Social welfare and welfare state
Social welfare generally refers to states’ services designed to protect citizens from the economic risks and insecurities of life. The western style social welfare programmes were installed in response to industrialization in urban cities. Over the decades, a general consensus is reached that states are responsible for protecting all those unable to care for themselves for whatever reasons. Social welfare is a matter of right rather than of need. Financing of states’ social welfare programmes basically comes from public revenue. In this regard, social welfare is one of the systems of transfer payments to bridge the gap between the poor and the rich. As the format and nature of social welfare programmes becoming more comprehensive and diversified, covering increasingly more sectors of the society, meeting more identified needs; the earlier version of social welfare has changed substantially in the modern era.
In the modern era social welfare is often interpreted with a broad meaning to include public provisions of education, health, housing and public assistance. In this manner, it is more appropriately connected to the conception of the welfare state. In an ideal welfare state the government plays a key role in the protection and promotion of the economic and social well-being of its citizens, 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 reasonable standard of life.
Reforming the welfare system
The ideal welfare state where the state is the key player perhaps never exists. It has been suggested that, based on European experience, the markets and welfare systems are linked in different ways, resulting in diverging experiences in handling market failures (e.g. prolonged unemployment), and welfare cut....................
