SOCIAL SCIENCE AND SOCIAL POLICY: ROLES OF THE APPLIED RESEARCHER*

Research on policy impact has increasingly focused on the practical application of social science research. This paper outlines four roles—substantive expert, information processor, change agent, and scholar—which have helped to increase the potential usefulness of our research while maintaining linkages to the academic community. This paper suggests the general nature of these roles and suggests specific implementation strategies, which need to be pursued as an early and continuing aspect of the research enterprise. Balancing these multiple roles presents several analytical and ethical difficulties, but helps to establish credibility in both the scientific and policymaking communities.     

SOCIAL POLICY AS REGIONAL POLICY: MARKET AND NONMARKET FACTORS DETERMINING REGIONAL INEQUALITY

ABSTRACT We decompose the recent changes in regional inequality in Brazil into its components, highlighting the role of spatially blind social programs. We aggregate personal income micro data to the state level, differentiating nine income sources, and assess the role of these components in the observed changes in regional inequality indicators. The main results indicate that the largest part of the recent reduction in regional inequality is related to the dynamics of the market‐related labor income, with manufacturing and services favoring deconcentration. Labor income in agriculture, retirement and pensions, and property rents and other sources favored concentration. The social programs Bolsa Família and Benefícios de Prestação Continuada are responsible for more than 24 percent of the reduction in inequality, although they account for less than 1.7 percent of the disposable household income. Such positive impact on regional concentration is impressive, since the goals of the programs are clearly nonspatial.     

SOCIAL CAPITAL AND WORK AMONG RURAL-TO-URBAN MIGRANTS IN CHINA

This research provides a fine-grained analysis of the link between social capital and work-related outcomes among rural-to-urban migrants in China. Using data from the Shanghai Rural-to-Urban Migrant Worker Survey, the authors examine various kinds of social networks, the types of social capital they produce and their effects on migrant workers. While kinship networks and pre-existing social capital tend to provide migrants with job security and stability, they are negatively associated with migrants’ earnings and work satisfaction. By contrast, newly established friendship networks with local urbanites indicate new forms of social capital from the destination city, which are positively associated with higher satisfaction with income and work environment, and a higher likelihood of landing a permanent job.     

VALUES DUALISM AND SOCIAL POLICY AFFECTING THE ELDERLY*

The impact of American values on social policy for and affecting older people is a little explored and complex area. A conceptual framework is developed which reveals the dual and often contradictory nature of the American value system. This framework sets forth the interrelationships of fundamental value-laden issues such as adequacy/equity, work/leisure and religious/secular.