In any modern organisation, the existence of social welfare is paramount. Social welfare is in man’s nature. Social welfare is about how people and societal institutions seek to provide set basic standards as well as certain minimum opportunities for its people. It is about the quality of life that affects access to essential social services.
The survival of man as an individual is dependent on the associations he forms with others. Man cannot survive on his own and therefore forms associations with others to ensure continuity of his species.
In the primitive society, traditions and customs played a major role to ensure that family ties are maintained in order to ensure cooperation for the collective needs of the society.
In today’s modern society such ties are slowly fading away and the society has put in institutions of governance to achieve the same. Society through institutions in government has laid down the necessary machinery including institutions of public finance to achieve that.
Under such initiatives social services such as provision of medical services, security, Public health, provision of education, child welfare, provision of education and so on. It is therefore the role of the state government to ensure that the economic as well as the social well being of all its subjects.
This is premised on the principle of equitable distribution of resources in society, equal opportunities for all as well as taking responsibility for those individuals who are unable to provide the basic minimum for themselves.
With the fall of communism and the society has become increasingly capitalistic there has been a greater need to amerce wealth for each individual.
Money has become pivotal in ensuring social welfare. This has lead to the constant pull and push between the haves and the have not’s, the employer and his employees , the bourgeoisie and the proletariat and so on in an effort of each individual guarantying their own personal wellbeing.
In the past many considered social welfare as a private concern but in today’s modern world social welfare cuts across all divides of society and has found its place in public debates.
Social welfare is largely affected by global trends such as globalization. Another issue that affects social welfare too is a states aging population as well as a state decline in fertility rates. The above concerns present a challenge to state economies that continue to sustain social welfare programmes.
As a trend that affects the world over Globalisation is one that o state can ignore. Any economy that would still like to compete in the global market with other states that do not have to incur the burden of social spending tax. In order to continue sustaining their economies and supporting viable projects such states must completely eliminate all social commitments.
In many industrial nations their population is aging therefore most of the social welfare programs are catered for the aged. Since the aged are the majority of the population the burden is then placed on the minority population. To sustain such a burden can be an enormous task for the minority population to sustain.
Industrial nations have undergone sharp declines in population growth as well as fertility rates. Very few economies such as that of the United States have maintained their replacement rates. The result of such a trend is disastrous in terms of providing support for social welfare programs