Explore
For Enterprise
Join for Free
Log In

Arts and Humanities
Business
Computer Science
Data Science
Information Technology
Health
Math and Logic
Personal Development
Physical Science and Engineering
Social Sciences
Language Learning
Degrees
Certificates

Explore all of Coursera

Browse
Search
For Enterprise
Log In
Join for Free

Outcomes

Loading...

US Social Services Compared

Columbia University

4.6 (16 ratings) | 507 Students Enrolled

Course 1 of 5 in the Social Policy for Social Services & Health Practitioners Specialization

In all nations, social policy is a very large public investment. Course 1 will explore the size, structure, and outcomes of U.S. social policy and compare this policy to those of similar developed countries. The course will also probe the values this policy represents and the values debate regarding about how big our welfare state should be— in other words, how much of our education, housing, health, income support, and social services the government should supply and how much individuals should supply for themselves. This course addresses issues of power, oppression, and white supremacy. The course is part of a sequence in social policy that has an HONORS TRACK. This track will prepare the learner for masters-level work in policy, which involves reading the literature, writing concise summaries and probing critiques. Over the sequence the learner will develop a policy analysis that will create a foundation for professional policy analyst assignments.

Skills You'll Learn

- Distinguish the values inherent in each social policy initiative, - Critique components of a social policy based on their effectiveness at meeting the goals stated in the initiative, - Develop social welfare policy analysis and reform proposals, - Differentiate alternative approaches to social policy problems, - Formulate practice strategies to overcome the historic biases in social welfare programs

Reviews

4.6 (16 ratings)

5 stars
10 ratings
4 stars
6 ratings

LB

Mar 22, 2019

very interesting and useful for my wider studies supporting my application to universities

RC

Jun 29, 2019

Exceptional topics and Positive take-aways for our nations Welfare State

From the lesson

Does the Welfare State Enrich Us of Impoverish Us?

In this module, we will explain the size, structure and outcomes of US social policy when compared with comparable developed nations and to differentiate the conservative approaches to social welfare

Politics and Policy3:30

Size of the Welfare State5:34

The Structure of the Welfare State9:20

Floors, Platforms and Safety Nets3:50

Fragile Families by Professor Garfinkel6:42

Wealth & the Welfare State by Professor Garfinkel6:50

Economic Conservatives5:10

Social Conservatives4:53

Taught By

John Robertson
Policy Lecturer

Transcript

We've been talking about comparable welfare states and the value choices

that are built into them, and we've looked at size and structure.

And so in this video lecture, we're going to focus on outcomes, and

the charts are going to be quite big, so you're not going to see very much of me.

But to begin with, we're talking about outcomes, and we're going to

think about outcomes in terms of measures of poverty and inequality,

life outcomes for people in the country, and education and employment as outcomes.

Now, what outcomes you pick are, of course, a value issue.

And so if you picked an issue that had to do with starting of new businesses or

development of new technologies, which could be an outcome of the welfare state,

you would end up with a somewhat different analysis.

These are the classic reasons that we engage in welfare state activity,

to reduce poverty and inequality, to improve the outcomes for

people, and education and employment.

So this chart brings us to a conversation about poverty,

and we'll look at this quite a lot more in a later lecture.

But you can see that the US, with our very large social welfare expenditures,

in a comparable sense, has 18% of our population poor, whereas Canada,

the next highest that I'm pointing out here, is just about 14 and a half.

In between Canada and the US, there's Italy, Greece, Spain, Chile,

Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, and Turkey, and Israel.

And Turkey and Mexico, which are countries that we generally think of as quite a bit

poorer than the US, actually have lower poverty rates than the US.

And then when we look at the United Kingdom and Poland here,

you'll see that their poverty rates are about at 13.5%,

and the French poverty rate is just above 10%.

So social welfare in the United States leaves more people poor than it

does in comparable nations.

So this is before and after taxes.

So before taxes, actually,

Germany has more people poor than do the United States,

and so does Great Britain have more people poor, and so

does Poland, and France has more people poor.

So what's changing here is

the decisions that are made in the social welfare system.

So although France has more people poor before government taxes and transfer,

they have substantially less afterwards than the United States does over here.

And that's true of Poland, it's true of Great Britain, it's true of Germany,

it's true of Canada, it's true along the line here.

So our welfare state leaves more people in poverty.

So income inequality, the US here has an income inequality measure that is higher.

This is a Gini measure.

It goes from zero to one.

It's a standard measure of inequality, and you'll see that the next most unequal

nation here that we're talking about is the United Kingdom.

Turkey, Chile, and Mexico have more inequality than the United States.

Canada has less than Britain and

the United States, but more than Poland and France.

Ans so if one of the outcomes we're looking for here is more equality,

the US social welfare system does worse than the German one,

the Canadian one, the United Kingdom one, and then the French one right here.

So now,

another way of thinking about outcomes is what happens to people's lives.

And so this is life expectancy at birth, and you'll see that at birth,

in Poland, it's assumed that people will live just above 78 years.

In the United States, it's about 78.5, in Germany, it's 81 and

a half, in the United Kingdom, it's 81 and a half, and in Canada, it's 82.

Now, the argument here is that as we provide better social welfare,

people do better, and the most vulnerable people live longer, and

that leads to longer life expectancy.

Infant mortality is another measure that's often used to measure this.

This has to do with the nutrition of the mother,

it has to do with the healthcare available to the mother,

it has to do with the general social development of the mother.

Infant mortality has a great deal to do with that.

It often has to do with early birth and

neonatal activity, and these are the result, often,

of nutrition, and mothers' preparation for what they're doing.

And you'll see here that the US' infant mortality rate

is highest, except for Chile, Turkey, and Mexico.

And significantly higher than Canada, higher than the United Kingdom,

higher than Germany, higher than Poland, higher than France.

So this is another measure of the outcome of the social welfare system.

And finally, this is a measure of suicide,

which has to do with despair, and a sense of wellbeing,

a sense of having the resources to move on with one's life.

You'll see here that, again, the United States has a higher suicide rate than

almost all of the nations we would consider ourselves comparable to.

Some of the former communist nations have higher suicide rates.

Korea has a quite amazingly high suicide rate.

But in the set of nations that we've thought

of as comparable to us, the US' suicide rate is highest.

So the potential lost years of life here are higher for the US as well.

And so overall, what the point of this is,

is that we make choices in our welfare state, in the United States,

we decide how much to spend, and we spend quite a lot.

We decide in what what form to spend, and we spend a great deal of what we spend

in platform benefits that come from employers, and

that we spend much less on income benefits for lower income people.

And we spend much on healthcare, but

much of that healthcare spending is platform-related healthcare spending.

And so the results that we looked at were that we have more poverty, more

inequality, and generally, in the measures of life outcomes, we're not doing as well.

And so this brings us to critical questions about the choices that are being

made in the design and execution of the US welfare state

that we will continue to talk about through the rest of this sequence.

Explore our Catalog

Join for free and get personalized recommendations, updates and offers.

Coursera provides universal access to the world’s best education, partnering with top universities and organizations to offer courses online.

© 2019 Coursera Inc. All rights reserved.

Download on the App Store

Get it on Google Play

Coursera
About
Leadership
Careers
Catalog
Certificates
MasterTrack™ Certificates
Degrees
For Enterprise
For Government

Community
Learners
Partners
Developers
Beta Testers
Translators

Connect
Blog
Facebook
LinkedIn
Twitter
Instagram
YouTube
Tech Blog

More
Terms
Privacy
Help
Accessibility
Press
Contact
Directory
Affiliates