ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the concept of welfare from the perspectives of social policy, economics, sociology and philosophy. This will consequently enable us to defi ne ‘welfare’. Both macro and micro perspectives will be used, and both subjective and objective approaches will be taken into consideration. Social indicators and new measurements of well-being, including happiness, will also be discussed as they refl ect different understandings of the topic, and have
entered the debate on the welfare state since the more traditional use of money (and gross domestic product – GDP) as the measure of welfare has been increasingly questioned. These discussions form the basis for understanding the notion of the welfare state. Social policy is thus a broader set of policies such as social security, education, health care and housing (as in kind as well as in cash) and is thus part of the welfare state’s activities.
