This article argues that dominant paradigms in the study of social welfare have neglected the role of creative human agency in responding differentially to threats of welfare across the lifespan. This is due to the preference for unitary categories of analysis which place vulnerable individuals into homogenous groupings and to the tendency to work with limited models of vulnerability and helpseeking. These paradigms are further characterised by a preoccupation with pathological views of health and welfare and by inadequate conceptualisations of mediating factors and coping across the life course. A new paradigm of welfare is called for, the focus of which would be on the differential nature of vulnerability and risk among individuals and their differentiated reactions to threats to welfare. Directions for empirical research within such a paradigm are outlined.

This study identifies the general structural, political and institutional configurations which conditioned the emergence of national health insurance in Finland. Due to late industrialisation, the Finnish case allows the evaluation of the importance of the agrarian versus working class interests in the emergence of the Scandinavian model. The study also seeks to answer how the contending theoretical approaches of the development of the welfare state serve to explain the characteristics of Finnish sickness provisions. After the historical overview, the results of the historical processes are examined by comparing the quality of Finnish sickness insurance with the Swedish, German and British cases, each representing different ideal types of the modern welfare state.

The identification of the poor in this paper follows that of most contemporary applied work and consists of comparing a scaler indicator of welfare with a predetermined minimum level. The data is provided by the 1985 Family Expenditure Survey. Two measures of welfare are developed, one based on income which reflects the entitlement analysis of poverty and the other on expenditure, reflecting the standard of living. Households ranked very low by expenditure are considerably less likely to be ranked highly by income than vice versa. Further doubt on the rankings suggested by the income measure is provided by ownership of consumer durables. The expenditure measure suggests that the number of poor retired individuals is more than three times that implied by the income measure. The instability of the latter measure suggests that more confidence can be placed on assertions based on evidence employing the expenditure measure.

Many of the principles of the Community Care White Paper (DoH, 1989) bear a striking resemblance to the Welsh mental handicap strategy launched six years earlier (Welsh Office, 1983). This paper considers the lessons to be learnt from the Welsh strategy for the development of needs-led services as promulgated by the White Paper. Similarities and differences between the two policy initiatives are first identified before considering the conceptual basis of needs-led services. Attention is drawn to two interdependent dimensions of needs-led services, user participation and management delegation, as a means of depicting three underlying models, each with different value stances. By drawing from a case study of one area in Wales, an attempt is made to test the expectations for needs-led services in terms of local planning and management requirements of the three models against the experiences of those charged with putting them into practice. Implications for the White Paper are explored in connection with user involvement strategies and assessment and care management processes.

In volume 20 part 3 (1991), the review by N. Charles of Women and Poverty: Exploring the Research and Policy Agenda (page 437) incorrectly gave its editors as Caroline Glendinning and Jane Millar. The editors are in fact Jennie Popay and Hilary Graham. We apologise for this error.