DIVISIONS OF WELFARE: A Critical Introduction to Comparative Social Policy

This outstanding textbook recounts the major policy developments in Sweden, the former FRG, the United States and Britain since the 1930s and 1940s and concentrates on the restructuring of social policy since the world recession of the mid-1970s. Chapters on each welfare state analyze five areas of policy: policy ideology and welfare expenditure; income maintenance policies and outcomes; race and racial inequalities; women and family policies; and the health care system.

Integrating class, race and gender perspectives into comparative social policy analysis, Norman Ginsburg focuses on the impact of social and economic policies on social inequalities, as well as on the role of labour movements, anti-racist movements and women's movements in shaping social policy. He convincingly argues that rather than mitigating the effects of social inequalities, social policies in all four states have in fact played a part in widening class, race and gender inequalities since the mid-1970s.