welfare state
welfare stateA term referring to a form of capitalist society in which the state takes responsibility for a range of measures intended to ensure the well-being of its members, through providing education for children, access to health care, financial support for periods out of the labour-market, and so on. It gained currency in Britain and internationally in the late 1940s following the post-war establishment of a range of British public welfare systems (see Beveridge Report). Welfare states differ widely, however, in the ways in which they make such provision: for example, whether there is an emphasis on insurance contributions of paid workers and building up entitlement, whether provision is targeted at the less well-off and means-tested, or whether provision is conditional primarily on citizenship. Increasingly, then, there is an interest in recognizing the diversity of welfare states (and their potential for development in...
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