Contiene índice temático pp. 97-99

Contiene referencias bibliográficas pp. 87-95

Social policy -in contrast to economic or environmental policy- is a diffuse, residual category, sometimes as broad as three quarters of what governments do, sometimes as narrow as income maintenance for the poor. For the purpose of this review, we have defined the area as roughly equivalent to the "welfare state." The essence of the welfare state is government-protected minimum standars of income, nutrition, heatlh and safety, education, and housing assured to every citizen as a social right. The core programs containing most of these guarantees often subsumed under the general heading of "social security," have taken the form of social insurance against the basic rights of industrial life: job injury, sickness, unemployment, disability, old age, and income lost due to illness or shifts in family composition. This monograph concentrates mainly on comparative studies of the causes, content, and effects of these core programs. To permit more intensive examination of recent studies of these programs we have excluded policies on education, the labor market, the environment, and occupational health and safety; we have excluded housing policies because the limitations of the data largely preclude systematic comparative research.