Welfare State and Neo-Liberalism: Conceptual and Practical Gaps Regarding the Issue of Poverty between the Governmental, Third and Business Sectors

ABSTRACT

The study compares aspects of the welfare state with neo–liberalism in regard to coping with poverty in the governmental sector; the third sector businesses that assume social responsibility (SR), and those that do not. The study was conducted by means of a structured questionnaire distributed among 154 workers within these sectors. The findings identified differences between these sectors and indicated that although the three sectors supported the concept of the welfare state to a great degree, they would prefer to implement neo-liberal principles. The theoretical and practical meaning of these findings are discussed and elaborated in this paper.

KEYWORDS:

• Poverty
• Cross-Sector Partnership
• Welfare State
• Neo-Liberalism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.