Welfare Workforce

Isabel M. Perera is an assistant professor in the Department of Government at Cornell University. Perera has held visiting appointments at the European University Institute, University of Gothenburg, University of Oxford, and Sciences Po Paris. This book is based on her award-winning dissertation in political science from the University of Pennsylvania. Her academic training also includes a postdoctoral fellowship in health policy and medical ethics.

• 1. The welfare workforce: managers and workers make strange bedfellows; 2. Nowhere to go? The supply of mental health services across countries; 3. Before deinstitutionalization: the United States and France compared; 4. Deinstitutionalization in the United States; 5. Deinstitutionalization in France; 6. Deinstitutionalization elsewhere: a Scandinavian check; 7. Beyond deinstitutionalization: welfare workers and welfare capitalism; Postscript: the evolving definition of the 'welfare workforce'; Appendix. Comparative deinstitutionalization data set: codebook and source information.

'So many intriguing puzzles here. Why do governments provide services to those who cannot request them, such as the severely mentally ill? Why do countries with similar health systems or welfare states diverge when it comes to mental health policy? Perera's fascinating, one-of-a-kind analysis focusing on welfare state workers and public managers is a seminal contribution not just to the study of mental health but also to the comparative study of social policy.' Andrea Louise Campbell, Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology