Welfare

Word of the day

n

statutory procedure or social effort designed to promote the basic physical and material well-being of people in need:
the protection of rights to education, housing, and welfare.
• financial support given for this purpose.

concept of government in which the state plays a key role in the protection and promotion of the economic and social well-being of its citizens. It is based on the principles of equality of opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth, and public responsibility for those unable to avail themselves of the minimal provisions for a good life. The general term may cover a variety of forms of economic and social organization.


A fundamental feature of the welfare state is social insurance, a provision common to most advanced industrialized countries (e.g., National Insurance in the United Kingdom and Social Security in the United States). Such insurance is usually financed by compulsory contributions and is intended to provide benefits to persons and families during periods of greatest need. It is widely recognized, however, that in practice these cash benefits fall considerably short of the levels intended by the designers of the plans.


The welfare state also usually includes public provision of basic education, health services, and housing (in some cases at low cost or without charge). In these respects the welfare state is considerably more extensive in western European countries than in the United States, featuring in many cases comprehensive health coverage and provision of state-subsidized tertiary education.

The modern use of the term is associated with the comprehensive measures of social insurance adopted in 1948 by Great Britain on the basis of the report on Social Insurance and Allied Services (1942) by Sir William (later Lord) Beveridge. In the 20th century, as the earlier concept of the passive laissez-faire state was gradually abandoned, almost all states sought to provide at least some of the measures of social insurance associated with the welfare state. Thus, in the United States the New Deal of Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Fair Deal of Pres. Harry S. Truman, and a large part of the domestic programs of later presidents were based on welfare state principles. In its more thoroughgoing form, the welfare state provides state aid for the individual in almost all phases of life—“from the cradle to the grave”—as exemplified in the Netherlands and the Social Democratic governments of the Scandinavian countries. Many less-developed countries have the establishment of some form of welfare state as their goal.


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The basic concerns of social welfare—poverty, disability and disease, the dependent young and elderly—are as old as society itself. The laws of survival once severely limited the means by which these concerns could be addressed; to share another's burden meant to weaken one's own standing in the fierce struggle of daily existence. As societies developed, however, with their patterns of dependence between members, there arose more systematic responses to the factors that rendered individuals, and thus society at large, vulnerable.


Religion and philosophy have tended to provide frameworks for the conduct of social welfare. The edicts of the Buddhist emperor Asoka in India, the sociopolitical doctrines of ancient Greece and Rome, and the simple rules of the early Christian communities are only a few examples of systems that addressed social needs. The Elizabethan Poor Laws in England, which sought relief of paupers through care services and workhouses administered at the parish level, provided precedents for many modern legislative responses to poverty. In Victorian times a more stringent legal view of poverty as a moral failing was met with the rise of humanitarianism and a proliferation of social reformers. The social charities and philanthropic societies founded by these pioneers formed the basis for many of today's welfare services.


Because perceived needs and the ability to address them determine each society's range of welfare services, there exists no universal vocabulary of social welfare. In some countries a distinction is drawn between “social services,” denoting programs, such as health care and education, that serve the general population, and “welfare services,” denoting aid directed to vulnerable groups, such as the poor, the disabled, or the delinquent. According to another classification, remedial services address the basic needs of individuals in acute or chronic distress; preventive services seek to reduce the pressures and obstacles that cause such distress; and supportive services attempt, through educational, health, employment, and other programs, to maintain and improve the functioning of individuals in society. Social welfare services originated as emergency measures that were to be applied when all else failed. However, they are now generally regarded as a necessary function in any society and a means not only of rescuing the endangered but also of fostering a society's ongoing, corporate well-being.

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