Social Division of Welfare - Essay Example

TO WHAT EXTENT DOES THE SOCIAL DIVISION OF WELFARE (TITMUSS 1958, ROSE 1981) CONTINUE TO PROVIDE BOTH A USEFUL DESCRIPTIVE MODEL AND ANALYTICAL TOOL FOR EXPLAINING GENDERED INEQUALITIES AMONG THE RETIRED POPULATION The percentage of Americans over the age of 65 is rapidly escalating. As more and more people live longer and the Baby Boomers enter their golden years, the number of elderly is on the increase. Indeed, the percentage of Americans over the age of 65 is quickly growing, accounting for over 22 percent of the population by 2030, with the majority of those in this age group being over 85. Such a dramatic increase in the elderly population presents an immediate challenge to social work, which must prepare for the problems inherent in caring for an older population. The social work profession must be able to confront the issues that have arisen because of the dramatic increases to longevity accomplished in the 20th century, and social workers must be ready to meet the distinctive needs of the country's rapidly expanding aging population. The increase in the number of elderly necessitates an increase in the number of social workers equipped to deal with the specific challenges of the elderly. However, at this point, those social workers currently working in the field note that there is a desperate shortage in the number of social workers who have the specialized knowledge and skills required to care for the elderly population. (Lamb, 178-9) In this context it becomes relevant to point that one has to place the concept of social division of welfare into its particular context. The question in this context that to what extent does the social division of welfare (Titmuss 1958, Rose 1981) continue to provide both a useful descriptive model and analytical tool for explaining gendered inequalities among the retired population It has clearly two distinctive features, the aspect of social welfare and the aspect of gendered inequalities. Thus it would be relevant to define social division of welfare in the lights of Titmuss 1958 and Rose 1981 and then evaluate the aspect of gender inequalities from this perspective. The context here is framed by the understanding of what the welfare state is. Without understanding what this social welfare concept is it will be difficult to place the division of social welfare in a proper framework. Titmuss and Rose are moments of theorization in a rich corpus of work. The tools of analysis that used by Titmuss has become slightly outdated still one has to reach out to the paths opened out by them. A social welfare provision refers to any government program and which also seeks to provide a minimum level of income, service or other support for disadvantaged peoples such as the poor, elderly, disabled, students, unpaid workers such as mothers and other caregivers, and minority groups. Social welfare payments and services are typically provided free of charge or at a nominal fee, and are funded by the state, or by compulsory enrolment of the poor themselves. Examples of social welfare services include the following: There are also Compulsory superannuation savings programs. It provides Compulsory social insurance programs, often based on income, to pay for the social welfare service being provided. These are often incorporated into the taxation system and may be inseparable from income tax. Pensions or other financial aid, including social security and tax relief, to those with low incomes or inability to meet basic living costs, especially those who are raising children, elderly, unemployed, injured, sick or disabled. Free or low cost nursing, medical and hospital care for those who are sick, injured or unable to care for themselves. This may also include free antenatal and postnatal care. Services may be provided in the community or a medical facility. This provides Free or low cost public education for all children, and financial aid, sometimes as a scholarship or pension, sometimes in the form of a suspensor loan, to students attending academic institutions or undertaking vocational training. The state may also fund or operate social work and community based organizations that provide services that benefit disadvantaged people in the community. Welfare money paid to persons, from a government, who are in need of financial assistance but who are unable to work for pay. (King, 126) However, in the context of older adults it is often found that there are a good amount of inequalities working in this parameter of social service. As already noted, the increase in longevity of life has created unique challenges that the social work field must prepare to meet. According to one woman interviewed, the lack of proper training in the field of social work for the elderly has contributed to the problem. Further, she notes that many social work programs lack the faculty with training in dealing with aging. Without formalized training in aging, many social workers are unprepared to face the challenges of dealing with an elderly population. This when comes to the interactions with women becomes more troublesome. Social workers working with the elderly face specific challenges when attempting to carry out the duties required of them, particularly to women. One particular challenge is the stigma attached to aging and the elderly in our society. Often times in America the elderly women are not given the respect they deserve, and there is distinct prejudice against aging in our culture. Those interviewed suggest that the negative stereotypes about aging are a primary concern to those working in the field, and that these prejudices need to be confronted in order for the social worker to perform their duties and it is most reflected while the interaction is predominantly with a woman. Another specific challenge faced by those social workers in this field is the resistance of the woman elderly to accept the need for aid by a social worker. Many of the women of aging population are determined to maintain their independence, and avoid seeking any assistance. Hence, as an interviewee suggests, the most difficult part of dealing with the women elderly population is convincing them that they can benefit from assistance and getting their consent to accept the assistance available to them. All social workers considering working with the elderly must be sympathetic to these concerns, and must approach the subject of assistance delicately and with tact. It the social workers' duty, according to those interviewed, to help the elderly clients understand the process and to realize it is not something they should fear. Moreover, the lack of funding for many programs that deal with the elderly population is a complication in the social workers job. Further, because many older people live on very minimal fixed incomes, they often do not have the money to receive the services that they may require. The social worker must be willing to explore all possible avenues for funding in order to assure that their clients receive the services that they need. This is a very important factor. Economic factors have contributed to this social problem. A lack of funding from the federal government has only compounded the problems. Even as the number of social workers needs to deal with this population has increased, the availability of government sponsored training programs in this field has decreased. Most of those social workers in the field interviewed cited fiscal constraints as a major barrier to the adequate training of social workers for aging. In addition to governmental cutbacks and lack of funding, the inadequate compensate for those social workers who do decide to work with the elderly population has also compounded the problem. The field of social work concerned with aging is the lowest paying field of practice in the social work profession. These economic concerns are of importance to social workers who do choose to work in the field, and they must be prepared to meet these challenges head on. But why women are affected by this The answer is simple. In public life or in private engagements women are the secondary players when it comes to financial matters. As a result at the time of retirement the male population tends to generate more financial stability than their female counterparts. As it is already seen that there is a huge need of finance it is logical that the institutions would prefer to accommodate a comparatively richer guest than a poorer guest. In most cases this richer guest tends to be a male with a better financial stability. As par as latest statistics is concerned it could be stated that about 76% of the older population getting assistance in institutes were men. (Lamb, 339-40) It should be remembered that Social division of welfare is a concept coined by R. Titmuss in his book Essays on the Welfare state. The concept of welfare is based on an idea of redistribution. A measure is redistributive if the people who receive the goods or services from the measure are not as the same as the people as who pay. This is turn is informed by a certain notion of inequality. There are usually three patterns of inequality. The first is hierarchical inequality. This stretches from the top to the bottom with everyone ranked in a relative position. Examples would that of inequality of income and wealth. Then there is stratification where people ranked in groups set at different levels. This is the usual pattern of inequality used in discussions of class and gender. The third kind is social division. Society here is split in different binaries posited against each other. The 'black' and the 'white', men and women, rich and poor are usual examples of such division. The inequalities after being placed like this are placed so as measures that will be taken against them have a certain trajectory. From this the concept welfare engenders. So policies of equality aim for equality of opportunities (where everyone has a chance to compete on an equal footing and 'merit' becomes the crucial criterion of determination). Then there id equality of treatment where no special bias is shown to any particular group of people and everyone is measured according to a benchmark law. The 'rule of the law' is taken to be the supreme parameter. Lastly there is the concept of equality of outcome where policies seek to address the inequalities of income or health status. (Berkowitz, 189) This background helps us to understand Titmuss's postulation more clearly. Titmuss identified several different kinds of redistributive process, arguing that it was not possible to understand the redistributive impact of social policy without taking them fully into account. He referred to a 'social division of welfare', including three main types of welfare: 1. Social welfare (the social services); 2. Fiscal welfare (welfare distributed through the tax system); and 3. Occupational welfare (welfare distributed by industry as part of employment). The classification is fairly crude. It could be stated that the category of fiscal welfare bundles together subsidies, incentives and transfer payments, including income maintenance. Occupational welfare includes perks, salary-related benefits, measures intended to improve the efficiency of the workforce and some philanthropic measures. The classification excludes legal welfare (redistribution through the courts), the voluntary sector and the informal sector. However, Richard Titmuss's famous Essays on the "Welfare State"-placed tax policy (which he termed "fiscal welfare") and private social benefits (which he called "occupational welfare") on par with spending as a means of achieving social welfare ends. Yet Titmuss's insights on this point, unlike many of his other contributions, have produced relatively little follow-up analysis. The importance idea was, however, a) To draw attention to different patterns of redistribution b) Explain that different kinds of redistribution (for example by tax or by benefits) can have similar effects, c) To broaden the scope of social policy as a subject. (Border, 227-228) The needs principle-that certain goods should be distributed according to need-has been central to much socialist and egalitarian thought. It is the principle which Marx famously takes to be that which is to govern the distribution of goods in the higher phase of communism. The principle is one that Marx himself took from the Blanquists. It had wider currency in the radical traditions of the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century it remained central to the mutualism form of socialism defended by Tawney and Titmuss. In this context it would be relevant to mention that Jurgen Habermas' work on universal pragmatics reveals a rational reconstruction of philosophical methods. Here the fundamentals of the concept are based on speech acts. Thus it reveals itself as a contrast to the general appliance of linguistics and incline towards a specialization that involves sentence utterance. This is further modified into special subsections like phonemes, morphemes and words. Jurgen Habermas' work on deliberative democracy reveals that a system of political agenda that is based on a political decision that function as a tradeoff with any other medium of communicative format. Under this usage of the phrase or definition it is in the opposite pole of the democracy that is economy based. However this form if completely representative and decision oriented in the conscious level. Here the democracy is not formed on the fundamentals of voting but relies on the authority that is instrumental in making laws that is authorized by the deliberate consent of its prime members. However, it should be noted that the social theory Jurgen Habermas is based on the synthesis of a number of bygone theoretical formulations that starts with the thought process of the neo-Kantian philosophers with a rich tradition of American pragmatist approach that reminds us of the works of Niklas Luhmann, Talcott Parsons, John Dewey and Sanders Peirce. He also incorporated in the theory the essence of Lawrence Kohlberg and Jean Piaget's developmental psychology along with speech act and linguistic philosophy developed by John Searle, Stephen Toulmin, P. F. Strawson, J.L. Austin and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Furthermore, his work involved the George Herbert Mead, mile Durkheim and Max Weber's sociological theory along with the Frankfurt school ideology of Marxian theory put forward by Herbert Marcuse, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer. Jurgen Habermas also believed in the general theories of Karl Marx as fundamental thought process. Apart from these eminent names he was deeply nfluenced by the works of German philosophers like Hans-Georg Gadamer, Edmund Husserl, Wilhelm Dilthey, Georg Hegel, Friedrich Schelling and over all Immanuel Kant. (Dollard, 89-92) However, the principle underlay the development and justification of the modern welfare state-thus the National Health Service is still founded upon the idea that the distribution of medical resources should be determined by medical need, not by ability to pay. One source of the power of the needs principle lies in the fact that it appears to be both a principle of justice and a principle of community or social solidarity. As a principle of justice it is offered as a corrective to the particular forms of unequal distributions of goods that can result from market transactions, and as a principle of community or social solidarity as a corrective to the possessive individualism taken to be the corollary of a market order. Anyone writing on the sociology of welfare today in the UK is spoilt for choice. It was not always so. Over the three post war decades massive real international growth of state welfare coupled with sociological functionalism, Keynesian economics and political science balanced by Dahl's work on balance on political influences fostered agreements on essentials; state power could achieve desired distributional consequences without politico economic penalties. Subsequent development in theory and analysis of empirical evidence has undermined consensus approaches. (Deb, 323) Analysis carried out in the mid eighties, (this is the time Rose's re working of Titmuss comes into being) indicate that despite the rhetoric shift in the total amount of spending or in the impact of redistribution remained more or less the same. The real shift if there is any has taken place on the level of ideas. It is now politically feasible to talk of a radical change. The policies if late eighties seem to move towards this. The most important changes are drastic reduction in council house provision with some authorities abandoning their municipal housing role completely as a result of the 1988 housing act; the real reduction in means test benefits level for the poor together with the curtailment of benefit rights for school leavers and a substantial transfer of pensioners to from state to private earning related supplements as state basic pensions themselves decline in relation to benefits; real cuts in child benefits, a failure to increase personal services or NHS spending in line with need; and a number of changes in education policy designed to increase selectivity and bringing schooling closer to work. These changes are taking place in a context of very high rates of unemployment and growing inequality in market incomes. In general the effect is it enhances the social division of welfare. Better off groups are transferred to subsidized private sector provision. The poor remain dependent on restricted welfare. The substantial solidarity that supported the post war welfare settlement is under attack. (Dos, 441-442) Despite the new approaches apparent differences in method and assumptions provenance and direction, the new approaches to the state welfare share a number of key features. In the early 1970's the view that the current configuration of democratic welfare capitalism contained a tendency to crisis was advanced on different premises by the writers on the left and on the right. The work of O' Connor integrating the normative public policy the US normative public policy tradition and a Marxist class logic implied the conflict between the limitations on state revenues resulting from the private property system and the burgeoning demand of organized private interests generated an inherent instability in the capacity of the state to deliver the policy to demanded of it. New right arguments claim that the state services tend towards inefficiency due to the tendency of politicians acquiescence in the claims of electoral important groups. A harder nosed variant, derived from Hayek's rigorous methodological individualism points to the logical impossibility of a centralized intelligence meeting needs and allocating resources which are divided up among a large number of individuals. These arguments have reinforced the claims about a crisis of citizen confidence expressed in tax payer revolt. A series of writers of whom the most sophisticated is Habermas have develop notions of allegiance deficit legitimating crisis, as the modern state appears to offer the satisfaction of all interests to the citizenry thought the mechanism of democracy, yet is trapped within the conflict of different interests which appear equally legitimate to their holders. (Fletcher, 188) It can well be stated that crisis in western capitalism generated the operation of an interventionist welfare state has been resolved by transferring the burden of crisis to some groups among welfare state consumers, as earlier discussion of the realignment of welfare policy in the UK shows. This shift to a theoretical model whereby the welfare state is seen as in process of 'modernisation' or as in 'transition'- to use the title the title of two new books- may well have supplanted earlier crisis theory at a time when the real crisis for the welfare state, in the UK at least, has finally arrived. But the problem remains with the aspect of gender differences and inequalities and the government should put more emphasis on the context and application of the Titmus and Rose models to revive this situation. References: Berkowitz, L; Society and Man. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press. 2006) pp 189 Border, S; Stigma: Fire of the Mind (Wellington: National Book Trust; 2006) pp 227-228 Deb, J; Introduction to Welfare Sociology: Technology for Mankind. (Dunedin: ABP Ltd. 2005) pp 323 Dos, M; Future of Thought Process in Welfare Economics (Christchurch: Alliance Publications; 2005) pp 441-442 Dollard, John; Modern Social Policies in the UK and US: A look into Tomorrow. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press. 2006) pp 89-92 Fletcher, R; Social Divisions: Beliefs and Knowledge; Believing and Knowing. (Mangalore: Howard & Price. 2006) pp 188 Irwin, John; The Warehouse Prison: Disposal of the New Dangerous Class; Roxbury Pub Co, 2005 Kar, P; History of Social Applications (Kolkata: Dasgupta & Chatterjee 2005) pp 145 Keel, R; Conflict theory of deviance [online]; umsl.edu; 2005; retrieved on 20.10.2007 from http://www.umsl.edu/rkeel/200/conflict.html King, H; Fiscal Fitness Today (Dunedin: HBT & Brooks Ltd. 2005) pp 126 Lamb, Davis; Cult to Culture: The Development of Civilization on the Strategic Strata. (Wellington: National Book Trust. 2004) pp 243-245 Sparks, R.F; A critique of Marxist criminology; Crime and Justice [online], 1980; retrievedon20.10.2007from http://www.jstor.org.er.lib.ksu.edu/view/01923234/ap040002/04a00050/0currentResult=01923234%2bap040002%2b04a00050%2b0%2cBFFFEEAAAAEF1F&searchUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jstor.org%2Fsearch%2FBasicResults%3Fhp%3D25%26si%3D1%26Query%3DMarxism%2BCriminology Read More