Welfare Reform on the Web (March 2004): Social Security - Overseas

PUTTING POLICY INTO PRACTICE? POVERTY AND PEOPLE WITH SERIOUS MENTAL ILLNESS

R. Wilson

Social Science & Medicine, Vol. 58, 2004, p.25-39

The article examines the extent to which people with mental health problems suffer from chronic poverty in Ontario. It explores how recent developments in the policy and provision of mental health care and social assistance have recognised and addressed the poverty experienced by people with mental illnesses and how poverty effects quality of life. Twenty-two people with serious mental illnesses were interviewed, all of whom experienced chronic poverty and were unable to meet their monthly needs. Poverty was shown to adversely affect participants' ability to build social relationships, cause low self-esteem and add to the social stigma of having a mental illness. The article concludes that although the ministry of health has identified income support as essential to a reformed mental health system, government policy has been to curb welfare spending and that this must change if mental health reforms are to succeed.

SOCIAL PROTECTION IN THE REPUBLIC OF KOREA: SOCIAL INSURANCE AND MORAL HAZARD

E. Bidet

International Social Security Review, vol.57, Jan.-Mar.2004, p.3-18

Article outlines recent changes in the South Korean social insurance schemes offering protection against sickness, unemployment and old age. Goes on to describe various forms of fraud and cheating facing the new system of social insurance and the need for a form of joint management to minimise this hazard.

RETHINKING SOCIAL SECURITY IN THE EUROPEAN UNION: EXTENDING FUNDAMENTAL UNIVERSAL RIGHTS

C. Euzeby

International Social Security Review, vol.57, Jan.-Mar.2004, p.85-103

Article emphasises the need to combine social security's redistributive and integrative functions on the basis of three principles:

• activation of benefits;
• individualisation and universitality of certain rights;
• the promotion of equality of opportunity across the life course.

If applied in all EU states, this approach would facilitate convergence among their social security systems.

SUBSTITUTION BETWEEN DISABILITY AND SUPPORT PROGRAMMES IN CANADA

M. Campolieti and H. Krashinsky

Canadian Public Policy, Vol. 29, 2003, p.417-430

Substitution, or overlapping beneficiaries, between social programmes which could have contributed to the growth of Canadian disability rolls, is caused by legislation that permits the receipt of benefits from multiple sources. The paper examines the effects of workers' compensation and welfare programmes on the growth in beneficiaries and expenditures of the Canada/Quebec Pension Plan disability support programme.