Welfare Goes Global: Making Progress and Catching Up

by Richard Rose

Overview

This innovative book shows that the health, education, and employment of billions of people have been improving on every continent in the past three decades. The globalization of welfare has had the biggest impact in developing countries, where more than five-sixths of the world's population lives. In Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East there has been great progress in eradicating infant mortality and illiteracy, people are living longer, and more young people are able to obtain a secondary education. These achievements are the product of a welfare mix combining resources of the household, the market, and the state. Given low starting points, only a minority of developing countries have already caught up with the high standards of welfare in Europe, the United States and Canada, and the Asia Pacific region. Slow but steady rates of progress show that people in a majority of developing countries can expect to catch up with the high, fixed standards of welfare in the next three decades. This will happen sooner in China and later in India, because China has been unusually successful in using its resources to promote welfare while India has been below the global average.

These conclusions are based on Richard Rose's systematic analysis of the Global Welfare Database, which combines official and unofficial data covering 95 per cent of the world's population. The success of highly developed countries raises questions about how much is enough welfare. At what age will young people learn more by leaving classrooms and becoming employees? Is length of life or quality of life more important for older people? Should unpaid work caring for children and older family members have the same value as working and paying taxes in the official economy?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198908463
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	05/08/2024
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	8.90(w) x 5.80(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Richard Rose, Professor of Public Policy, University of Strathclyde

Richard Rose is Professor of Public Policy at the University of Strathclyde and a Visiting Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence and the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin. He is internationally known for pioneering research in comparative public policy, applying political science, sociology, social policy, and applied economics concepts to major problems facing policymakers and citizens on every continent. He has been a consultant for UN agencies, the World Bank, the OECD, and Transparency International, and he holds honorary doctorates and lifetime achievement awards from institutions in Europe, the United States, and the International Public Policy Association.

Table of Contents

Part I. Welfare across Time and Space1. Making Progress Globally2. The Welfare Mix3. Welfare is about More than Money4. The Development of WelfarePart II. Comparing Forms of Welfare5. Health: Living Longer and Avoiding Death6. Education: Quantity and Quality7. Work for WomenPart III. The Globalization of Countries and People8. Countries Going Global9. People Going Global10. Unfinished BusinessAppendix: The Global Welfare Database

Editorial Reviews

"A critical reader by the end of this book will very much be a potential writer exploring the unanswered questions that Rose leaves written, under-written or un-written." — Mehak Majeed, Forum for Development Studies

From the Publisher