This book is concerned with the likely developments in social policy and welfare states in the twenty first century. The introduction looks back both to the thoughts that social policy scholars might have entertained at the turn of the last century or two, and more speculatively to what they might have thought in AD 999, at the end of the last millennium. The contributions relate to a number of themes: social change; international or inter-regional change; the type of welfare system; and changes in work in all its aspects, not just paid work.
These themes all affect the future of social policy. The book shows that:
- social policy is in general the creature of social change generated elsewhere in society, and to which social policy is a response
- the EU and global integration will play important roles in social policy in the future
- while the 1990s were dominated by the analysis of unitary types of welfare system (regime), the proposed typologies are less clear cut once the types of social policy such as social care rather than income support, and types of recipient - women or ethnic minorities rather than white male workers - are taken as the focus
- the relations of production, specifically industrial relations, are intimately related to the development of welfare regimes, and have changed significantly in recent years
The sum of these contributions is to explore profound changes which are currently underway which will have significant implications for the future of social policy.
