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This chapter goes inside the Weimar welfare offices by exploring the identities and interests of the major players of the Hamburg's Welfare System. The Hamburg's Welfare System provided social services that went beyond the minimum prescribed by national welfare regulations. It developed specialized areas of welfare. It was headed by Social Democratic political appointees, Paul Hoffman, Paul Neumann, and Oskar Martini. Other personnel came from existing public and private welfare agencies of the Hamburg administration. However, the Weimar welfare systems had a gendered boundary line between female and male as female social workers worked in the field while male administrative officials worked inside welfare offices. The welfare system after the war appointed or nominated volunteers as it needed more professional social workers and welfare officials than were employed. Thus, there was a new need for training as only five out of twenty people were competent so the welfare offices needed to train the voluntary workers.

This chapter contains summary themes. First, it shows that the material side of hinmin life was excruciating, marked by inadequate income and terrible living conditions. Second, it argues that at the mental and spiritual level, hinmin felt like outsiders, a fact reinforced by the slums where many of them lived and their exclusion from institutions such as the schools. At the same time, it shows that they identified with modern society and sought to be part of it: they built it, they took part in city life, and they were political activists. The third section looks at how contemporary poverty differs from late-Meiji poverty, noting the absence today of slums and the presence of universal schooling, a welfare system, and a widespread belief in equality. A concluding section argues that hinmin were essentially “ordinary” human beings placed in extraordinary circumstances.

This chapter concludes the book, highlighting its attention to the care provided by family members of working age to people with long-term care needs in three kinds of relational context (to a parent, to a son/daughter and to a partner); its focus on the influence of carers’ organisations as well as on demographic pressures and labour market change; and its coverage of the issues arising in three types of welfare system: liberal-democratic, Nordic and East Asian. The chapter draws out the main comparative findings of the earlier chapters, highlighting both convergence and differentiation and noting that while the balance between family, private and public care provision remains very different in the three types of welfare system, all the systems considered are changing and all face common challenges which mean the prevalence of caring among people of working age is expected to rise rapidly in coming decades. This situation has already produced some similar responses: all the countries studied now offer some kinds of support to at least some family carers; all offer some employees with caring responsibilities some type of work-care reconciliation options; and in all evidence about the circumstances of working age carers is now accumulating.

There have been growing concerns about various manifestations of extreme hardship in the UK, which are investigated using both PSE and a survey of emergency service users. A consensus-based definition of destitution is developed and applied to show its current extent and incidence in Britain. While no single cause dominates, the importance of arrears and debts, benefit levels, delays and sanction, health and relationship problems, evictions, job loss and migration are all underlined.

This chapter explains the book’s rationale, arguing that work-care reconciliation debates and analyses have previously drawn rather limited attention to the care given by family members of working age to relatives who need their support because of illness, disability or frailty in old age. The chapter presents data on the growing significance of work-care reconciliation, arising from both labour market and demographic change, and explains the international comparative approach taken in the book. This compares two countries in each of three types of welfare system, liberal-democratic (Australia and England); Nordic (Finland and Sweden) and East Asian (Japan and Taiwan). The chapter also explains the book’s organisation into three parts, concerned with working carers of older people, disabled children and partners where serious illness or disability raises care and support needs.