Poverty, Policy and the State: Social security reform in New Zealand

Description

New Zealand has experienced both sweeping economic and social reform and growing poverty and income inequality in the last twenty years, re-enacting claims of a social laboratory, but rather different from the 1930s. The reforms include changes in social security provision and coverage. This book explores these social security changes in the context of widening national and international poverty and inequality. It argues that the policy initiatives have altered the nature of social security and in doing so have significantly transformed the nature of social citizenship. The author brings the New Zealand data together in a way that has not been done previously and provides the reader with both a detailed discussion of the work on poverty and living standards in New Zealand and the political and economic context within which social security changes have occurred.Linking the discussion to international changes in social security and to the international literature on poverty and inequality, the author demonstrates the important implications the New Zealand directions have for the development of social security internationally. The book will be invaluable reading for those who want to widen their understanding and knowledge about social security reform Down Under and its development in a neoliberal and Third Way environment. Equally significantly it will be of considerable interest for all those interested in international reshaping of state support for the poorest and most vulnerable and will contribute to those debates and analysis.