Outline for Week of 6/10

Immigration Policy

This reading goes into the depths of immigration policy issues and how they are most commonly discussed in industrialized countries.  There are positive and negative reasons in which immigration happens.  In some cases, families attempt to reunite with family members, and in other cases you'll see illegal immigration or humanitarian immigration which may include refugees or felons.  Push and pull factors add up as a country's appeal to immigrants.  The pull factors are the aspects like job opportunities in which makes a country desirable, and push factors depicts how undesirable a country may be, like high crime rates.  Often times these industrialized nations have options in which they weigh in order to see who is allowed in and who may not be.  The options rely on economic and political dynamics in which the immigrants will directly effect by however they contribute to the nation's society.  Each country has their own uniquely shaped policy on immigration as each country has its own political and economic systems.  The different types of policy discussed starts with common international policy, to US policy, to German, French, Japanese, Italian, and United Kingdom policies.  Under each country's section describes the economic and political explanations to their immigration policy, making this a very useful tool for immigration policy research.

Social Policy

Unlike immigration policy, social policy gets into other interesting factors involving benefits or initiatives for possible unfortunate citizens.  Topics in which are explained here are pension programs, unemployment help, disability benefits, subsidies to families with dependent children, and assistance to families and independents with low incomes.  Each one of these benefits are positioned in a society to give leverage to individuals less fortunate, and are separated from welfare debate.  Social policies in industrialized nations are often centered around four main groups of people; the elderly, children, the infirm, and the recently unemployed for obvious reasons.  Governments try to align social policies so that poverty wouldn't happen so easily for the common person.  It is sometimes hard to realize and understand who may apply for social benefits, and that's when policies see discrepancy and countries go in evaluation.  The reading continues in the same format as the first one, where it goes into vast detail about different policies laid out by different countries.  It goes through top industrialized nations like the USA, Germany, Japan, France, Italy, and the UK.  If anyone was studying social policy and how it may compare internationally, this reading could be utilized as a fascinating tool.