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IS THERE A ‘CRISIS’ IN THE WELFARE STATE?

Ken Judge (Assistant Director, Personal Social Services Research Unit, University of Kent at Canterbury)

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy

ISSN: 0144-333X

Article publication date: 1 February 1981

316

Abstract

Most contemporary British social policies have developed within an institutional and intellectual framework which is commonly referred to as the welfare state, and which first became firmly established in Britain after the second world war at the beginning of a period of historically high rates of economic growth. The embodiment of social policies within a particular set of public institutions required, and received, an increasing flow of resources to pursue the objectives set for them. For more than a quarter‐century economic prosperity underwrote the expansion and consolidation of the modern welfare state. But since the mid‐1970s the deteriorating fiscal environment has affected nearly all public programmes and the welfare state has not escaped its share of the cuts. As a result there has been a growing feeling that a ‘crisis of the welfare state’ is emerging.

Citation

Judge, K. (1981), "IS THERE A ‘CRISIS’ IN THE WELFARE STATE?", International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, Vol. 1 No. 2, pp. 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb012926

Publisher

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MCB UP Ltd

Copyright © 1981, MCB UP Limited

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