ABSTRACT
The term social welfare refers to the wide-ranging social arrangements that are organised to meet the needs of individuals and groups and includes an examination of policies and practices aimed at reducing or eliminating social problems. Welfare in its widest definition includes all aspects of society that are organised in some way for the benefit of those residing within that society. This chapter explores models of welfare delivery starting with Esping-Andersen’s work on welfare regimes and emergent scholarship on local welfare states and services. In doing so, people identify the somewhat tokenistic approaches which have been adopted to account for certain aspects or dimensions of diversity in welfare provision and highlight the main weaknesses of this work in relation to superdiversity. In liberal regimes, state provision of welfare is minimal and with modest universal transfers and/or social-insurance plans. The Social Democratic regime employs principles of universalism and de-commodification of social rights which are extended to new middle classes.
