Social and Public Policy - Research

This book brings together a selection of Richard Titmuss's important writings on a range of key social policy issues, together with commentary from experts in the field.

The companion volume is, Private complaints and public health: Richard Titmuss on the National Health Service edited by Ann Oakley and Jonathan Barker (The Policy Press, 2004).

Policy makers across the world confront issues relating to lone parents and employment, with many governments seeking to increase the participation of lone parents in the labour market. This book offers an analysis of policies and provisions in several countries, identifying policy lessons. Chapters are written by experts on lone parenthood.

Using the idea of the social division of welfare as a template, this book assesses different approaches to retirement pensions policy, highlighting their relative strengths and weaknesses. An invaluable resource for social science students and for those who teach them. Economists and pension practitioners will also find food for thought here.

Social marginalisation due to changing labour markets in a global, knowledge-intensive economy poses a major challenge to international welfare states. Addressing the problem from a citizenship perspective, this book contributes significantly to the understanding of policy problems and the development of appropriate strategies.

Describing social assistance 'careers' in different national and urban contexts, this innovative book documents the strong interplay between personal biographies and policy patterns - a particularly useful perspective which complements the more structural, top-down approach of much international work in social policy.

Rural homelessness explores the shifting policy context of homelessness and social exclusion in relation to rural areas in the UK and other countries in the developed world. Drawing on the first comprehensive survey of rural homelessness in the UK, the book positions these findings within a wider international context.

This new study uses longitudinal data to provide new insights into the changing dynamics of lives of women today. In particular, it explores the potential of longitudinal or life course analysis as a powerful tool for appreciating the gender dimension of social life.

Debates about citizenship in Europe are increasingly topical as the EU expands. This book charts the development of mobility and welfare rights for retired people moving or returning home under the Free Movement of Persons provisions. It raises important issues around the future of social citizenship in an increasingly global and mobile world.

Current policy encourages 'partnerships' between statutory organisations and professionals; public and private sectors; with voluntary organisations and local communities. But is this collaborative discourse as distinctive as the government claims? These claims are critically examined, using evidence from a wide range of welfare partnerships.

Social Policy Review is an annual selection of commissioned articles focusing on developments and debates in social policy. Social Policy Review 14 reviews a varied and interesting selection of social policy developments in Britain and internationally, and sets current policy developments in a broader context of key trends and debates.

Evaluating New Labour's welfare reforms builds on the analysis of bestselling 'New Labour, New Welfare State?' (The Policy Press, 1999) to examine the Government's welfare policies to the end of its first term. It moves beyond a descriptive account to provide an evaluative perspective on New Labour's welfare reforms.

It is widely assumed today that the 'welfare state' is contracting or retrenching as an effect of the close scrutiny to which entitlement to social security benefits is being subject in most developed countries. In this book, fifteen authorities from nine different countries investigate to what extent this assumption is warranted.