This study examines the relationship between welfare receipt and multidimensional welfare attitudes within South Korea's productivist welfare model. Using pooled cross-sectional data from the Korea Welfare Panel Study and applying entropy balancing to control for selection bias, the analysis employs the Karlson–Holm–Breen method to decompose the total association between welfare receipt and welfare attitudes into components potentially linked to recipient stigma and individual-responsibility attributions. Because the pooled design cannot firmly establish the temporal ordering of welfare receipt, moral–cognitive evaluations, and welfare attitudes, these decompositions are interpreted as evidence of potential, rather than confirmed, mediating pathways. Results indicate welfare receipt is significantly associated with higher support for expanding welfare spending. Laziness-based stigma toward National Basic Livelihood Security System recipients accounts for approximately 41.51% of this association, consistent with a potential mediating pathway, while for universal welfare preferences this control-dimension stigma shows a suppression pattern, offsetting non-recipients' support by approximately 27.52%. Conversely, individual-responsibility attributions show no significant association with these outcome gaps. These findings suggest South Korean welfare attitudes are shaped more by moral evaluations of recipients' deservingness than by abstract beliefs about the causes of poverty, underscoring the importance of addressing institutionalized laziness-based stigma toward recipients in selective welfare systems to foster universal solidarity.

This article examines whether the available empirical evidence supports descriptions of the field of environmental social work (ESW) as a social movement. Drawing on classic movement criteria—collective intentionality, organisational coherence, and consequential impact—it interrogates the gap between ESW's normative ambitions and its empirically demonstrable capacity. It combines social movement theory with findings from a companion bibliometric and text-based mapping of 761 peer-reviewed ESW articles (1966–2025), classified across conceptual-theoretical, qualitative, quantitative, mixed-methods, and review-based research designs. While qualitative and participatory approaches provide important forms of contextual and experiential knowledge, relatively few studies across methodological traditions examine intervention outcomes, policy influence, or sustained collective environmental effects. The findings suggest that ESW operates primarily as a normatively driven scholarly and professional project, while retaining significant potential for future movement-oriented development.

The child welfare system has increasingly adopted phase specialisation, in Sweden and internationally, dividing work into distinct stages. This study examines these changes through the retrospective perspectives of 15 long-serving child welfare professionals, highlighting three key organisational shifts: the separation of statutory and supportive tasks, the division between intake and investigation, and the emerging split between investigation and follow-up. Respondents describe these changes as motivated by concerns related to quality and workload. While the changes are perceived to have improved work in certain respects, respondents note unintended consequences, such as fragmented services and professional tensions. We interpret phase specialisation through the lens of broader quality and workload discourses and discuss how the changes may relate to intergroup status dynamics and facilitate workload buffering, temporarily masking resource challenges. The findings highlight the importance of assessing how specialisation shapes workers' roles and working conditions, ensuring that reforms benefit both professionals and clients.

Social work is held to be unified by a stable, coherent value base across time and jurisdiction. Drawing on articulation theory and infrastructure studies, this paper provides the first systematic historical analysis of eight Canadian Association of Social Workers codes (1940–2024) as assembled within an ecology of moral infrastructure. Frequency analysis and multiple correspondence analysis identify three configurationally distinct moral grammars across three historical periods. Justice entered the codes in 1983 within an administrative risk configuration, not in opposition to it. The 2024 code's past-harms temporal orientation and decolonial justice grammar produce three incompatible justice grammars with no mechanism to resolve them. The apparent coherence of ethical commitments across time is theorised as homogeneous ethical time, a produced effect of the ecology whose breakdown registers individually but is ecological in origin. The findings suggest that code revision requires attending to the ecology as a whole, not the normative domain alone.

This study examines the association between meaning in life and smartphone addiction among vulnerable children in China, alongside the moderating role of satisfaction with social work services. Utilizing propensity score matching on a random sample of 1025 vulnerable children from City A, the analysis revealed an unexpected paradox: a higher level of meaning in life was significantly associated with increased smartphone addiction. This reflects a “high aspiration-low opportunity” mismatch, wherein vulnerable children with high internal agency turn to digital environments as a compensatory space when real-world support is deficient. Crucially, moderation analysis demonstrated that high satisfaction with social work services significantly buffered the association. These results suggest that high-quality social work services can act as a vital social conversion factor, successfully reactivating the protective function of meaning in life. Consequently, effectively combating smartphone addiction requires a practical transition from isolated psychological support to a comprehensive formal support system.

The most pressing ethical challenge which Artificial Intelligence poses in child welfare lies in the capacity of AI-assisted decision support systems to covertly restructure professional practice—in a manner which hollows out relationship-based care, distributes responsibility across many shoulders, and constrains the exercise of professional discretion in ways that remain largely invisible to all parties involved. The analysis takes as its starting point a sociotechnical premise which is sometimes missing from normative discussions of AI and social work: Most systems currently deployed in child welfare operate in the so-called human-in-the-loop model, as decision support tools whose outputs guide or constrain professional judgement without replacing it. It is precisely this hybrid character which produces the ethically most substantial and pressing problems: automation bias, responsibility diffusion and epistemic closure. Drawing on the capability approach in its elaboration for socially disadvantaged children and youth, this contribution argues that explainability should be understood as a structural condition for the preservation of professional-ethical integrity and for the realisation of children's rights.

To address psychological health service gaps among rural left-behind children, this study examines how a socio-technical hybrid intervention model restructures the child protection ecosystem. Drawing on 45 stakeholder interviews from China's “L Letter-Accompaniment Project,” we analyzed the data through Bronfenbrenner's bioecological model, social capital theory, and a network-weaving perspective. The findings reveal a “backend-digital, frontend-human” paradigm. At the micro-level, handwritten letters foster compensatory proximal processes by providing low-stakes opportunities for self-disclosure via “weak ties.” At the meso-level, an AI-driven digital platform functions invisibly as a “network weaver,” identifying risks and coordinating school-based interventions without intruding on the children's analog safe space. At the exosystem level, the program secures continuity through institutional embedding. The study offers a theoretically informed and contextually grounded interpretation of how hybrid intervention can strengthen child protection ecosystems in rural China, with implications for policy and ethical governance in digital social welfare.

The Swedish welfare model emphasises universal access to publicly provided old-age care, yet demographic change, policy developments, and rising socioeconomic disparities have altered the balance between formal, informal, and privately paid care. Focusing on community-living individuals aged 77+ years with limitations in instrumental activities of daily living (IADL), this study examines how formal and informal IADL care has developed over three decades. Using repeated cross-sectional national data from Sweden between 1992 and 2021, differences by gender, education, household composition, and functional limitation were analysed, and privately paid care assessed. The results indicate a long-term decline in home care services, alongside a growing reliance on family care, particularly partner-provided care, even among individuals with more severe functional limitations. The use of privately purchased care has increased, especially among women and persons with higher education. Taken together, these patterns point to widening inequalities in access to care in the Swedish welfare model.

Young people with substance use problems are at risk of having a significantly more difficult transition to adulthood. Without a stable income, it is difficult to get their own home and live an independent life. This article reports findings from a longitudinal study that analyses the social establishment among young adults 5 years after initiating outpatient treatment for substance use problems, with a focus on those not in education, employment, or training (NEET). The study utilises a longitudinal design, combining structured interview data from 452 adolescents treated at Maria clinics in Sweden at intervention onset with national register data at 5-years post-treatment initiation. NEET status and indicators of substance use, mental health, and criminality were analysed using chi-square tests and logistic regression. Five years of post-treatment, three quarters of enrolled youth were socially established; however, one quarter met the criteria for NEET status. NEET was associated with ongoing substance use, mental health issues, and criminality. Key predictors of NEET were financial hardship, exposure to violence, institutional placement, and lack of upper secondary school eligibility. A cumulative risk load significantly increased the likelihood of NEET status. Most young adults achieved social inclusion post-treatment, but a subgroup remained excluded. Early interventions targeting cumulative risk factors are crucial to prevent long-term marginalisation.

Previous research has reported mental health disparities between truant and non-truant adolescents. However, it remains unclear how social support is associated with mental health outcomes across different levels of truancy. We investigate whether social support has similar mental health benefits for all truant adolescents or whether it plays a buffering/moderating role when truancy becomes persistent. Using data from the 2021 Swedish Public Health Survey of Children and Young People (n = 16,102; grades 9 and 11) during the COVID-19 pandemic, we estimate average marginal effects from OLS and logistic regression models. Results show that persistent truants report more psychosomatic complaints and are more prone to social media disorder and self-harm than occasional or non-truants, but these differences diminish substantially when they perceive higher social support. The results have implications for when and how social interventions may protect persistent truants' mental health.

This article shares results from a systematic review, exploring the pandemic's impacts on help-seeking and community-based services in North America. We aimed to identify shifts in help-seeking, community need and community supports and to highlight innovations and best practices. We searched ProQuest, Scholars Portal Journals and Web of Science databases, including English, peer-reviewed research studies on GBV help-seeking and/or service provision during the pandemic for review. After a two-stage screening process, a thematic analysis identified themes and gaps. Findings show that during the pandemic, victims/survivors faced additional barriers to help-seeking and structural inequality created intertwined crises. Many organizations adjusted services, adapted service formats and collaborated to respond to growing complexity and need. The literature emphasizes multi-faceted strategies necessary to address emerging and ongoing needs; however, it also raises questions about the organizational capacity and stability required to respond effectively to GBV. We explore findings and offer recommendations for policy and practice.

Social investment is one of the dominant approaches to welfare reform worldwide. Highlighting the positive contribution of social policy to the economy, social investment constitutes a valuable alternative to austerity. In this research note, we argue that—despite its merits—social investment is problematic from an ecological and global justice perspective, as it remains tied to the capitalist regime of overproduction and overconsumption that causes the transgression of planetary boundaries and the exploitation of the global South. Against this backdrop, we propose “sustainable welfare” as an alternative framework for social policy reform. Rejecting productivism, the sustainable welfare paradigm embraces a post-capitalist socioeconomic system, which puts the care for people and planet center stage.

Disabled youth are over-represented among care-leavers transitioning into adulthood. However, the experiences and needs of disabled care-leavers are not well understood—largely due to inconsistencies in definition and data collection practices. Applying the lens of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD, 2007), this paper examines the strengths and limitations of existing definitions and data collection practices regarding disabled care-leavers in four countries: Norway, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States. While each country has made progress toward meeting the needs of disabled care-leavers, careful identification of this group has been overlooked to varying degrees within their policy frameworks, limiting evaluation and planning efforts within and across countries. Implications of current definition and data approaches are considered, and recommendations to improve and better coordinate data collection efforts are offered to promote advocacy for the well-being of disabled care-leavers internationally.

This study draws on perspectives from social exchange theory and Chinese filial piety to assess the validity of these frameworks in explaining grandchildren's caregiving behaviour. Through in-depth interviews, data on caregiving experiences were collected from 40 grandchildren who had provided care for disabled or ill grandparents. Thematic analysis was employed, yielding four main themes: “childhood support and reciprocity,” “prior help and traditional filial obligation,” “reducing parents' caregiving burden,” and “interactions of reciprocity, traditional familism, reducing parents' burden and availability.” The findings reveal that grandchildren's caregiving cannot be fully explained by social exchange or filial piety alone; instead, it emerges from a combination of factors, including the individual grandchild's availability, their relationship with their grandparents, their attachment to traditional family values and living arrangements. Since prior support from grandparents is a key driver of grandchildren's caregiving, ageing-in-place policies and welfare agencies should foster intergenerational interaction and strengthen family bonds. This is particularly important in societies where childcare is often outsourced to foreign domestic helpers.

To encourage transitions into employment or education, governments impose benefit sanctions on unemployed individuals who fail to comply with conditionality requirements. However, evidence on the effectiveness of such sanctions remains limited, particularly among young adults. We investigated whether sanctions are associated with transitions into employment or education and whether effects differ among individuals facing labour market disadvantages. To estimate causal effects using observational data, we applied a target trial emulation framework. We used nationwide Finnish register data on 52,890 unemployed individuals under the age of 25 in 2022. Following a target trial emulation framework, we treated sanctions as the intervention and applied coarsened exact matching with importance weights to approximate random allocation. We constructed a labour market disadvantage score by summing five indicators associated with poorer labour market attachment. Time-to-event outcomes over a 24-month follow-up were estimated using parametric survival models. Overall, 78% of young adults transitioned to employment or education within an average of 10 months. Pooled across all sanction types, sanctions were associated with a modestly higher transition hazard (HR = 1.09, 95% CI 1.05–1.14) and a 0.9-month shorter median time to employment or education. Among individuals without labour market disadvantages, sanctions were associated with a 1.7-month reduction in median time to transition (HR = 1.43, 95% CI 1.29–1.58). By contrast, among those with one or more disadvantages, hazard ratios were statistically non-significant (HR = 0.99–1.07) and differences in median time were negligible (0.1–0.2 months). Unemployment benefit sanctions can facilitate transitions to employment or education among unemployed young adults without labour market disadvantages. However, the effects of sanctions differ between those with and without such disadvantages. Policymakers may use these findings to retarget sanctions or combine them with supportive measures.

Utilizing panel data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) 2010–2022, this study identifies parental migration experience between ages 0 and 12 and constructs an Individual Multidimensional Development Index (IMDI) using the entropy-weighting method to examine the long-term association between childhood left-behind experience and individual development. The results show that early left-behind experience is significantly and negatively associated with individuals' multidimensional development in adulthood, and this association remains robust after controlling for individual, household, and regional characteristics. Regarding migration patterns, the negative association for dual-parent migration is stronger than that for single-parent migration; when parental roles are distinguished, maternal migration is associated with a significant negative association, whereas paternal migration shows limited compensatory patterns. Heterogeneity analyses further reveal that the long-term adverse consequences of left-behind experience are primarily concentrated in cognitive ability, mental health, and educational attainment, with no significant effect observed for non-cognitive skills; moreover, these negative effects are more pronounced among individuals from urban hukou backgrounds, males, and those residing in the eastern region. These findings highlight the need to reduce parent–child separation and provide targeted support for left-behind children and their families to mitigate long-term disadvantage.

Rural China has recently witnessed a disproportionate increase in its aging population. Emerging community-based eldercare is driving transformation in the caregiving landscape in rural China. This study explores older adults' experiences of community-based eldercare in rural Zhejiang Province. We employed a descriptive phenomenological approach and conducted face-to-face, in-depth interviews with older adults (N = 29) and village officials (N = 15) from 8 villages in Jindong region. Three themes emerged: Changing family support for older adults, emerging community-based eldercare, and community-based eldercare and aging-in-village. Community-based eldercare boosted older adults' autonomy, protected their rural identity, alleviated their family's caregiving shortages, and leveraged filial piety to a broader social responsibility. This study offers timely and contextualized insights regarding the implications of community-based eldercare in rural China for older adults' aging experiences within the broad sociocultural transformation.