The Journal of Social Policy carries high quality articles on all aspects of social policy in an international context. It places particular emphasis upon articles which seek to contribute to debates on the future direction of social policy, to present new empirical data, to advance theories, or to analyse issues in the making and implementation of social policies.     The Journal of Social Policy is part of the "Social Policy Package", which also includes Social Policy and Society and the Social Policy Digest. An online resource, the Social Policy Digest, was launched in 2003. The Digest provides a regularly up-dated, fully searchable, summary of policy developments and research findings across the whole range of social policy.

The Journal of Social Policy publishes high-quality articles covering all aspects of social policy in an international context. It particularly emphasizes articles that aim to contribute to debates on the future direction of social policy, present new empirical data, advance theories, or analyze issues related to the formulation and implementation of social policies. The Journal is part of the 'Social Policy Package,' which also includes Social Policy and Society and the Social Policy Digest. An online resource, the Social Policy Digest, was launched in 2003, providing a regularly updated, fully searchable summary of policy developments and research findings across the entire spectrum of social policy.

《Journal of Social Policy》是一本高质量的期刊，涵盖社会政策的各个方面，具有国际视野。期刊特别强调那些旨在推动社会政策未来方向辩论的文章，提供新的实证数据，推进理论发展，或分析社会政策的制定与实施问题。该期刊是“社会政策包”的一部分，后者还包括《Social Policy and Society》和《Social Policy Digest》。在线资源《Social Policy Digest》于2003年推出，提供一个定期更新、可全面检索的社会政策发展和研究成果摘要。

Journal of Social Policy

Contemporary theoretical debates point to a transformation of societies and social organisations away from universal forms of mass production and consumption, organised through mass institutions, towards smaller, diversified, entrepreneurial units linked together by new forms of market and network co-ordination. This greater diversity is also held to be a feature of service users who require individually fashioned solutions to non-standard problems and tailored products for their different tastes. Applications of these accounts of social and economic transformation to the public sector propose similar patterns to those evident in private industry and in regional communities. The large, standardised bureaucracy is seen to give way to de-coupled, multiple agency models of service delivery within a new type of welfare state. The study uses interviews and surveys (n = 365) with service delivery staff in the Australian employment assistance sector where transformations of this type have recently been sponsored by government. These data indicate that many of the key propositions of the post-Fordist account are valid. Smaller, non-unionised units dominate the new order and services are devolved to the local level. However a number of the expected patterns of flexible specialisation, diversity and networking are not found, suggesting marked differences and possible tensions between public and private sector forms of organisational development in the new order.

MARK CONSIDINE

Markets, Networks and the New Welfare State: Employment Assistance Reforms in Australia

Abstract Among the factors identified to account for non-take-up of social benefits, there has been limited research on ‘process costs’, particularly regarding the impact of geographic access. Using Israeli data on field office openings from 1993 to 2021, this paper investigates the impact of geographic access on the take-up of the five largest social security programs in Israel. Based on staggered openings and closings of social security field offices, we find that geographic access has no significant impact on the take-up of either automatic enrollment programs, such as child allowances, or non-automatic programs, such as disability benefits. These findings suggest that the effect of geographic access on the take-up of social benefits may have been overstated in previous studies. We propose the following hypothesis to explain the surprising findings: If enhanced geographic access is driven by political favoritism, opening of new service points may lead to the misallocation of resources and, in effect, increase administrative burdens, thereby undermining rather than improving the take-up of social benefits.

Momi Dahan

Noam Tarshish

The unexpected impact of geographic access on take-up of social benefits

地理可达性对社会福利领取率意外影响

Abstract Employment rates of people with and without disabilities differ substantially in most countries, and policymakers have tried, with mixed effects, to reduce this gap through different policy measures. However, studies show that governance and managerial reforms also affect implementation of policy. In this study, we examine how the Danish large-scale administrative reform of 2007 has affected the role and structure of the approach of the public employment system (PES) to unemployed people with disabilities. Using Pollitt and Bouckeart’s framework on reform effects, we report on a document analysis of policy papers and a 2019 survey of caseworkers and disability keypersons ( N = 453). The analysis identifies few and vague objectives on a process and systems level, with the overall goal being more coherent service delivery. Specifically, a new division of tasks between the state and municipal level was established, including the creation of a disability keyperson at the municipal level to inform and guide job centre colleagues in assisting unemployed with disabilities. In practice, most of the keypersons were doing administrative casework and placed in sections focussed on unemployed with a reduced work ability. Hence, we identify a mismatch between objectives and implementation, questioning whether service delivery has become more coherent.

Lena Kjeldsen

Finn Amby

Torben Esbo Agergaard

Organisational outputs of administrative reforms: disability in Danish job centres

行政改革中的组织产出：丹麦就业中心的残疾问题

Abstract The past decade has been marked by cuts in public funding of adult social care alongside an increased policy focus within the UK on extending working lives through ‘50 PLUS Choices’. This study uses the UK Household Longitudinal Study (2009/10–2018/19) to examine the relationship between informal care provision and labour market participation. The analysis focusses on mid-life, a period of life course characterised by both the uptake of informal care provision responsibilities and withdrawal from the labour market. Across the observation period, employment increased amongst both mid-life carers and non-carers, but the gap widened – with carers being much less likely to be employed. Discrete-time survival models assess the effect of caregiving on the likelihood of changing from full-time to part-time work or leaving work altogether. A range of indicators of caregiving, including care intensity, type of care provided and relationship to the person cared for, are all associated with reduced employment. The analysis supports the argument that policies promoting higher labour force participation amongst older workers are incompatible with cuts in funding for adult social care; to realise ‘50 PLUS Choices’, older working carers need to be better supported in juggling the competing demands of care and work.

Maria Evandrou

Jane Falkingham

Min Qin

Athina Vlachantoni

Delivering ‘50 PLUS Choices’ in the UK: how compatible are ‘fuller working lives’ with an increasing reliance on informal carers to deliver social care?

在英国推行“50岁以上选择”：“延长工作年限”与日益依赖非正式护理人员提供社会护理的兼容性如何？

Abstract The aim of this study was to understand how and why relational welfare works to support young people who are not in employment, education or training (NEET). It builds on research discussing the limitations of work-first and human capital strategies in social policy while responding to calls for theory-driven insights into initiatives that move beyond employability and rapid employment. The material for this realist evaluation includes programme documents, fieldnotes and 75 interviews with practitioners and participants in community-based multicomponent initiatives delivered by Swedish municipalities. These data were scrutinised against programme theories while integrating literature on relational welfare as underpinned by co-creation and capability approaches. The results illustrate how flexible, challenging and coordinated programming strengthen beings and doings of young people in NEET situations while improving their wellbeing by overcoming isolation and forming a future orientation. The study provides guidance for supporting NEET-situated young people through a relational approach to welfare. It also offers a model against which local initiatives provided to a youth group high on the policy agenda can be mapped.

Frida Jonsson

Isa Norvell Gustavsson

How and why does relational welfare work to support young people not in employment, education or training (NEET)? A realist evaluation

关系福利如何以及为何能支持未就业、未受教育或未接受培训的年轻人（NEET）？一项现实主义评估

Abstract Welfare state attitudes make up an interactive feedback loop of defining popular legitimacy and future policy trajectories. Understanding attitudinal drivers is thus essential political knowledge. However, as existing research is mainly based on the work-nexus of welfare, this article expands the literature to the welfare state’s care-nexus, examining drivers of family policy attitudes. We argue that conventional attitude predictors of self-interest and ideology are insufficient to explain the attitudinal cleavage in family policy. Instead, justice perceptions in the division of physical and cognitive household labour represent an important normative battleground. We test this with Norwegian survey data ( N = 3500), using a unique vignette experiment to operationalise justice perceptions. Findings show that individuals who do not perceive a disproportional household labour division as unfair prefer optional familialism within family policy. Individuals who do perceive unfairness in a disproportional household labour division prefer de-familialism, which facilitates gender equality in public and private spheres. This is consistently found for the physical division of labour, while the cognitive dimension seems less politicised. We conclude that the battleground for different family policy approaches is fundamentally normative and linked to justice considerations on gender roles.

Abbreviation	J. Soc. Pol.
Journal Impact	1.74
Quartiles(Global)	SOCIAL WORK(Q1)

ISSN	0047-2794, 1469-7823
h-index	81

Publication Information	Publisher: Cambridge University Press，Publishing cycle: ，Journal Type: journal，Open Access Journals: No
Basic data	Year of publication: 1986，Proportion of original research papers: 98.99%，Self Citation Rate:15.80%， Gold OA Rate: 57.96%

Journal of Social Policy

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Markets, Networks and the New Welfare State: Employment Assistance Reforms in Australia

The unexpected impact of geographic access on take-up of social benefits

Organisational outputs of administrative reforms: disability in Danish job centres

Delivering ‘50 PLUS Choices’ in the UK: how compatible are ‘fuller working lives’ with an increasing reliance on informal carers to deliver social care?

How and why does relational welfare work to support young people not in employment, education or training (NEET)? A realist evaluation

Organisational outputs of administrative reforms: disability in Danish job centres

Delivering ‘50 PLUS Choices’ in the UK: how compatible are ‘fuller working lives’ with an increasing reliance on informal carers to deliver social care?

How and why does relational welfare work to support young people not in employment, education or training (NEET)? A realist evaluation

The formation of family policy attitudes: the role of justice perceptions in the division of household labour

The unexpected impact of geographic access on take-up of social benefits