Risk, Trust and Welfare

ANNE BARLOW Lecturer in Law, University of Wales, Aberystwyth PAUL BISSELL Research Associate, Drug Usage and Pharmacy Practice Group, School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Manchester JUSTICE BLUNDELL Research Fellow, University College London HARTLEY DEAN Professor of Social Policy, University of Luton SIMON DUNCAN Reader in Comparative Social Policy, University of Bradford ROSALIND EDWARDS Reader in Social Policy, South Bank University JANET FORD Joseph Rowntree Professor of Housing Policy and Director of the Centre for the Housing Policy, University of York BRUNO S. FREY Professor of Economics, University of Zurich JULIAN LE GRAND Richard Titmuss Professor of Social Policy, London School of Economics PETER LUNT Social Psychologist, University College London MOIRA MUNRO Professor of Planning and Housing, Heriot Watt University PETER NOYCE Boots Professor of Pharmacy Practice, School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Manchester GILLIAN PARKER Nuffield Professor of Community Care, University of Leicester PAUL WARD Research Associate, Drug Usage and Pharmacy Practice Group, School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Manchester

This book contains new theoretical discussion and new empirical evidence on the way people think about and cope with the risks and uncertainties of modern life. People's confidence in their capacity to cope with uncertainty is closely related to social class, gender and access to support networks.This book contains new theoretical discussion and new empirical evidence on the way people think about and cope with the risks and uncertainties of modern life. The national surveys cover areas ranging from lone parenthood to medicine, from house purchase to long-term care, from personal finance to the welfare state. People's confidence in their capacity to cope with uncertainty is closely related to social class, gender and access to support networks. Policies that assume that people are self-interested rational actors are likely to produce unsatisfactory results and to damage the essential social capital of trust.