科研成果详情

This introductory chapter (by Christian Aspalter) debates the urgent need to investigate welfare state systems, and with it social policy, all around the world, in every corner and region of the world. The author makes a connection to the development and prospects of humanity as a whole. Welfare states have been called dead and then again not dead. Yet certain columns of welfare state systems around the world, e.g. social insurance systems, and here particularly pension insurance systems, are running into, or have set course onto, fiscal oblivion. The need to change, and the ability to change, will determine the future of welfare state systems around the world. Life is change, changing is living. The welfare state systems, the very most of them (not all of them) need to make through politically dramatic, but yet very feasible (technically and financially), systemic changes in order to stay alive, and in order to fulfill their function of, finally, and once and for all, making systemic inequality and systemic poverty a thing of the past. The main part of this introductory chapter describes and comments on each chapter of this extended Second Edition of this handbook.