The concept of integrated services in different welfare states from a life course perspective

2016 ◽  
Vol 69 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 85-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renate Minas
2018 ◽  
pp. 59-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristoffer Chelsom Vogt

Title: The Myth of Welfare Dependency. Summary: The myth of welfare dependency has long historical roots and is influential in both policy and research. The central idea is that receiving welfare benefits decreases people’s motivation for work and fosters a culture of dependency. The myth originates in an Anglo-American context but is also evident in a Nordic context. Nordic welfare states, with their comparatively high levels of benefits, are presumably especially at risk of encouraging welfare dependency. This article questions the myth of welfare dependency, by presenting a life-course perspective that directs our attention to relations between historical developments and individual life-course processes. Viewed from a life-course perspective, it becomes clear that the myth of welfare dependency is based upon a number of problematic premises: an individualistic and static conception of lives and relationships, a narrowly defined concept of welfare, and on several misconceptions of how welfare state policies, especially of the Nordic variety, function in practice. The dichotomy of dependence and independence upon which the myth rests is untenable when confronted with empirical life-course research, and has highly-skewed implications in terms of both gender and social class.


2009 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 299-324 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Huinink ◽  
Michael Feldhaus

This article presents an argument for overcoming some of the limits of current family research. To start, some major research questions concerning the future challenges of demographic change and its implications for modern welfare states are addressed. The authors propose an agenda for making progress in this field via two interrelated steps. First, they propose an integration of theoretical approaches explaining family dynamics and design a conceptual framework to model couples' and family dynamics as a process of purposeful individual action and decision-making over the life course. Second, methodological requirements of family research from this theoretical perspective are identified. Conclusions are drawn with regard to longitudinal data collection covering all dimensions of couples' and family dynamics and not just the structural dimensions.


Author(s):  
C. L. Comolli ◽  
L. Bernardi ◽  
M. Voorpostel

AbstractInformed by the life course perspective, this paper investigates whether and how employment and family trajectories are jointly associated with subjective, relational and financial wellbeing later in life. We draw on data from the Swiss Household Panel which combines biographical retrospective information on work, partnership and childbearing trajectories with 19 annual waves containing a number of wellbeing indicators as well as detailed socio-demographic and social origin information. We use sequence analysis to identify the main family and work trajectories for men and women aged 20–50 years old. We use OLS regression models to assess the association between those trajectories and their interdependency with wellbeing. Results reveal a joint association between work and family trajectories and wellbeing at older age, even net of social origin and pre-trajectory resources. For women, but not for men, the association is also not fully explained by proximate (current family and work status) determinants of wellbeing. Women’s stable full-time employment combined with traditional family trajectories yields a subjective wellbeing premium, whereas childlessness and absence of a stable partnership over the life course is associated with lower levels of financial and subjective wellbeing after 50 especially in combination with a trajectory of weak labour market involvement. Relational wellbeing is not associated with employment trajectories, and only weakly linked to family trajectories among men.


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