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There are clear theoretical, policy and practice tensions in conceptualising social or long-term care as a “right”: an enforceable choice. The purpose of this article is to address the following questions: Do disabled and older citizens have the right to long-term care? What do these rights look like under different care regimes? Do citizens have the right or duty to *provide* long-term care? It is already known that both formal and informal care across all welfare contexts is mainly provided by women and that this has serious implications for gender equality.

In this article, the author takes a conceptual approach to examining the comparative evidence from developed welfare states with formal long-term care provision and the different models of care, to challenge feminist care theory from the perspective of those living in care poverty (i.e. with insufficient access to long-term care and support to meet their citizenship rights).

Drawing on her own comparative research on models of long-term and “personalised” care, the author finds that different models of state provision and different models of personalised care provide differential citizenship outcomes for carers and those needing care. The findings indicate that well-governed personalised long-term care provides the best outcomes in terms of balancing potentially conflicting citizenship claims and addressing care poverty.

The author develops new approaches to care theory based on citizenship and care poverty that have not been published elsewhere, drawing on models that she developed herself.

Many countries around the world are facing great challenges from their ageing population with shrinking workforce, this will put more pressure on their financial system and will increase the public spending on care costs provided to older people. Egypt is in the phase of establishing a new law for older people care's rights, a law that will organise how older people in need for care would benefit from access to government financial support and how will families support their older relatives financially and how the care costs will be shared between the older people, their families and the government.

The paper examines the suitability two cost-sharing methods and applying them to assess the effect on the individuals and families' income strain.

The preferred approach can be used for sharing costs as it applies a gradual funding withdrawal by the government and provide more fairness and flexibility for application in different regions. Besides, the parameters of this approach can be used by policy makers to control the levels of funding.

The paper will be the first to discuss the intergenerational fairness from a financial perspective in Egypt to avoid forcing older people into poverty or resorting to poverty trade-off.

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted every community across the globe, but the global COVID-19 data show that the United States remains the most affected country where well over 666,000 people died, and approximately 40 million citizens became ill due to the virus' spread by mid-2021 (CDC, 2021). It is also noteworthy that extreme racial disparities in rates of COVID-19 cases and deaths are high in the United States, specifically among African American population. This situation is particularly evident among African American population in Alabama's Black Belt. Subsequently, COVID-19, racial disparities, and health inequalities have become central to the national and regional conversation. This chapter examines the associations between COVID-19, social determinants of health, and the systematic health disparity in African American population in Alabama's Black Belt region using Geographic Information Systems and the concept of uneven spatial development. Understanding the relationship between COVID-19 and these disparities within a spatial context vital to developing pathways to overcome the pandemic's effects and combat the systemic discrimination in this region. The derived policy recommendation could apply to other regions experiencing social inequality and health disparity.

This paper aims to address the thesis that poverty is best alleviated by a policy emphasising the growth of per capita average income, a strategy that affords little room for direct pro-poor interventions or a movement towards a more equal distribution of incomes. This policy prescription is based on the empirical finding that cross-country variations in poverty are largely explained by variations in growth rates of average income.

The paper contends, as has been done in other commentaries on the subject, that inferring the dictum that “growth is [virtually the only thing] good for poverty” from cross-country evidence on poverty, growth and inequality is neither logically plausible nor normatively compelling. This is sought to be established both through conceptual reasoning and (secondary) data-based analysis. In particular, the thesis under review implicitly rejects the value of counter-factual analysis. Such a hypothetical illustrative analysis is attempted here, using evidence relating to urban poverty, growth and inequality in India.

The paper concludes, without undermining the salience of growth, that there is little basis for the pre-eminence accorded to it as the instrument for poverty redress.

This paper has not been published elsewhere. A collaborative paper by one of the present authors with another scholar, on a similar theme is, however, under preparation for publication.

This paper aims to investigate the subject matter of Islamic economics that will be the object of a study as a discipline by classifying and unifying different approaches proposed by Islamic economists.

The paper is a conceptual paper using discursive analysis analysing the perspective and approaches proposed by Islamic economists in defining economic problems from an Islamic perspective. The perspective and approaches proposed are classified and analysed for their implications in constructing the subject matter of discipline.

Islamic economics, as a new body of knowledge, needs to clarify the economic problems that will be its subject matter. The paper brings an insight into the subject matter of Islamic economics as conceived by scholars in two approaches, namely, economic problems “as they are” and economic problems “as they should be”. The paper also proposes a unified perspective in defining the subject matter of Islamic economics for further development of the discipline.

This paper only provides philosophical guidance for researchers in mapping the problems and the goals of the policy being studied, although it does not offer any practical use for policymaking as each policy is faced with different and specific cases. This paper may be used to assist future researchers in shaping other unexplored fields in Islamic economics as a body of knowledge.

Islamic economics as a discipline will be strengthened if it has a clear subject matter that will be the object of study. However, the conception of economic problems proposed by Islamic economists is based on life-reality, i.e. of what human beings face in their life (practical-type economic problems as they are) and based on life guidance from the Qur’an on how human beings should live as well as life-objectives, i.e. of what goals he should strive for (ideal-type economic problems as they ought to be) brings implication that there are differences in determining the object of study of Islamic economics.

This paper promotes the unification of two conceptions of economic problems proposed by scholars by defining Islamic economics as “a study of resource appropriation to realize human well-being (maslahah)”. This suggests that economic problems as manifested in life reality will be studied within the grand objective of life in Islam (maqasid al-Shariah), and economic problems as perceived in life goals will be studied in the context of life reality. Islamic economic theory will be formulated not only to solve the apparent problem of “what is” but also formulated in a way that refers to goals (ideals) of “what ought to be” that will provide solutions to current economic problems according to certain vision and to take steps to move in that visionary direction.

When major economic indicators in Canada are reviewed, the economy of Canada would appear to be very healthy. However, in spite of these general economic indicators, poverty in Canada is growing. Growing poverty has profound implications for health care providers who must deal with the effect of poverty on the health of individuals. This article describes factors which are affecting poverty in Canada and implications for health care professionals.

Literature suggests that the poor often face a myriad of health care constraints and health problems. This study uses bivariate and multivariate analyses to examine the effects of systemic factors such as the availability of health care providers and neighborhood poverty on individual health decisions for a sample of African Americans, Whites, Mexicans, and Puerto Ricans in poor Chicago neighborhoods. Results show that Medicaid usage and having a regular physician increase the number of days home ill and days hospitalized, while frequenting clinics decreases such activity. Additionally, residents in more impoverished urban areas are less likely to stay home ill. Differences in health profiles and providers are also evident based on race/ethnicity. These findings illustrate the important relationship between macro-level factors and specific health choices many residents in poor urban areas make at the micro-level.

The purpose of this paper is to explore empirically the dynamics by which austerity, a “moment” of neoliberal policy reform enacted through strategies of market-driven governance (MDG), provides the conditions for the insertion of capitalist-market logics into the charity sector. Demonstrating altered funding structures permits a political and socioeconomic reconfiguration of poverty, it asks what this means for charity work.

The paper draws upon data from 12 months ethnographic fieldwork in a charity in England. It explores the permeation of competition and profit as logics of capitalist-markets.

The paper finds that capitalist-market rationales are enacted within the organization. Charity is subordinated to business and profit permeates the site, thus changing the way that poverty is acted upon. In this context, workers are engaged in “labors of negotiation” which ultimately impede a reconfiguration of poverty into profit via their everyday situated labor. This reveals the symptomatic activities of upholding an ethos of public care in the production of charity work and within a context of MDG.

This paper makes an empirical contribution to the debate on contemporary charity working under austerity. It makes an important conceptual contribution by adding to the emerging literature on MDG (Varga, 2016); by repositioning du Gay’s (2003) analysis of public reform into alternative empirical and analytical conditions; and by building upon Adams’ (2013) work around the replacement of an ethos of public care with one of private profit.

Children experience toxic stress if there is pronounced activation of their stress-response systems, in situations in which they do not have stable caregiving. Due to their exposure to multiple poverty-related risks, African American children may be more susceptible to exposure to toxic stress. Toxic stress affects young children’s brain and neurophysiologic functioning, which leads to a wide range of deleterious health, developmental, and mental health outcomes. Given the benefits of early care and education (ECE) for African American young children, ECE may represent a compensating experience for this group of children, and promote their positive development.

This chapter examines discourses and social practices at individual, community, and institutional levels related to non-majority Vietnamese ethnic girls’ access to and participation in secondary school. This critical analysis utilizes Sen's framework of capabilities to illustrate differences in discourse and social practice that exist around poverty, and the ways in which gendered relations and ethnic traditions are intertwined with the discourse and practices of poverty to affect girls’ choices and well-being in and through secondary education. We particularly draw on girls’ and their parents’ constructions of these issues as they negotiate and are affected by them. We argue that strategies must move beyond the discourse that ethnic traditions and gendered relations are barriers to girls’ education to consider the inequalities and lack of capabilities that perpetuate poverty and unequal gendered relations for non-majority ethnic groups in societies.