Seven Prophets, profits and uncertain conclusions
-
Kirk Mann
Abstract
The final task of this book is to draw together the key features of the approaches set out in the preceding chapters and to show how these can be reconciled with a revised version of the SDW. Hopefully, this will both guide the reader as they rethink retirement, and highlight the social, ethical and political questions that need to be considered.
Before a reconstructed account of the SDW is attempted, it is important to acknowledge the continuing significance of the key points Titmuss made in the 1950s:
-
public welfare is not the only form that welfare takes and those that assume it is are either mischievous, or naive;
-
welfare dependency affects everyone and is a feature of all developed societies;
-
interdependency is unavoidable;
-
social divisions in retirement are directly related to the SDW and to the forms of welfare social groups can access;
-
trying to ensure social justice and equity between the different forms of welfare that exist is a legitimate goal.
Although the SDW remains an adaptable mid-range theory, Titmuss’s version, however, has to be heavily revised along the lines set out in Chapter One (Sinfield, 1978; Rose, 1981). Titmuss’s functionalist perspective simply fails to explain the development of dependency and interdependency, but that has been addressed earlier and at length elsewhere (Mann, 1992). Above all else, the SDW has to take on board feminist critiques and locate informal welfare alongside occupational, fiscal and public provisions. That does not mean that informal welfare accounts for all the blatant and persistent gender divisions among the retired population. On the contrary, there are profound gender divisions in respect of each aspect of the SDW.
Abstract
The final task of this book is to draw together the key features of the approaches set out in the preceding chapters and to show how these can be reconciled with a revised version of the SDW. Hopefully, this will both guide the reader as they rethink retirement, and highlight the social, ethical and political questions that need to be considered.
Before a reconstructed account of the SDW is attempted, it is important to acknowledge the continuing significance of the key points Titmuss made in the 1950s:
-
public welfare is not the only form that welfare takes and those that assume it is are either mischievous, or naive;
-
welfare dependency affects everyone and is a feature of all developed societies;
-
interdependency is unavoidable;
-
social divisions in retirement are directly related to the SDW and to the forms of welfare social groups can access;
-
trying to ensure social justice and equity between the different forms of welfare that exist is a legitimate goal.
Although the SDW remains an adaptable mid-range theory, Titmuss’s version, however, has to be heavily revised along the lines set out in Chapter One (Sinfield, 1978; Rose, 1981). Titmuss’s functionalist perspective simply fails to explain the development of dependency and interdependency, but that has been addressed earlier and at length elsewhere (Mann, 1992). Above all else, the SDW has to take on board feminist critiques and locate informal welfare alongside occupational, fiscal and public provisions. That does not mean that informal welfare accounts for all the blatant and persistent gender divisions among the retired population. On the contrary, there are profound gender divisions in respect of each aspect of the SDW.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- List of figures and tables iv
- Acknowledgements v
- Acronyms and glossary of terms vii
- Introduction 1
- Social divisions, exclusion and retirement 17
- Two versions of political economy: ease and plenty or immiseration and crisis? 49
- Consumption, consumers and choice 79
- Post-work and post-structuralism: first past the post? 111
- Risk and post-traditional welfare 143
- Looking (or put out) for greener grass? Some comparative measures of ‘success’ 173
- Prophets, profits and uncertain conclusions 207
- Bibliography 225
- Index 255
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- List of figures and tables iv
- Acknowledgements v
- Acronyms and glossary of terms vii
- Introduction 1
- Social divisions, exclusion and retirement 17
- Two versions of political economy: ease and plenty or immiseration and crisis? 49
- Consumption, consumers and choice 79
- Post-work and post-structuralism: first past the post? 111
- Risk and post-traditional welfare 143
- Looking (or put out) for greener grass? Some comparative measures of ‘success’ 173
- Prophets, profits and uncertain conclusions 207
- Bibliography 225
- Index 255
