Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: We are witnessing a rising number of studies that attempt to categorize Asian countries based on their welfare state programs. Such studies, however, often rely on typologies based on Western countries or cover only a single case or a small number of leading countries in the region (e.g., Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore). In this paper, we examine the overall development of the welfare programs of the nine Asian countries (Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines) in three areas: the number and timing of legislation, the contents of the programs (program type, coverage, benefits, and financing), and the welfare efforts in terms of governmental welfare expenditure. The main objective of this paper is to provide a typology of Asian welfare state regimes by examining the key dimensions of welfare state programs and to compare both northeastern and southeastern Asian countries. We find that the northeastern and southeastern countries have both common and different characteristics across the regions. Using a hierarchical cluster analysis of the diverse dimensions of welfare programs in these countries, we were able to find three groups: Group A (Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines), Group B (Hong Kong and Singapore), and Group C (Malaysia and Indonesia). The divergence lies in several dimensions: the main program type (social insurance versus central provident funds), the contents of the welfare programs (coverage, benefits, and financing), and the relative focus among different programs (health and education versus social security). Such findings suggest that we need to examine specific social and historical experiences for individual countries such as differences in timing, pace and degree of economic development, democratization, and globalization.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The 1996 welfare reform intends to move welfare recipients to work by imposing work requirements on recipients. To evaluate the effectiveness of the welfare reform, many researchers focus their study on welfare recipients’ employability. Kim (2000) examines the factors affecting the employment status of welfare recipients by using the March 1998 Annual Demographic Supplement File of CPS (Current Population Survey).
The authors in this paper extend Kim’s research by using the March 2002 CPS file to explore the factors associated with recent welfare recipients’ employment probability. A total of 1,353 welfare recipients were identified. The logistic regression revealed that recent welfare recipients with a high school degree have greater odds of finding a job compared to those without a high school degree. This finding differs from Kim’s study where there is no significant difference in the possibility of employment between recipients with and without a high school degree. The authors explain that this different finding is associated with the labor market circumstances of a specific period. That is, the poor labor market in 2002 provides an unfavorable environment so that compared to recipients with a high school degree, recipients without a high school degree show a significant disadvantage in finding a job.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Much of the theoretical writing about both the older form of welfare and its newer form conjectures that the textual messages come through loud and clear, and that if the text alone is not sufficient to have an impact, administration of the program will effectively position recipients as passive clients with few options for making demands. Drawing on interviews with current and former welfare recipients in Vermont, this paper argues that state efforts to prepare welfare recipients to live without cash assistance awakens thoughts about what real state assistance would be. The paper also argues that these signs of resistance could serve as the foundation for a progressive movement that joins welfare recipients with other low-wage workers and their allies.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Abstract. Past research indicates that one-quarter to one-half of former Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) recipients and approximately 15 percent to 30 percent of their children become uninsured after the expiration of the one-year transitional Medicaid coverage they receive after leaving welfare. Using data from ninety (90) face-to-face interviews, this paper explores the expectations, plans, and coping strategies held by TANF leavers in Oregon who are in the middle of this year of transitional coverage. The paper examines (1) the information available to these individuals regarding their future health care options, (2) their planning and expectations pertinent to the securing of health insurance, and (3) their perceptions of their opportunities for obtaining jobs that provide insurance. The paper shows that while TANF leavers often assume their Medicaid coverage will continue after the transitional year, many lack the information needed to assess this possibility and to navigate the complexities of the program. Not surprisingly, many respondents had no active plans for securing health insurance. Even those who do have sufficient information to plan for the end of the transitional year may find themselves having to make stark choices (e.g., sacrificing income in order to keep Medicaid coverage). Policy recommendations that follow from the findings are presented.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Welfare states have profound consequences for the dominant patterns of stratification and political conflict in democratic capitalist societies, with accumulating evidence that higher levels of effort (as measured by social spending relative to gross domestic product) contribute to lower levels of income inequality and poverty, while also raising the well-being of economically vulnerable groups such as women and children. Although advances during the past two decades in understanding causal mechanisms behind the development of welfare states have been considerable, research to date has not considered the role of public opinion, especially with respect to public support for the social rights of citizenship, in contributing to cross-national differences in welfare state institutions. But the causal logic of the influential power resources theory, with its emphasis on cross-national differences in government legitimacy and the importance of political party control over government, suggests that factors relating to mass opinion may contribute to differences in welfare state regime types. We believe that incorporating mass opinion more closely into welfare state theory and research may have significant scholarly benefits. We evaluate this possibility by extending power resources theory and then presenting offering the first cross-national analysis of the effects of mass policy preferences on welfare state effort. Analysis of new data for developed democracies within Western Europe, North America, and Australasia, provides evidence that variation in social rights support explains a substantial portion of the differences between welfare states, including between social-democratic and liberal-democratic regimes. Effects of (lagged) social rights support across six different welfare state-related policy domains have direct as well as indirect components, and the mediating role of partisan control of government suggests the importance of theorizing factors relating to public opinion as a mechanism behind both election outcomes and welfare state regimes. We discuss the implications of these results for extending power resources theory and for advancing social-scientific understanding of novel sources of difference between welfare states in developed democracies.