In orden to understand what is involved in comparing social policies it is important to step back

from two often taken for granted assumptions:

 That social policies are specific actions designed to promote welfare;

 That such actions are necessarily state actions

Both of these assumptions embody essential truths about the activities to be explored in this
book; however they can be very misleading if they are not placed in a wider understanding of
human welfare and the role of the state.

Readers should try for a moment to put aside their assumptions about what this book is about and
ask themselves two related questions.

 What do understand by my own welfare or well-being?

 Upon what and who does that welfare depend?

Answer to the first of these questions are likely to include such things as not being hungry or cold
or unwell, but may well go on from these to wider considerations about what may contribute to a
sense of well-being-participation in social life, involvement in activities that may provide
emotional or intellectual stimulation, even sexual activities.

A number of writers have sought to identify a set of human need (Doyal and Gough, 1991),
recognizing difficulties in separating needs from wants and suggesting that they may be some
senses in which more or less basic needs can be identified or even that they may be a sort of
hierarchy from essential concerns, with maintaining bodily integrity to forms of self-actualisation.
In this discussion there is no intention to go into the arguments that obviously arise about which
needs must be met and which may be more appropriately described as wants. However, it must
not be forgotten that much evaluation of social policy, and accordingly much comparison, centres
around questions about the adequacy of contributions to welfare. In addressing, contributions to
welfare it must not be forgotten therefore that answers to questions about what welfare is will be
varied, and will indicate that it is a vague and elasctic concept.

Answers to the second question, upon what or who does your welfare depend, will be much more
complex. People just about to read a book that they know will have a great deal to say about state
policy may well start by identifying the state as a source or their welfare. But introspection,
unbiased by this situation, may equally well produce answers like.

 Myself, meaning my work, my saving, my self-care

 My family
 My friends
 My community, meaning not only neighbours but the organisations to wich I belong
For many of us welfare depends upon a complex mix, with the state perhaps playing an
overarching role (regulating and providing support when other system fail) rather than a very
explicit direct one. To make analysis even more difficult, however, the source of welfare (the state,
the family, etc.) even we ourselves may be sources of harm to ourselves.

Just as the issues about the definition of welfare (and the related question of need) are topics of
dispute so, perhaps even more saliently, there are controversies about the different contributions
to welfare. This is more particulary evident in the arguments about the appropriate role of the
state on the one hand and the individual on the other.

So let us now return to the first of those taken for granted assumptions: that social policies are
specific actions designed to promote welfare. To what extent can we expect to be able to identify
a specific category of actions in this way, when welfare is complex and is promoted in diverse
ways? In conventional discussions of policy a distinction is often made between economic policy
and social policy. However, if welfare particularly depends on work and economic policies created
work, then those are the most important policies for the promotion of welfare. In fact, the
destinction between economic policy and social policy is often based on a particular set of
assumptions which are partially true at particular times in particular places. They may be
challenged both by the denial that untrammelled market forces create diswalfare (a position taken
by some classical economic thinkers) and by the assertion that economic policies may be
developed that manage markets in ways that promote welfare.

Hence we need to analyse all courses of action taken or nor taken (we return to the latter below)
in terms of effects which seem in common-sence terms to be social effects or influences on
welfare. For example, much management of the economy focuses on rates of inflation or
unemployment. These are not just statistics but evidence on effects that increase or decrease
welfare (reduce or increase the real incomes of those on fixed forms of remuneration, throw
some people out of work or get them into work, and so on) (see chapter 5). Similarly, changes to
transportation systems cannot be seem as merely adjustments to economic infrastructure, since
they convey benefits and disbenefits. And so we may go on.

Another problem with any emphasis on a straightforward connection between social policies and
the advancement of welfare is that such propositions seem to highlight bening intentions. Social
policies may enhance welfare but they may equally enhance diswelfare (or of course there is a
neutral position where they do neither). Even more problematical is the fact that statements
about the enhancement of welfare may confuse intentions and effects. It is essential not to
assume that policies will have particular effects just because policy-makers say they will have
them.

How then can we compare social policy if we cannot readily define it? We have essentially two
choices. One is to try to compare the sources of welfare and diswelfare in different societies. But
this implies a very wide activity: trying to bring together the multiple influences in social well-
being. The other, adoped in this book, is to confine attention to a limited number of policy areas,
conventionally defined as “social policy”, recognising that their particular hallmark seems to have
been efforts to advance human welfare. At this stage the reader may well ask “if that is where you
were heading anyway, why go in for the rather difficult argument abuot welfare you have just
concluded? The answer to this is to stress the extent to which what in being adopted is merely a
pragmatic solution to the problem of defining social policy, and that therefore it is very important
for readers to recognise that when we compare societies the policies examined (1) may or may not
enhance welfare and (2) may or may not be dwarfed in importance by other policies. Let us look
beyond those generalisations by considering a society where conventional “social policy”
development has been limited but substantial welfare advance has occurred, Taiwan. This country
has relatively low levels of poverty and has (at least until recently) had low levels of inequality. It
has experienced a dramatic fall in premature death, lifting it distinctively into the group of
privileged societies in this respect. The advancement of Taiwan has occurred primarily because of
strong state-led economic development. Until very recently the society has enjoyed very full
employment. As it has developed, governments have paid more attention to infrastructure
developments – improvements to the environment and to transportation (both road and rail) –
than to social policy ones. Furthermore, such social policy development as has occurred has not
been particularly egalitarian: there has been strong emphasis on education rather than any
involved high levels of cost sharing, and the social security structures that have been most
developed take care of soldiers, civil servants and teachers.

However, looking at specific state policies, in the case of a society like Taiwan, will not tell the
whole story about welfare in that society relative to others. There are issues about family life and
about demography that need attention too. It is a argued that in Taiwan the Confucian extended
family is itself an important protector of individuals, income transfers within extended families, in
the context of low birth and death rates and high, levels of occupational and geographical
mobility, needs attention.

This leads to the other issue about the definition of social policy, the widespread assumption that
social policy actions are necessarily state actions. The concept of “policy” is identified in Chambers
dictionary as “a course of action, especially one based on some declared and respected principle”.
At the same time the Oxford English dictionary identifies as “the chief living sense” of the world
policy” “a course of action adopted and pursued by a government, party, ruler, statesman…” So
policies may be identified as purposive action, but such action is recognized of welfare, while we
recognise state action as particularly significant we may ourselves adopt policies which influence
our welfare, as may our families and our communities precedes states as social organisations.

However, an acknowledgement of policy as a course of action must include the possibility that
systematic inaction occurs. Students of power (see Lukes, 2004, Hay 2002, chapter 5) have drawn
attention to the importance of non-decisions, in which the emergence of issues onto the public
agenda has been actively prevented or implicitly inhibited. A particularly misleading model of
public policy processes, linked to economic analyses that see market processes as natural, involves
seeing social policies as interventions which divert systems from their normal course. The reality is
that the ways in which human life, including economic life, is organised depends on a framework
of laws, conventions for the benefits or disbenefits that occur. There is no starting point at a state
of nature. Holding to particular arrangements on the grounds that it is a problematical to meddle
with markets may have distinct consequences for human welfare economics, concerns itself (and
accordingly with the exploration of issues and problems about markets that are seen as justifying
state intervention).

As with the definition of social policy, it is true to say that this book pays particular attention to the
role of the state as an agent of social policy. However, in this case it is important not to be misled
by the either/ or arguments of political philosophy into disregarding the extent to which state
social policy may involve direct attention to support or enhance the roles of the others actors.
States adopt policies to influence the roles of families and communities. Even in respect of
individual self-help, states are never entirely neutral but rather support some roles and proscribe
others. An emphasis on specific areas of social policy highlights issue about the provision of
benefits and services. It is then important not to forget the extent to which state operate as
regulators rather than as direct providers, influencing what we can do and what other can do for
or to us.

Comparison in Social Policy

Margaret May puts the basic case for comparative study in these terms:

The study of welfare provision inevitably involves some form of comparison between current
practice and past or alternative ways of meeting need of improving existing policies. Such
comparison may not always be explicit…but they are central to a discipline geared to evaluating
welfare arrengements (May, in Alcock, Erskine and May, 2003, P. 17)

This implies both a practical and an intellectual case for comparative studies. The practical one is
that policy evaluation and improvement requires to be grounded in a recognition of alternative
ways of doing things and a capacity therefore to learn form the experience of others.

The intellectual one is embodied in a classic argument for comparision in the social sciences by the
famous French sociologist Emile Durkheim:

We have only was of demonstrating that one phenomenon is the cause of another. That is to
compare the cases where they are both simultaneously present or absent, so as to discover
whether the variations they display in these different combinations of circumstances provide
evidence that one depends on the other (Durkheimm 1982, P. 141)

May´s general statement embraces several variants of comparison:

 Comparison within one country at different points in time;

 Comparison between different parts of the same country;
 Comparison between countries
This book is about the last of those three, though elements of the other two surface from time to
time in the discussion: the first in relation to different rates of change in different countries, the
second where questions need to be raised about whether statements about a country as a whole
may not apply to some parts of it.

In the first part of this chapter I have suggested that the determinants of human welfare depend
on the roles played by the state, the market, the family and so on. In which case the study of social
policy must require the application of ideas, theories and concepts derived from range of
academic disciplines, including particularly sociology, political science and economics. These ideas,
theories and concepts involve propositions about what promotes (or undermines) welfare which,
though they may only be applied in a static way to one society at one point in time, often claim
some measure of universality. Many statements about power or how markets work or the roles of
families are often offered as generalisations about all human societies. Their claims to universality
need testing. Conversely, statements that purport to apply to only one society need to be
challenged in search of reasons why they are cast in such narrow terms.

The first of these points may seem more obvious than the second. Any expectation that a
“market” or a “family”, for example, behaves in similar ways in different societies requires further
examination. Any theory embodying deterministic propositions about influences on social policy
suggest that countries with similar characteristics will tend to have similar policies. Many forms of
Marxist theory suggest that policy similarities will arise at similar stages in the development of
capitalism; more general theories of socio-economic development embody comparable
propositions whilst many forms of globalist theory suggest widespread uniformities in responses
to issues, particularly those with economic implications, across nations.

Equally, statements that seem to rest upon, or take from granted, the idea that one country´s
policies are unique products of its cultural and institutional characteristics needs to be examined.
Although it is often easier to show that system diverge rather than converge, there is nevertheless
an implication in theories stressing uniqueness that requires comparison to demonstrate they are
right.

Comparative work is vital for the wider understanding of social policy if we do not want
propositions to be seen as merely observations about specific occurrences in a particular place and
even at a particular point in time. As social policy is an applied discipline, It is a appropriate to note
observations on the case for comparison made in one of the disciplines on which it draws. A
leading textbook on comparative politics echoes the quotation from the sociologist Durkheim set
out above: “Comparison analysis helps us develop explanations and test theories of the way in
which political processes work” (Almond, Powell, Strom and Dalton, 2004, P. 31)

It is appropriate however to pause a moment to consider that word “scientific” in this context.
There is not wish to explore here the difficult philosophical arguments about whether social
behaviour can be studied scientifically, and what methodological conclusions flow from views
taken on that subject. But it is important to state that the view taken in this book is that
comparison can be something more than the setting down side by side statements that in society
x they do this and in society y they do that (something that characterised some of the early work
on comparative social policy; see Rodgers, Greve and Morgan, 1968; Kaim-Caudle, 1973).
Consequently, forms of systematic comparison will be adopted that aim to lead to generalisations
which, whilst not offered ad “universal laws” of social policy, can be open to some form of testing.
In this sense, in a discipline in which opportunities for experimental studies are very rare,
systematic comparison does provide for a form of quasi-experimentation important when policies
have unexpected consequences, or policy borrowing occurs, in which questions can be raised
about differences between national context which will effect outcomes.

Inasmuch as I am asserting here that systematic comparison is possible, another issue algo needs
to be mentioned: the extent to which comparison is quantitative. The stance taken in this book is a
pragmatic one. As soon as comparison moves beyond a very small number of cases, it necessarily
becomes implicitly if not explicitly comparative: individual cases get sorted into separate boxes as
examples of “type 1”, “type 2”, “type 3”, and so on. In many cases that sorting needs further
justification: if we say “type 1” contains countries that have high levels of x and low levels of y
whereas “type 2” has differente features, then our notion of what “high” or “low” mean are open
to challenge, to which we can respond much better if there are numbers we can quote.

In other words comparisons involving a number of different cases work much better if there are
numerical indices that can be used. On the other hand, there are many important and interesting
differences between societies for which numerical indices are not available. Those indices that can
be used may well tell us very little about key phenomena. Indeed they may well obscure rather
than illuminate key differences. Furthermore, two observers allegedly counting the same thing
may actually be counting very different things, particularly if they are in different countries whit
different cultures and different institutions.

There is here then a dilemma for comparative studies. Close-grained qualitative comparisons
between social policy systems start to get into difficulties if more than two countries are
compared. We find few efforts at systematic qualitative studies going beyond the comparison of
five or six nations. There are qualitative databases containing information about more nations
than this (e.g. the European union´s MISSIC information system and the US social security
administration´s social security programs throughout the world), but they are in the same
category as the early academic studies in which descriptive material is placed side by side. They
require further work to turn them into sources for generalisations about social policy, work in
which the summing activity described above becomes necessary. The alternative in quantitative
studies in which broad statistical comparisons are made, with questions about the reliability of the
statistics or the compatibility of data sources often pushed into the background.

The argument between quantitative and qualitative methods is ultimately a sterile once since
there is a case to be made that use of either (or both) depends on what you are trying to do, on
the situation and on the data available. There may also often be a case for combining both, using
qualitative methods to explore more deeply puzzles thrown up by quantitative comparison. A
qualitative focus on unusual cases may be appropriate. Throughout this book examples will be
found of nations with characteristics that do not seen to fit the quantitative generalisations,
nations that seems to have developed rather distinctive approaches to policy problems. Moving to
and fro between quantitative and qualitative methods may be a fruitful way of exploring issues.

These observations on generalization and quatification broadly sum up the approach to be

adopted in this book. The stress on pragmatism is important. In the case of this account, the
commitment to an overview of comparative social policy on a world scale leads to a heavy
dependence on quantitative material, much of it crude in character. Fine-grained analysis of a
qualitative kind is limited both by the relative absence of such studies and by the difficulties in
integration into a short book taking a world view of finding from comparisons between just two
(or slightly more) countries.

Sources of comparative data

The most important data source for this book is the OECD, an organization now of thirty member
countries drawn from the more economically advanced countries of the world. It is often
colloquially described as the “rich nations club”. Its membership is growing steadily. South Korea,
Mexico and some of the former soviet bloc nations now members of the European Union (Czech
Republic, Hungary, Poland and the Slovak Republic) are comparatively new members. It collects
information on a regular basic from its members, producing key expenditure statistics on an
annual basis. Its social expenditure database yields a considerable amount of information on the
divisions between different kinds of expenditure in different nations. The broad social policy
expenditure figures quoted in chapter 2 and and elsewhere come from this database, with
education added in for the purposes of this book. OECD also produces regular reports on topic it is
concerned about, for example issues about ageing and social policy, about health inequalities and
about variations in educational performance have been given attention.

As far as the analysis of social policy is concerned, the OECD is a key source for almost all the
nations with high incomes, in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) per head, and therefore
almost all the nations with large public social policy sectors. Many key expenditure statistics are
expressed as percentages of GDP per head, since this represent the most straightforward way of
achieving comparability.

Clearly, while many of the issues to be explored in this book involve these large spenders, OECD
data does not give an adequate picture of social policy in the world as a whole. In various places
therefore the OECD data are supplemented by data from various United Nations organisations,
particularly the World Health Organisation.

There is an additional source of comparative statistics for members of the European Union (EU),
particularly deriving from the work of the EU´s data collection agency (Eurostat). An annual report
titled “The Social Situation in the European Union” contains a great deal of comparative data,
though what it has to say about the nations that joined the EU in 2004 is still limited. This report
draws on a range of survey material, collected directly by Eurostat or produced by other EU
supported bodies such as the European Community Household Panel and the European Fundation
for living and Working Condition.

There is also an international project supported partly by the Luxembourg government and partly
by research institutes from participating countries, the Luxembourg Income Survey (LIS), wich
brings together data on a comparable basis from national household income surveys. This
information is valuable for the light it throws on the distributional impact of social policy, but
assembling it and getting it into usable forms is a slow process and accordingly much of the data is
rather dated.

There have been a number of specific international studies of education, notably the work of the
International Association for the Evaluation of Education Achievement and the International
School Effectiveness Research Project (seeTeddlie and Reynolds, 2000) together with the
Programme for International Student Assessment commissioned by the OECD.

Beyond these sources much of the rest of the work that is quoted in this book relies upon rather
small-scale efforts to assemble information from sources within individual countries.

Some comments in the last section suggested that making comparison between countries requires
a willingness to use the data available without worrying too much about the difficulties that might
have been encountered in trying to assemble that material. Inasmuch as there is heavy use made
of OCDE data, it is important to bear in mind that the OECD puts a great deal of effort into trying
to minimize these problems. Expenditure data are probably the most reliable, except that
situations in which there are both central and local spenders within a country may be a source of
problems. Trying to estimate private expenditure, for example on health, social care and
education, is more difficult. However, social policy performance needs to be explored in term of
“outputs”. There is a need to see amounts spent as “inputs” as having a relatively direct influence
upon “outputs” but an indirect and complex influence upon “outcomes”. The relationship
between “inputs” an “outputs” is influenced by the efficiency with which resources are used, with
a crucial consideration being the extent to which rewards for staff delivering the service is a
primary cost. The relationship between “outputs” and “outcomes” depends on the extent to wich
services actually deliver the additions to welfare attributed to them, in a context in which many
other things (not only other policies but wider social and environmental factors) also have an
influence. Hence when we try to compare countries we have to bear in mind that the indices often
easiest to acquire, i.e. on “inputs” may tell us very little about what actually happens. Output data
may be more helpful, but it is outcomes that really matter. But then the problem with outcome
data is that the variations between countries which are identified may have very little to do with
policy factors, but may be the product of influences that are not easy to bring within policy
control. These issues are important for the analysis of all policies, but particularly important for
comparison of different services.
Even if a variable is a rather poor indicator, it may nevertheless throw up important questions
when used comparatively. Take, for example, the issue of poverty. There is a great deal of
controversy about how best to measure this; for international comparative purposes the index
commonly used is the percentage of the population with incomes below 50 or 60 per cent of the
mean or median income. Obviously this means that in aggregate the poor in rich countries will be
richer than the poor in poorer countries. Additionally, incomes may be assed in different ways in
different countries, particularly where it is difficult to disaggregate individuals from the
households in which they live. However, if one of your main concern (as is the case in this book) is
to compare countries in terms of the extent to which specific interventions reduce poverty (to
compare pre-tax and transfer incomes with post-tax and transfer ones), then the lack of
comparability in the original poverty measures may not matter so much. A similar point may be
made about the use of another even more questionable set of comparative statistics, those on
educational performance.

Conclusions

This chapter started with a discussion of what is meant by “social policy”. Whilst the book is
concerned with the examination of policies where a public-sector element is very important, it was
considered important to warn against three common fallacies.

 That our welfare is only promoted by state social policies;

 Than an easy line can be drawn between social policies and other public policies.
 That social policies (however defined) necessarily promote welfare.

All these points imply that examining social policy, and particularly looking at it comparatively,
requires an awareness of the complex ways in which the actions of individuals in the marketplace,
the behaviour of families (and sometimes communities) and the roles played by the state interact.

The chapter goes on to examine what is involved in comparison of social policy, suggesting that
there are important connections between the efforts to study social policy systematically,
informed by the mainstream social sciences, and the case for comparison. Any generalization
about social policy needs to be seen as located in a specific place and time, and therefore either
related to other generalisations about other places or times or needing to have its claims to
uniqueness tested. Hence alongside more pragmatic justifications for the comparative study of
social policy, there are important questions about setting specific observations in a wider context.

This discussion led on to some consideration of the use of quantitative data in the making of
comparisons, arguing that the case for this must be seen to be a pragmatic one, based on the
difficulties to be faced when one is trying to make comparison between a significant number of
different countries. It was recognized that the use of quantitative data requires a willingness to try
to compare even when the quality of the data available is limited and mask many interesting
issues. This led to an examination of the main quantitative sources to be used in this book.
This introductory discussion has been designed to set the scene for the book as a whole. This was
described at the beginning of the chapter. The aim throughout the book is to link its three parts.
The arguments for comparative generalisations explored in the first part are tested in relation to
specific policy areas in the second part, whilst the themes in the last part must be seen as not only
drawing upon but also playing an important role in the development of comparative theory.

Guide to further reading

Since this is an introductory chapter, in many respects the rest of the book is “further reading”.
However, there are some other introductions to comparative studies that reader may want
consult. Margaret May´s “the role of comparative study” is one chapter in the first part of “the
student´s companion to social policy” (Alock et al., 2003) which contains a number of essays on
“what is a social policy” Kennett´s Comparative Social Policy (2001) explores questions about
approaches to social policy and includes a chapter that gives some attention to data sources and
methodological questions. Issues about data and methods are also explored in Comparative Social
Policy (Clasen, 1999), particularly in Mabbett and Bolderson´s chapter.

The following websites may be useful for the book as a whole