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The system of government-run poor relief in England, dating from the sixteenth century, was not replicated in Europe until the mid- to late 1800s. In order to understand why, poor relief must be placed within the socio-economic framework of capitalism, a system of surplus appropriation which originated in the novel class relations of English agriculture. The English way of dealing with poverty was distinctive and this distinctiveness was rooted in the unparalleled expansion of capitalism in that country in the early modern era. Assistance to the poor in England emerged alongside a qualitative social change, wherein an economy rooted in custom was transformed into one based on the competitive social relations of capitalism. The main conclusion of this article is that the welfare state was not a product of industrialization but of the class structure of agrarian capitalism.

The purpose of this paper is to utilize illustrative examples from the industrialisation period in Sweden to analyse the interlace between poor legislation and school legislation.

It deals with how state regulation and societal transformations intervened in the lives of poor children and their parents. In particular, this article examines how collaboration between schools and poor relief resulted in normative judgements about their social inclusion and exclusion.

Overall, the article illuminates a new era in the history of social policy, an epoch when old assumptions were abandoned and fresh links were forged between industrialisation, national economics, education, gender relations, and social welfare. These changes are clarified not only by reference to nineteenth century sources but also to national and international research, and ideas about capital and gender relations associated with, among others, Hannah Arendt and Pierre Bourdieu.

The study illustrates how and why the official public spirit affects children and why understanding of this relationship needs to be broadened as well as deepened.

This paper aims to examine the Victorian attitude to the poor by focussing on the health care provided at a large provincial hospital, the Newcastle Infirmary.

The archives of the Newcastle Infirmary are reviewed alongside the local trade directories. These primary sources are examined in conjunction with the writings of contemporary social theorists on poverty.

At a time when poverty was seen as a sin, an act against God, it would be easy to assume that the Victorians faced no moral dilemma in dismissing the poor, particularly what were seen as the “undeserving poor”, out of hand. Yet, the paper observes how accounting was used both to persuade the wealthier citizens to contribute funds and to enable the hospital to exercise compassion in treating paupers despite this being prohibited under the hospital's rules. Such a policy conflicted with the dominant utilitarian view of society, which emphasised the twin pillars of economic expediency and self‐help.

More case studies are needed of other hospitals to ascertain how typical the Newcastle Infirmary was of the voluntary hospital sector as a whole.

Although many histories of British hospitals exist and some have examined how accounting was used to manage within these institutions, the concern has not been with accounting as a moral practice.

This research examines the impact of the National Rural E-commerce Comprehensive Demonstration Project (NRECDP) on poverty reduction and income growth in rural China.

The study develops a theoretical framework, which considers the role of geographical, technological, institutional and cultural factors for the e-commerce poverty alleviation (e-CPA) model. Empirically, this study applies the difference-in-differences (DID) model and the event study approach to evaluate the effectiveness of NRECDP on the basis of large-scale county-level and household-level panel data spanning 2010 to 2020.

The study found that the NRECDP, as a government-led, information and communication technology (ICT)-enabled, market-based program, has led to a significant increase in per capita output of primary industry employees, as well as in the disposable income of rural residents, especially those in national-level poverty-stricken (NP) counties. The interventions of the NRECDP achieved these positive outcomes through transportation and Internet infrastructure improvement, ICT adoption and human capital accumulation in impoverished towns and villages in remote rural areas. These effects are larger in the eastern region of China, followed by the central region, whereas the weakest effects were found in the western region. However, we found little evidence of the NRECDP increasing household developmental expenditure.

The study findings have important practical and policy implications for rural e-commerce development and self-sustained poverty alleviation solutions. The research revealed the significance of government NRECDP interventions for increasing rural income, reducing living costs, and empowering the rural population in its multiple social roles, namely, as consumers, producers, employees and microentrepreneurs. The local cultural context may also play a role in ICT adoption and entrepreneurship cultivation with a downstream effect on the effectiveness of e-CPA practices. Policymakers would need to ensure a supportive entrepreneur-friendly environment for rural e-commerce development and continue implementing progressive policies for poverty alleviation.

This study explores poverty alleviation issues in China by developing for the first time a multi-faceted framework that is subsequently tested by both county-level and household-level large-scale observations. Also, it is the first study to provide nationwide empirical evidence on the effectiveness of e-CPA in narrowing down the spatial and digital divides in China. In addition to the impact of geography, technology and governmental support, this study also sheds light on the role of culture in the adoption and diffusion of digital technologies and as a source of local entrepreneurial opportunities.

To combat poverty in China's rural areas, Chinese government has established an unconditional cash transfer program known as the Rural Minimum Living Standard Guarantee (Rural Dibao) Program. Interestingly, despite the importance of education in breaking cycles of poverty, little is known about Rural Dibao's impact on rural children's education. This study investigates Rural Dibao's impact on rural children's learning outcomes by first examining targeting issues within the program, exploring a causal relationship between Rural Dibao and learning outcomes, and then exploring potential mechanisms and heterogeneous effects.

Fixed effects model and propensity score weighting method and data from China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) from the years 2010 and 2014 were used.

The results suggest that the Rural Dibao program suffers from high levels of targeting error, yet is still effective (i.e., program transfers generally still go to people in need). The fixed effects and propensity score weighting models find that program participation raises rural children's standardized test scores in CFPS Chinese-language and math tests. In investigating mechanisms, increased education expenditure seems to connect Rural Dibao participation to increased learning results. The heterogeneity analysis shows that poorer, non-eastern, not left behind, younger or male children benefit from the program (while others have no effect).

These findings suggest that Rural Dibao participation boosts rural children's learning, which could indicate a long-term anti-poverty effect, and that if the program can resolve targeting problems, this effect could be even greater.

This paper aims to analyze the three issues about China's social assistance programs and put forward some suggestions separately.

Qualitative research, mainly using documentary analysis.

The paper finds that China's urban and rural social assistance, minimum living standard security and special assistance programs, China's social assistance and the other parts of social security such as social insurance and social welfare are in need of closer coordination.

This paper presents a valuable idea about the need for the coordination of China's social assistance programs.

This paper aims to describe an exploratory study that has sought to understand how an institutionalised docility rather than resistance has been created in the minds of Chinese workers by the Chinese State. The study proposes that this docility has been crucial in enabling China to become a world leading economic powerhouse.

The paper draws on Foucault’s concept of governmentality and uses the genealogical method to examine the historical events that have shaped the mentalities of today’s Chinese workers. Original interviews (n = 74) with everyday workers across industries and locations illustrate this.

It was found that the utilisation of centuries-long Confucian hierarchical rules by successive regimes has created a cumulative effect that has maintained workers docility and their willingness to submit themselves to poor working conditions that – ultimately – benefit the Chinese State and business, though this is at their expense. This finding is in juxtaposition to current research that claim that their working conditions are fostering a rising consciousness and resistance among Chinese workers.

This paper provides a novel explanation for why Chinese workers accept their poor working conditions and thus critiques current perspectives about Chinese worker resistance.

Philanthropy is taken as a strategic behavior by private enterprises to obtain financial resources from governments. This paper aims to examine the relationship between private enterprise philanthropy and the debt finance, further investigating the way by which governments exchange resources with private enterprises.

The paper opted for an empirical study using a sample of 1,489 Chinese private-listed companies from 2007 to 2010. The study analyzed the relationship between philanthropy and debt finance based on the resource dependence theory and social exchange theory and tested the moderating effect of political connection.

Philanthropy can help private enterprises to get the debt finance, and this effect occurs mainly among the political connected private enterprises; the higher degree of credit allocation marketization is, the less philanthropy can affect the debt finance and the less influence political connection can exert on that relationship. Philanthropy contributes to debt financing mainly because it can help obtain more long-term loan, and this effect is more obvious for politically connected private enterprises in regulated industries.

This paper verifies the action logic of private enterprises philanthropy from the perspective of exchange behavior, which is helpful to understand the motive and influence of private enterprises philanthropy.

In response to the pandemic, the Korean government introduced fiscal measures: including the Emergency Disaster Relief Funds which is the first-ever universal benefit in Korea. This paper identifies the effects of the measures on poverty, household income and household consumption expenditure under the disproportionate effect of the pandemic.

This study analysed the Korea Household Income and Expenditure Survey (KHIES) with Changes-in-Changes at five percentiles (5, 25, 50, 75 and 95%) instead of Difference-in-Differences (DD) because the parallel trends assumption of DD cannot be investigated due to the recent KHIES redesign. In addition, it also exmined the effects on vulnerable groups (e.g. female, elderly and young households).

COVID-19 has had prompt and disproportionate effects on the vulnerable, such as low-income, female and elderly households. However, the government measures had a limited effect. First, the measures could not mitigate the initial income reduction and only had temporary positive effects on income and consumption expenditure. Second, young households tended to save the relief instead of present consumption. Lastly, education disparity was observed at 25 and 50%. Therefore, this study suggests that response measures need to be sustainable and concentrated on the vulnerable.

A large literature estimated effects on either household income or household consumption expenditure, and focused on macroeconomic indices (e.g. marginal propensity to consumption). This study analysed both income (poverty) and consumption expenditure and found policy implications for better welfare system in an economic downturn.