating positive development.

Policy feedback scholars argue that experiences with government shape political participation. Administrative burden scholars posit that burdensome bureaucratic encounters deter political participation. Related quantitative studies take a top-down, deductive approach and test effects of single policies, yet people engage multiple programs, and all policies may not be equally salient in how they view the state. Using qualitative interviews, our inductive, “bottom-up” approach examines the most prominent policy domains in views of government shared across mothers with low incomes in the United States (n = 80). Mothers experienced a wide range of policies, and they detailed related administrative burdens, but this was not the focus in most of their views of the government. Many raised issue areas that hit close to home, such as affordable child care or children's recreation programs. They often drew on a sense of collective motherhood in their view of government, including how it could facilitate efforts to raise children.