John B Williamson
Biographic Data
| ID | 79761 |
|---|---|
| NAME | John B Williamson |
| GIVEN NAMES | John B |
| FAMILY NAME | Williamson |
| SIGNATURE | WILLIAMSON J B |
| AFFILIATIONS | Boston College |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9456-1797 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 89 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 606 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 89 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1970 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 13 |
Permission to Come Out of The Dark”: A Qualitative Analysis of Male and Female Veterans’ Use of a Telehealth Art Therapy Intervention
Telehealth has expanded access to psychotherapy for veterans, yet little is known about how art therapy is experienced in remote formats. In this paper, we describe a thematic analysis that involved male and female veterans with PTSD and TBI (aside from one participant without a TBI) in individual telehealth art therapy. This paper explores the similarities and differences in male and female veterans' engagement in art therapy. Nine veterans (6 m…
Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare Vol. 48, No. 3
The COVID-19 pandemic has sped up the pace of the digital transition process in which we have been immersed.In a context of generalized lockdown, our organizations have been forced to go digital and many of the activities social workers perform must now be done remotely.As a result, e-social work, or digital social work, has gone from being an emerging specialization to a critical specialty across organizations and activities.In this article, we …
Reduced Working Memory is Associated with Heavier Alcohol Consumption History, Role Impairment and Executive Function Difficulties
Does a universal non‐contributory social pension make sense for rural China
China’s pension reform during the past three decades has allowed a majority of China’s population to be covered by a pension scheme. Of particular note has been the New Rural Pension Scheme (NRPS), a voluntary programme introduced starting in 2009. One goal of our analysis is to assess that pension scheme, using a variety of sources of information including data drawn from recent (2013 and 2015) nationwide China Health and Retirement Longitudinal…
Rural pension reform in China: A critical analysis
Democracy, Hybrid Regimes, and Infant Mortality: A Cross‐National Analysis of Sub‐Saharan African Nations
Objective There is an extensive literature analyzing the relationship between democracy and infant mortality; however, findings are mixed. Some studies find a significant inverse relationship, while others conclude that no such relationship exists. We seek to take the debate in a new direction, overlooked in prior research, by providing a theoretical rational for and empirical evidence of a quadratic relationship, in which countries with componen…
Developing countries and systemic pension reforms: Reflections on some emerging problems
Since 1981 close to forty countries have introduced systemic pension reforms that have replaced all or part of prior pay‐as‐you‐go (PAYG) schemes with privately managed funded defined contribution (FDC) pillars or systems. However, over the past decade about half of these countries have subsequently cutback on, or entirely eliminated, these FDC schemes. In this article we explore some of the reasons why this reversal is often taking place in deve…
Which Cheek did the Resurrected Jesus Turn
Agency and the Annunciation
Which cheek did Jesus turn
In portraiture, subjects are mostly depicted with a greater portion of the left side of their face (left hemiface) facing the viewer. This bias may be induced by the right hemisphere's dominance for emotional expression and agency. Since negative emotions are particularly portrayed by the left hemiface, and since asymmetrical hemispheric activation may induce alterations of spatial attention and action-intention, we posited that paintings of the …
Pension policy in China, Singapore, and South Korea: An assessment of the potential value of the notional defined contribution model
Social policy and the internal dynamics of the senior rights movement
China’s New Rural Pension Scheme: Can It Be Improved
China's new rural pension scheme: Can it be improved
Purpose This paper aims to describe China's need for old‐age pension coverage in its rural areas, to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the new rural pension system currently being implemented, and to suggest some needed reforms. Design/methodology/approach This paper's analysis is based largely on evidence from Chinese government documents, newspaper reports, and research reports including those discussing related programs in rural areas …
Which pension model holds the most promise for China: A funded defined contribution scheme, a notional defined contribution scheme or a universal social pension
Faced with concerns about how to finance pensions for present and particularly future retirees, Chinese policy makers concluded that their traditional defined benefit pension scheme was not going to be sustainable. They, like pension policy makers around the world, have been looking for alternatives and have tentatively decided to go with a multi-pillar scheme that includes a major funded defined contribution pillar. We question the wisdom of tha…
Social security for China's rural aged: A proposal based on a universal non‐contributory pension
Yang Y, Williamson JB, Shen C. Social security for China's rural aged: a proposal based on a universal non‐contributory pension Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 236–245 © 2009 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. China's relative lack of social security coverage for rural elders exacerbates the already severe rural–urban economic disparity, slows the rate of rural poverty r…
Why Japanese Workers Remain in the Labor Force So Long: Lessons for the United States
Old-age pension reform and modernization pathways: Lessons for China from Latin America
Factors Affecting Union Decline in 18 OECD Countries and their Implications for Labor Movement Reform
In recent years, researchers have given much attention to union density decline in industrialized countries. While several have asked whether this decline can be attributed to specific economic, social, or institutional causes, few have provided concrete suggestions about how cross-national studies in this genre can inform efforts that seek to reverse this decline in the United States. This study uses cross-sectional time-series analysis of a poo…
Does a Universal Non-Contributory Pension Scheme Make Sense for Rural China
Rapid economic growth in China during the past 25 years has been accompanied by increasing economic inequality. China’s old-age social security system has long been restricted to urban areas, leaving the 70 per cent of the population living in rural areas with little or no coverage. The lack of social security for elderly people in rural areas poses a threat to social stability and raises social justice concerns. This study is based in part on in…
The political economy of pension reform in Russia: Why partial privatization
Do universal non-contributory old-age pensions make sense for rural areas in low-income countries
The need for old-age security coverage in rural areas of many developing countries is rapidly increasing for several reasons, including population ageing and the weakening of family support networks. These trends have generated intense interest in policies that might help respond to the growing problem of rural old-age destitution. The focus of our analysis is on one of the most promising alternatives under consideration: universal non-contributo…
Social security reform: Does partial privatization make sense for China
Corruption, Democracy, Economic Freedom, and State Strength: A Cross-national Analysis
While it is widely acknowledged that corruption has negative effects on economic growth, investment, and social welfare, the structural causes of corruption have received very little quantitative country-level cross-national analysis. Our structural equation-based analysis of data for 91 nations includes several important determinants of cross-national variation in perceived levels of corruption. Our analyses yield four major findings: 1) democra…
Notional Defined Contribution Accounts: Neoliberal Ideology and the Political Economy of Pension Reform
Notional defined contribution (NDC) accounts represent a new model for social security reform that so far has been adopted in seven countries. While NDC schemes remain public, they call for the individual accounts favored by neoliberal policy analysts. NDC schemes would address many of the demographic and fiscal problems threatening pension systems but, depending on the country, could do so in a way that puts low-paid workers and women at greater…
Dependency, democracy, and infant mortality: A Quantitative, Cross-National Analysis of Less Developed Countries
Maternal mortality, women's status, and economic dependency in less developed countries: A Cross-National Analysis
Accounting for Cross-National Differences in Infant Mortality Decline (1965-1991) among less Developed Countries: Effects of Women's Status, Economic Dependency, and State Strength
Welfare Spending in Advanced Industrial Democracies, 1950-1980
This paper addresses long-standing debates over the role of demographic structure, class power, class-based political parties, and democraphic political participation in the growth of the welfare state in advance industrial democracies from 1950 to 1980. It distinguishes four theories-industrialism, monopoly capitalism, social democratic, and interest-group politics-and tests them using pooled, cross-sectional, time-series data for 18 nations and…
Age Structure, Politics, and Cross-National Patterns of Public Pension Expenditures
This study examines the determinants of spending on public pensions. Unlike other programs, pensions benefit an easily identifiable, high voting group-the aged-and may be especially amenable to their political influence. With that in mind, we draw out predictions of industrialism and class theories for the explanation of public pension expenditures. The explanations are tested with data on 48 nations, at all levels of political and economic devel…
The impact of women's status on infant mortality rate: A cross-national analysis
Child Mortality, Women's Status, Economic Dependency, and State Strength: A Cross-National Study of Less Developed Countries
Journal Article Child Mortality, Women's Status, Economic Dependency, and State Strength: A Cross-National Study of Less Developed Countries Get access Ce Shen, Ce Shen Boston College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar John B. Williamson John B. Williamson Boston College Direct correspondence to John B. Williamson, Department of Sociology, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02167. E-mail [email protected]…
Beliefs about the Motivation of the Poor and Attitudes toward Poverty Policy
The thesis that ideological beliefs about the poor and about poverty policy are in large measure a function of economic self-interest is examined. Socioeconomic status is best described as a consistent, but weak predictor of beliefs about the motivation of the poor and of support for greater efforts to aid the poor. What have generally been referred to as middle-class misconceptions about the motivation of the poor are often held by the poor them…
Corruption, Democracy, Economic Freedom, and State Strength: A Cross-national Analysis
While it is widely acknowledged that corruption has negative effects on economic growth, investment, and social welfare, the structural causes of corruption have received very little quantitative country-level cross-national analysis. Our structural equation-based analysis of data for 91 nations includes several important determinants of cross-national variation in perceived levels of corruption. Our analyses yield four major findings: 1) democra…
International Nongovernmental Organizations and Carbon Dioxide Emissions in the Developing World: A Quantitative, Cross-National Analysis
This quantitative, cross-national study is designed to test hypotheses linking the activities of international nongovernmental organizations to reductions in carbon dioxide emissions in the developing world. While many quantitative studies of variation in carbon dioxide emissions have been published, none have included a control for the presence of international nongovernmental organizations. We review the literature that discusses the many ways …
Multinational Corporations, Democracy and Child Mortality: A Quantitative, Cross-National Analysis of Developing Countries
Female life expectancy, gender stratification, health status, and level of economic development: A cross-national study of less developed countries
Environmental Degradation, Environmental Sustainability, and Overurbanization in the Developing World: A Quantitative, Cross-National Analysis
This is the first quantitative, cross-national study that incorporates predictors designed to test hypotheses linking overurbanization to environmentally induced migration. The study is based on a sample of fifty-eight developing countries using lagged dependent variable panel regression. Our major findings are quite clear with respect to newer ruralpush and urban-pull arguments that developing countries suffering from various forms of environmen…
China's new rural pension scheme: Can it be improved
Purpose This paper aims to describe China's need for old‐age pension coverage in its rural areas, to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the new rural pension system currently being implemented, and to suggest some needed reforms. Design/methodology/approach This paper's analysis is based largely on evidence from Chinese government documents, newspaper reports, and research reports including those discussing related programs in rural areas …
Do universal non-contributory old-age pensions make sense for rural areas in low-income countries
The need for old-age security coverage in rural areas of many developing countries is rapidly increasing for several reasons, including population ageing and the weakening of family support networks. These trends have generated intense interest in policies that might help respond to the growing problem of rural old-age destitution. The focus of our analysis is on one of the most promising alternatives under consideration: universal non-contributo…
Social security and physical quality of life in developing nations: A cross-national analysis
Convergence Theory and the Social Welfare Sector: A Cross-National Analysis
Rural pension reform in China: A critical analysis
Does the Privatization of Social security Make Sense for Developing Nations
We discuss the privatization schemes of Chile and Argentina following a review of three alternatives to privatization. Our major conclusions are as follows: (1) the Chilean scheme has performed very well during much of the past 15 years, but it is not yet clear what will happen during an extended period of economic stagnation and declining financial markets; (2) for many countries it would make more sense to reform existing public pension schemes…
Subjective efficacy and ideal family size as predictors of favorability toward birth control
This study is an assessment of the relevance of subjective efficacy and ideal family size as predictors of favorability toward birth control. The samples considered are male factory workers in five developing nations. The effects of ideal family size and subjective efficacy are generally strong relative to those of education and the other social variables that are considered. The focus of the study is an analysis of whether subjective efficacy an…
Social security for China's rural aged: A proposal based on a universal non‐contributory pension
Yang Y, Williamson JB, Shen C. Social security for China's rural aged: a proposal based on a universal non‐contributory pension Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 236–245 © 2009 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. China's relative lack of social security coverage for rural elders exacerbates the already severe rural–urban economic disparity, slows the rate of rural poverty r…
Old-age pension reform and modernization pathways: Lessons for China from Latin America
Class Context and Pension Response to Demographic Structure in Advanced Industrial Democracies
This paper readdresses debates over the competing influence of class power and size of the aged population on pension spending by considering how the corporatist/pluralist dimension of interest representation shapes the effects of age and class. Corporatism, taken as the degree to which officially-designated representatives of class groups are integrated within and organized by the state for mediation in national policy formation, provides the co…
Factors Affecting Union Decline in 18 OECD Countries and their Implications for Labor Movement Reform
In recent years, researchers have given much attention to union density decline in industrialized countries. While several have asked whether this decline can be attributed to specific economic, social, or institutional causes, few have provided concrete suggestions about how cross-national studies in this genre can inform efforts that seek to reverse this decline in the United States. This study uses cross-sectional time-series analysis of a poo…
The political economy of pension reform in Russia: Why partial privatization
Subjective efficacy and ideal family size as predictors of favorability toward birth control
This study is an assessment of the relevance of subjective efficacy and ideal family size as predictors of favorability toward birth control. The samples considered are male factory workers in five developing nations. The effects of ideal family size and subjective efficacy are generally strong relative to those of education and the other social variables that are considered. The focus of the study is an analysis of whether subjective efficacy an…
An Evaluation of the Case Against National Income Insurance
In an earlier paper I outlined a proposal for a national income insurance plan and discussed the strengths of the approach (Williamson,1974c). Income insurance is a special case of the negative income tax or more generally of the guaranteed income. Negative income tax proposals of any kind are open to a variety of criticisms from both the left and the right. The national income insurance plan is no exception. In the present paper an attempt is ma…
National Income Insurance: Some Implications for Political and Economic Inequality
Several co-workers and I have recently completed an evaluation of sixty-three anti-poverty programs and proposals (Williamson, et. al., 1973, 1974). This paper briefly describes the study and some of our findings by way of introduction to the presentation and defense of a national income insurance proposal, This proposal is a synthesis of three highly rated anti-poverty strategies. It would within a few years have a substantial impact on the exte…
The Stigma of Public Dependency: A Comparison of Alternative Forms of Public Aid to the Poor
Beliefs about the stigma associated with 13 different programs and proposals to aid the poor are assessed for a sample of respondents in the Boston SMSA. Evidence is found supporting the following conclusions: (1) there are marked variations in the amount of stigma associated with the various components of the Public Assistance program; (2) the stigma that would be associated with a federal guaranteed income program would be less than that associ…
Beliefs about the Motivation of the Poor and Attitudes toward Poverty Policy
The thesis that ideological beliefs about the poor and about poverty policy are in large measure a function of economic self-interest is examined. Socioeconomic status is best described as a consistent, but weak predictor of beliefs about the motivation of the poor and of support for greater efforts to aid the poor. What have generally been referred to as middle-class misconceptions about the motivation of the poor are often held by the poor them…
Politics and Land Use Planning: The London Experience
Preface 1. Introduction 2. The machinery of local government and town planning 3. World's end: housing in West Chelsea 4. Offices and congestion in the central area: Centre Point and St Giles Circus 5. The political environment of councillors 6. Deliberation and the delegation of authority 7. The authority and the applicant: problems of choice 8. Planning, values and rationality Index
View from the Boys: A Sociology of Down-Town Adolescents
Roundhouse delinquency on the move catseye kings for a while a question of style the authority conspiracy on the edge of society
The Measurement and Meaning of Poverty
There is great diversity among studies of the poor in the way poverty is measured. The present study reviews the alternative meanings of the term “poverty” implicit in the measurement procedures suggested. Drawing upon a five year panel study based on a national sample, a comparison is made among sixteen alternative measures of poverty. On the basis of this analysis we conclude that caution is required when making comparisons between studies usin…
Beliefs About the Rich, the Poor and the Taxes They Pay
Beliefs about tax burdens are frequently distorted in the direction of the believer's economic self-interest, according to a study of 300 White women in the Boston Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area, of 50 of their husbands in a matched pairs analysis and of 25 Black women. Socioeconomic status is a consistently stronger predictor of the federal tax burden than is ideology, but neither is effective. The federal income tax component of the tot…
The Social Mobility of Women: A Causal Model of Socioeconomic Success
This paper extends the analysis of socioeconomic achievement initiated by Blau and Duncan and subsequently developed by both Jencks and Rainwater. The major extensions are the specification of models for female heads of household in the labor force and the inclusion of several previously neglected predictors of socioeconomic achievement including some which require panel data. Our analysis suggests that a different model is needed for females tha…
People and Politics in Urban Society, Volume 6: Urban Affairs Annual Reviews
Convergence Theory and the Social Welfare Sector: A Cross-National Analysis
Convergence Theory and the Social Welfare Sector
The Research Craft: An Introduction to Social Research Methods
The Economic Status of the Elderly: Is the Problem Low Income
The thesis of this paper is that poverty among the elderly is increasingly becoming a problem of relative as opposed to absolute economic deprivation. Many of the elderly (persons age 65 and over) are oppressed by the absolute poverty they must endure, but for most of those for whom inadequate income is a source of concern, the real problem seems to be relative economic deprivation. If present trends continue this will be increasingly the case in…
Socioeconomic Achievement: The Case of the Working Poor
In recent years a great deal of effort has gone into the specification of causal models describing the social mobility process, but virtually no effort has been made to specify a model for the poor, a segment of the population for which the issue of social mobility is particularly crucial. In the present study we ask whether the process of socioeconomic achievement for the poor can be described using the same model as for the non-poor, or whether…
The Stigma of Poverty: A Critique of Poverty Theories and Policies. Chaim I. Waxman
Books in review
The Political Influence of Older Americans
This essay explores the future prospects for the political influence of older Americans. Some analysts contend that the next fifty years will bring a marked increase in the political influence of the elderly. Others argue that the aged are unlikely to become a significant political influence at any time in the forseeable future. We review the relevant evidence and conclude that it is not entirely consistent with either of these positions. Our ana…
The 1980 Texts in Social Gerontology
Aging Comes of Age
The Politics of Measuring Poverty Among the Elderly
We discuss the special problems associated with efforts to measure poverty among the elderly. Income measures must be adjusted for a variety of non‐income sources of well‐being such as net worth, human capital, and in‐kind, transfers. While such adjustments are needed, efforts to date are problematic to the extent that new sources of error are introduced. A close analysis of official government measures of poverty reveals that they reflect a vari…
Growing Old: The Social Problems of Aging
The Politics of Aging: Power and Policy
Humanizing Institutions for the Aged
Political science (66 works) · Economics (62 works) · Sociology (54 works) · Economic growth (38 works) · Law (31 works) · Politics (31 works) · Social Policy and Reform Studies (31 works) · Development economics (30 works) · Demographic economics (22 works) · Income, Poverty, and Inequality (22 works)