Background Parenting a child with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities has great implications. Parents generally rely heavily on healthcare and social welfare services in caring for the child at home. Previous studies indicated mismatch between what parents need to preserve family and personal wellbeing and what is typically provided by services. This study focused on the role of healthcare and social welfare services in childcare and aims to contribute to understanding how parents perceive their interactions with service providers. Methods We interviewed 25 Dutch parents who cared for their child at home. Data were analysed using Framework Method. Findings Two overarching themes were found: “Being the lifeline” addressed that parents had central roles in fragmented services, and “Losing ownership” highlighted that parents were constrained in living life according to own beliefs and values while interacting with providers. Conclusions Findings illuminated that many parents became overburdened and compromised heavily on agency over family thriving due to functioning of healthcare and social welfare services. Findings supported working with integrated family case managers, creating effective and proactive access to equipment and services, and enacting high quality facilities for help with childcare and respite. These are important conditions to enable parents to construct family life more autonomously and make their further contribution to society. This may also lead to improved connotations of dependence on healthcare and social welfare services.
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In this paper we analyze the effects if two countries, with different settings on the labor market, open their capital markets. To do this we follow the ideas of New Institutional Economics in combination with a new model of economic growth. We will use a Leontief production function, where we derive the distribution of income by using an approach stemming from conflict theory, to highlight some new insights into the question whether an open world capital market enhances the overall welfare. First of all, using conflict theory, we will pay some attention to the micro-economic foundation of a Harrod-Domar model. At least we want to analyze what will happen if for e.g.: China opens the capital market to the EU zone, where the institutions in both regions are very different. We will show that this will always lead a race to the bottom from the view of workers in the former developed region.
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It is generally assumed that competition increases welfare. The main idea behind this assumption is that competition in a market is the best incentive mechanism to produce efficient market outcomes. This is good for social welfare and therefore stimulating competition is welfare increasing. According to this view, a lot of emphasis has been laid on the conditions to enhance competition in certain areas of the economy. Next to these developments in the markets of goods and services, one sees a similar development in emphasizing competition between regions and semi-public and other kind of institutions. One can generally say that as a result of general development in other sectors and more formally, globalization tends also to increase the intensity of competition.
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