Children are one of the most vulnerable groups in almost any population because of their physical and emotional dependence on adults and social status. Their vulnerability is greater in many developing countries because of the higher incidence of poverty and nascent social protection mechanisms. Social protection can serve as a tool to perpetuate inequities or can be used to promote human rights, equality, and inclusiveness. This paper looks at how social protection evolving in four developing countries, Ethiopia, Ghana, Indonesia, and Bangladesh, affects the realization of children's rights. Each country's social protection efforts are analyzed according to the type of effort and then compared to indicators measuring the realization of children's rights. The analysis indicates that well-coordinated social protection systems with wide coverage that include social assistance, social insurance, as well as human capital and empowerment efforts are more likely to result in the progressive realization of children's rights.

This article discusses how the Hong Kong government used a double-attachment strategy to develop welfare to work measures for lone parents; and demonstrates how this discussion could contribute to the study of the cultural and political economy perspectives on East Asian welfare regimes. It shows that the Hong Kong government developed welfare to work measures with reference not only to the New Deal for Lone Parents in the UK, but also to certain traditional Chinese principles. In view of the Hong Kong government's attempt to attach its welfare policies to its own tradition and to the thinking of Western world, it is argued that both cultural and political economy perspectives are significant in the study of East Asian welfare regimes. Moreover, it is important to have a realistic understanding of the uniqueness of East Asian countries in the ways they organize welfare even though there are similarities with Western countries.

This paper argues that the concept of the liberal welfare state within welfare state regimes discourse fails to account for some important aspects of the historical development of liberalism. It is argued that two key aspects of liberalism have been neglected. First, that liberalism essentially arose in opposition to ascribed status, seeking to replace it with a form of “achieved” status. Second, that a major stream of historical liberalism sought to equalize individual opportunity by suggesting that the state should provide some basic social and economic supports to individuals in need. This paper uses OECD health data to identify welfare state clusters based on the measurement of welfare (rather than neo)liberalism. The emerging cluster model is then compared with other welfare state regime typologies with regard to its ability to predict important social and political outcomes. The paper concludes that the emerging “welfare-liberal” typology may be a better predictor of certain social and political outcomes than other regimes configurations, indicating the usefulness of considering alternative aspects of liberalism when examining welfare state regimes.

The growing influence of transnational process, institutions and policy communities has contributed to the emergence of a global public policy that is distinct (although not separate) from the national process of policy-making. In this context gender equality and gender mainstreaming have become dominant policy and political narratives for addressing gender injustice. The focus of this paper is on developing the conceptual and theoretical links between global policy paradigms and gender equality and incorporating multi-scalarity, translation and disjuncture into our understanding of the ways in which policies are made, processed and enacted. The discussion begins by extending Hall's concept of policy paradigm as a nationally bounded entity and highlighting the transnational processes and institutions contributing to the emergence of a global policy paradigm and global policy space. It then goes on to highlight the fluidity of policy paradigms and the importance of moving beyond the focus on techno-managerial “order” as the essence of the policy paradigm and indicators of change and instead to bring into sharper focus disjuncture and tensions.

Following significant electoral defeats in 2010, both the British Labour Party and the Swedish Social Democratic Party (SAP) have been re-considering their approach to the welfare state. This article outlines some of the key themes of social democracy and social democratic social policy before discussing the evolution of the latter in both Sweden and Britain. The paper explores the cumulative effect of the revisionist approaches adopted by both parties over time which has resulted in a distancing from a welfare state strategy based on equality, universalism and publicly provided services. It is concluded that both parties now have little road left to construct a modern welfare state narrative that reflects “core” social democratic principles.

This article addresses conflicts and negotiations about gender equality and diversity within the European public sphere (EPS). It aims to explore the specific constraints and possibilities for realizing gender equality and justice from the transnational European context. Research illustrates that the European Union (EU) approach to gender equality has strengthened the transnational space of mobilization and given actors new possibilities to negotiate about multiple inequalities and direct their claims at different levels. This has at the same time led to a diversification of women's claims and conflicts about the meanings and framings of gender equality and diversity within the EPS. This is illustrated by case studies of the framing of gender equality and ethno-national diversity by political actors in the European Women's Lobby and the European Parliament. The article proposes that the multilevel EU polity can be interpreted as a unique case for reframing justice in a globalized world.

Providing support to families has long been a feature of social policy systems globally. Recent years have increasingly seen family support shift to recognise the growing trend and policy ambition of maternal employment, particularly in a European context. UK and Ireland represent two examples of countries that have sought to respond to changing labour market and work–life balance dynamics through promoting a choice agenda for working mothers. Whilst both countries are characterised as neo-liberal economies they have promoted the choice agenda via different welfare benefit packages. The recent economic crisis has seen both countries cutting the level of support provided for families, raising questions about the extent that mothers are still being provided with choice in how to combine work and family life. Whilst the cuts look to refocus welfare provision on vulnerable children and their families, they also reflect the push towards individualised responsibility for managing new social risks.

This paper examines family leaves in Ireland, particularly for fathers, in the context of changing parenting roles and the increased involvement of fathers in the care of their child(ren). Drawing upon the results of a survey that captured the views of 637 parents and focus group discussions with parents, it highlights parental experiences of parental, paternity and maternity leave. Policy changes are explored to assess the preferences of fathers and mothers in terms of payment, duration and transferability of leaves between parents. In tandem with women's increased access to employment, the study examines evidence of men's desire for greater equality in family roles. The question posed is whether a policy response is needed in relation to fathers' rights to family leave and, if so, on what terms?

This paper explores gender mainstreaming in the context of health policy and health variations between women and men. Despite the adoption of gender mainstreaming at international, regional and national scales since the Beijing Platform for Action in 1995, gender inequalities in health persist. The paper argues that the translation of gender mainstreaming as a global policy paradigm across and between policy scales has significance for health policies aiming to address gender. The paper suggests that while gender mainstreaming originated to address women's needs, the paradigm is founded on goals that do not translate in health policy; that the representation of the problem of gender in this global paradigm is problematic in a health context; and that the role of global networks in policy translation as part of this paradigm has led to the replacement of transformative ideals with technocratic solutions which shift the focus away from gender relations of power.

Italy and Poland present similarly weak minimum income protection models, yet this results from two different policy trajectories in the last 15 years: both countries actually introduced a minimum income scheme (MIS) between the late 1990s (Italy) and the early 2000s (Poland), but later developments were characterized by policy reversal in the Italian case vis-à-vis institutionalization in Poland. The paper therefore addresses two intertwined puzzles. First, in the light of very different background conditions, which factors help understand the convergent process towards the introduction of MIS? Second, what explains remarkable divergence in the subsequent phase? Challenging previous claims about the limited scope of political competition dynamics in the field of social assistance, due to generally narrow constituencies and limited political mobilization, we contend that political competition dynamics are key factors in order to make sense of both convergent and divergent trajectories in the two diverse phases.

Through a systematic comparison of major reforms to minimum income benefits for people of working age in France and the UK, this paper assesses the scope for cross-national convergence in this growing sector of European welfare states. It shows that while differing institutional legacies have shaped the precise design of the new minimum income systems that have been put in place on each side of the Channel in recent years, there is also evidence of an increasingly common conceptualisation of the function of the last safety net and its articulation with the labour market, despite the two countries' still very different political economies. This suggests the potential across welfare states for convergence “from below” on broader understandings of the role of social security provisions in regulating economic life.

This paper examines the extent to which the influence of Confucianism on the welfare of women erects barriers to the gender mainstreaming (GM) of childcare policy in Hong Kong. GM is a global strategy adopted by the Beijing World Conference on Women in 1995. Adopting a context-sensitive approach in understanding the translation of the international concept of GM in the policy formation and practice in Hong Kong, we find that the Confucian welfare model has profound impact on women's welfare and the effectiveness of GM in Hong Kong. First, childcare support for the family is far from adequate due to the perception of childcare as the individual family's responsibility rather than as a citizen right. Second, the gender-neutral discourse commonly accepted by the policy-makers in Hong Kong reflects the inadequate gender-sensitivity training of government officials. Third, GM has been “watered down” as a technical tool instead of transforming gender inequality in the society.

This paper maps the changing nature of European equality regimes in order to establish the extent of variation or convergence across Europe and to evaluate the role of transnational policy paradigms and state-level institutions in shaping the emerging European equality regimes. We identify two significant tendencies in respect to European equality institutional regimes. First, a growing complexity in the institutional arrangements designed to address inequalities, with pre-2000 institutional arrangements increasingly augmented by newer equality institutions that adopt a judicialized approach to dealing with inequalities. Second, a Europe-wide tendency to widen the scope of equality policy thinking from a very small number of privileged inequality grounds (most frequently gender and ethnicity) to a much wider range of inequalities to be addressed by state policies. The overall impact of these two changes has been to create equality regimes characterized by a wide variety of forms and levels of protection for the different inequalities. This suggests that while a transnational policy paradigm has framed the evolving nature of equality regimes across Europe, the implementation of this paradigm is moulded by the power dynamics embedded in national and local equality institutions, creating a fragmented and complex patchwork of equality regimes that defy easy regional classification and complicate overly generalized narratives about the influence of global policy paradigms.

Germany is generally regarded as a case of qualitative “change” in minimum income protection (MIP) schemes, while Sweden is perceived as one of institutional “inertia”. This paper seeks to qualify this view by embedding developments in MIP in wider policy and governance trends. Empirically, it is based on document analysis and qualitative expert interviews in the two countries. Theoretically, the paper applies recent institutional approaches that address patterns of change in more complex ways. In Sweden, an exclusive focus on formal continuity regarding social assistance would disguise its change in function from temporary security system of last resort into one that permanently provides income protection when neighboring policy fields, unemployment and sickness insurance, are downsized. Conversely, in Germany a merger of social assistance and unemployment assistance took place. Yet an exclusive focus on the Hartz reforms would downplay the degree of continuity that nevertheless exists in the unemployment insurance.

The European Union (EU) was an influential voice in advocating the adoption of gender mainstreaming by the 4th United Nations World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. Since then gender mainstreaming has become a central policy plank of gender justice globally, but progress has been variable and modest. This paper examines the unfolding of gender mainstreaming in the EU, which was one of the early adopters as reflected by its commitment to gender mainstreaming in 1996. The objective is to identify patterns that may have implications for gender justice on a broader scale. The lenses are the European Employment Strategy dating from 1997 and targeted gender equality initiatives dating from the Community Framework on Gender Equality (2001–2005). Drawing on documentary analysis of these sources constraints on moving form aspiration to policy practice and outcome are identified. These are intensified by the multilevel structure of decision-making in the EU, which means that commitments agreed at the EU level are not pursed with the same fervour by all member states. But constraints are inherent in gender mainstreaming because of the contested and vague nature of the concept, the context of cross-cutting inequalities and the structural basis of these inequalities.

Active inclusion aims at the reduction of poverty by strengthening the agency of excluded persons by the provision of a minimum income, activation and social services. The contribution to poverty alleviation is determined by expenditure levels and the organisation of these three policy fields. This can be shown by three examples: The comprehensive Swedish regime is characterised by high expenditures; the redistributive German regime is characterised by lower service levels and in Italy, all three dimensions are least developed. In addition, the organisation of services differs: Decentralised and discretionary system for the provision of services in Sweden, “creaming and parking” effects in Germany and fragmented providers in Italy. As a result of different expenditure levels and organisational patterns, the selectivity of active inclusion strategies is low in Sweden, medium in Germany and high in Italy. Both the financial and organisational dimensions of active inclusion therefore are decisive for poverty alleviation.