International Journal of Social Welfare最新文献

Research either focused on self-interest or left–right ideology to explain support for demanding active labour market policies (ALMPs). This article focuses instead on how attitudes towards these policies are rooted in the underlying policy paradigm. We link attitudes towards ALMPs to two pillars of the activation paradigm: distributive justice and unemployment attributions. Structural equational modeling is employed on the Belgian National Election Study data of 2014 (N = 1901). Individuals supporting the principles of need and equity and who blame the unemployed are more in favour of demanding activation. These frameworks and hence the policy paradigm thus have substantial predictive power.

This study investigated the family well-being of Hong Kong people through a randomized telephone survey of 2008 adults, using a standardized six-domain index developed specifically for this population. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to examine the heterogeneity of family well-being according to demographic, family structural, and socioeconomic characteristics. The results showed significant gender and age differences in people's perception of family well-being. Education, family income, and hiring a domestic helper were also associated with higher family wellbeing index scores, while the impacts of economic activity status, family size, and caring for young children were found to be insignificant. The impact of marital status was somewhat complicated. This article discusses variations observed in the influence of the set of demographic, family structural, and socioeconomic characteristics on overall and domain-specific family well-being. Implications for future studies and for social policy formulation and social work practice are suggested.

Humanitarian practitioners, specifically emergency aid and relief workers, disaster responders, social workers, and crisis clinicians, are at elevated risk of experiencing trauma as a result of their professions. Approaches for responding to the silent pandemic of reactive traumatic stress, including secondary traumatic stress and vicarious traumatization among humanitarian practitioners continue to be inadequate. The current model of self-care, emphasizing internal regulation and processes to promote positive health, wellbeing, and the ability to continue to support others, is insufficient to best equip humanitarian practitioners with protective factors to stave off reactive traumatic responses to their work. We therefore propose our theory to extend the current self-care model to include the external focus of compassion resilience and conclude with recommendations.

We assessed the association between educational aspirations and the intention to migrate among 1446 adolescents aged 11–17 years, living in semi-urban/rural communities in Jalisco, Mexico. Analyses rely on survey data from the Family Migration and Early Life Outcomes study. The outcome variable was the intention to migrate, a three-category variable coded as no intention to migrate, intention to migrate within Mexico, and intention to migrate internationally. The main independent variable was the adolescents' educational aspirations, conceptualized as the intention to achieve higher education. Multinomial logistic regression models were used to examine associations. We found an association between educational aspirations and intentions to migrate, and it was moderated by gender. Girls with the highest educational aspirations intended to migrate internationally, while higher educational aspirations were not a driver for boys' migration intentions. The study findings have implications for education and migration policies and future research.

In the United States, nearly 13 million adults are incarcerated in prisons and jails annually with significant negative public health consequences. Incarcerated individuals have disproportionate rates of behavioral health disorders (BHDs); untreated BHD symptoms bring people into incarceration settings and are associated with re-arrest after release. Although lack of treatment motivation is often used to explain these outcomes, individuals may have limited knowledge about BHDs and their symptoms, when and why treatment is warranted, and how to access treatment during custody and in the community. We propose a new construct called behavioral health literacy to facilitate linkage between individuals with BHDs and appropriate treatment options. In this paper, we define behavioral health literacy, review extant literature, describe why behavioral health literacy is needed, and explore how behavioral health literacy interventions may be developed to expand knowledge and guide policy and practice, ultimately improving both behavioral health outcomes and reduce criminal legal system involvement.

This study examined the representation of visible minority (VM) employees in Canada's public service to clarify the extent to which Canada's Employment Equity Act (EEA) for diversity and equity management has influenced VM employment outcomes, with a focus on executive (leadership) and professional representation. Data from EEA annual reports (1997–2020) were analysed, and the results for VMs in the public service were juxtaposed with those for VMs in the broader labour market. VM employees' numerical representation under the EEA had increased and was slowly trending upwards in executive roles, exceeding their workforce availability in 2020. However, the representation of VMs in public service failed to match their actual proportion in the larger Canadian population. This group had a stronger representation in scientific and professional occupations, reflecting current immigration policies' support for skilled migration. The VM workforce in the broader labour market lacked equal representation, which indicates significant policy implications.

The study explores the distribution of elderly households in terms of combinations of different levels of income and wealth and relates to the typically greater homeownership rates in this group than in the younger generation. Using microdata from the Luxembourg Wealth Study for 12 countries it demonstrates that ‘income-poor, asset-rich’ elderly households are a quite marginal category. However, the identification of this group is crucial from the policy perspective, as it constitutes a target for actions aiming at increasing the ability of the elderly households to use housing wealth in such a way as to improve their financial well-being. The results also suggest that higher homeownership rates among elderly households, as compared to non-elderly households, are not accompanied by proportionally greater household wealth. Nevertheless, when the level of data aggregation is reduced, there is some evidence that homeownership is positively associated with the welfare position of the elderly.

The wholesale changes brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic to men and women's paid work arrangements and work–family balance provide a natural experiment for testing the common elements of two theories, needs exposure (Schafer et al. Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue Canadienne De Sociologie, 57(4);2020:523–549) and parental proximity (Sullivan et al. Family Theory & Review, 2018;10(1):263–279) against a third theory also suggested by Schafer et al. (2020), and labelled in this article, entrenchment/exacerbation of gender inequality. Both needs exposure and parental proximity suggest that by being home because of the pandemic, in proximity to their children, fathers are exposed to new and enduring family needs, which may move them toward more equal sharing in childcare and other domestic responsibilities. By contrast to studies that have tested such theories using retrospective, self-report survey data over a 2-year period, we analyse more than a decade of time-use diary data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) that covers the first 2 years of the pandemic. We model the secular and quarterly trends to predict what would have occurred in the absence of the pandemic, contrasting this to what indeed happened. Our analyses consider aggregate and individual impacts, using methods of sequence analysis, clustering, and matching. Among our results, we find that the division of childcare responsibilities did not become more equitable during the pandemic. Suggestions for future research are provided as are suggestions for the implementation of social policies that could influence greater gender equity in unpaid work and childcare.

Care work is shaped by the context in which it is carried out. This study explored the context, content, conditions and consequences of work in two fields of social care in Sweden: eldercare and disability services. Policy documents and statistical sources were used to analyse the context. Job content, working conditions and consequences of work were analysed using survey data collected in 2015 and 2017 in eldercare and disability services (N = 1307). The analysis of the political and economic context showed that the disability sector is characterised by a higher ambition level in legislation and funding. The survey of care workers reflected this difference: the work content differs; and the working conditions and their consequences are significantly worse for the eldercare staff than for the disability service staff. Possible explanations for these differences are discussed in terms of policy-framing, ageist notions and unintended consequences of policy changes.