Social Welfare
Year:2007 | Volume:6 | Issue:24|Papers Count:16

Objectives: This paper is primarily devoted to review the ideas and views of some of the modern classic and twentieth century scholars on "Social Justice". Then, it is discussed on the relationship between these theories and welfare state, strategies of economic development and social justice.Findings: Reflections of Hobbes and Kant are reviewed as two important modern classic theories. Hobbes believes that human being by nature seeks his/her profits and acts based on the natural rights which is a tendency toward self-interests. He emphasizes that state is the only social regulator which establishes social justice. Individuals comply with the regulations of the state just because of the advisability and fear from anarchy.Therefore, according to Hobbes, justice is impossible without state hence justice is a by product of the state not people.On the contrary, Spinoza does not consider human being profit-seeking by nature.Kant also believes human being can not function on the basis of its self-essence and can not achieve justice and virtue this way.He furthermore elaborates that justice is solely achievable through rational demands. Accordingly Kant unlike Hobbes denies the relation between rationality and profit by the decree of intellect.In twentieth century, two major schools of thoughts of John Rawls and Amartya Sen are reviewed in this article. Rawls believes justice is the piety of social system, he thinks justice is the righteous choice when there is maximum freedom and inequality is justified as long as it is not threatening the interests of the low-income social group, In fact Rawls set up a fair-choice system before us and indicates that society can not establish justice unless it first achieves the civil-law which guarantees the fair-choice to people.Amartya Sen considers freedom of choice and socio-political participation of people as a prerequisite to development and justice.Rawls' ideas as comprehensive thoughts to explain justice thoroughly is reviewed in this article. Subsequently, the welfare state and its reformist changes are discussed. In this section some of the criticisms to the welfare state are mentioned and two approaches of "welfare society" and "risk society" are considered as amending revisions to the welfare state which emphasize on more participation of people in the social risks and benefits. In this paper challenges of economic growth and redistribution are discussed and the three strategic of "growth then redistribution", "redistribution then growth" and "growth with redistribution" are considered in more details. It is concluded that the third strategies approach, "growth with redistribution", is the approach of choice for resolving the concerned issues in this regardThe three approaches are considered in three different periods: eight years of the imposed war, eight years of post-war reconstruction period, and eight years of subsequent reformist government. It is concluded that the strategy of "redistribution then growth" was implemented during the Iran-Iraq war and the strategy of "growth then redistribution" was the major approach during reconstruction period and the first four-year of reform, and the strategy of growth with redistribution was taken during the second four-year of reform.Results: Finally, with respect to the social and political demands of the Iranians, the growth with redistribution is concluded to be best instrumental for securing growth and social justice in Iran.The article studies the three factors of Rawls' justice, welfare society, and risk society in line with the "growth with redistribution" approach in order to better explain the "growth with redistribution" strategy.

Objective: The main discourse on the very existence of contradiction between Economic growth from one hand and redistribution policies and social Justice on the other has been hold up since midst of the go's in twentieth century. Resort to extreme market oriented as well as structural adjustment policies affected subsequent theories in these fields. All pre-assumptions and prejudicious believes against justice and planning, as issues considered as real enemies of the market, that was and still is supported as hopeful agent for economic Salvador throughout the theoretical reasoning, regard Len to very severe dreadful reversed facts. Now a day tracing that the approaches toward growth and justice as unilateral, political and social class oriented is more clear cut, although still need more explanation. This surrey is going to under take this task.Method: The Present surrey employs historical – analytical methodology. Sore basic and controvercial paradigms will be studies in the light of systematic logical analysis as well as comparative studies, particularly with respect to Iran and the world experiences. Finally the essay trips to defend planning as well as policies toward redistribution and Social justices with growth, based on the analytical – experimental methodology.Findings: Extremist Pro-market Pro-market policies and inclination, and suspending planning, by appeal to the claim of the sufficiency of the market or by resorting to inefficiencies the old fationed planning, have deteriorated the main part of the development, i.e. Social and human development as well as social justice, In global view, poverty, deprivation and discrimination have heavily increased, due to the disability of the market me hanism and provocation of the neo-liberalist idealogy.Results: The method and approach of the "growth with justice", providing growth resources through redistribution and dire tiny the resources by democratic planning system are suggested the expectation for market to work and to bring about efficiency and just welfare, simultaneously is unsuitable. Instead, mnovation in planning system become necessary and therefore is suggested.

Objectives: Perhaps one of the most troublesome dilemmas in economics is why some people remain very poor for long periods of time, and why poverty persists across generations. Poverty alleviations and satisfying minimum requirements of a decent living standard have come to the focus of the governments, international agencies, as well as nongovernmental organizations. Different administrations in Iran, inspired by the Islamic teachings on poverty eradication, implemented numerous measures to combat poverty.In this regard, in addition to the direct measures taken to combat poverty, various policies implemented within different Five-Year Development Plans. In spite of all the efforts made to alleviate poverty, however, it seems that the goals have not been achieved and still poverty is a source of concern among the policy makers.In order to re-launch fresh policies to combat poverty, we have to have a comprehensive account of the results of the implemented policies. In this paper we provide an assessment of poverty changes that shows how incidence and intensity of poverty have been developed following more than two decades of poverty alleviation policy.Method: This article examines the changes in the incidence and intensity of poverty in Iran between 1989 and 2004 based on Household Income and Expenditure Surveys. To this end, using minimum basic needs approach; absolute poverty lines for urban and rural areas have been estimated. The cost of minimum food requirements based on 2000 kcal. per day per adult is estimated. Accordingly, by application of Orshansky method the cost of minimum non-food requirements has been calculated. Then using Foster et al. (1984) indices, different poverty measures have been estimated.Findings: The findings indicate that in the most part of the time period of the study the rural poverty, in terms of incidence and intensity has been higher and more severe than the respected figures for the urban poverty. Moreover, the results show that the general trends of poverty in both rural and urban areas have been declining during the same time period.

Objectives: The main objective of this research is to estimate income inequality in IRAN using the statistical data on household budgets. This is due to the fact that budget distribution has less fluctuation and is more uniformed. Measuring changes in inequality helps us determine the effectiveness of polices aimed at affecting inequality, and gives us data necessary to use inequality as an explanatory variable in social analysis.However, similar to several other developing countries one of the most common problems in analyzing the income distribution in IRAN, raises from inaccuracy in statistical data. This inaccuracy can be due to several factors such as lack of precision in data acquisition process, misunderstanding the statistical concepts or mistakes in measuring methods. This problem causes the acquired data to be inconsistent over the time.Method: In the first step, a discrete set of distribution samples from 30,000 households gathered by Statistical Center of IRAN is processed. This data set is part of the household budget microdata for both urban and rural areas for the time period 1984-2004. This data is then used to estimate the income inequality in rural and urban areas for the specified period. To this point, three indices of the Gini coefficient, Atkinson and Theil and are calculated by STATA.Result: calculated by Atkinson and thei and Gine measures can be summarized as fallows:The two main factors in the evaluation of Atkinson measures are coefficient   and estimation of Atkinson index. The findings calculated by Atkinson measure indicate that in urban areas the maximum levels of inequality appear in the years 1988, 1990 and 1991 and the minimum level in 2003-04. In rural areas, these maximum levels occurred in 1987, 1990 and 1991 and the minimum is in 2003-04. The optimum range for coefficient   in the Atkinson index is estimated between 0 and 1 in both rural and urban areas meaning that the rates of inequalities are consistent in these areas. In estimation of theil measure indicate that in urban areas the maximum levels of inequality appear in the years 1988, 1990 and 1991 and the minimum level in 2003-04. In rural areas, these maximum levels occurred in 1987, 1990 and 1991 and the minimum is in 2003-04.In estimation of Gini coefficient, the highest levels of inequality are observed in the years 1987, 88 and 91 and the minimum levels have been occurred in years 2003-04. This level is measured to be lower than 63 in both rural and urban areas in the year 2004.The most concerning observable fact in the analysis of these results are the strong fluctuations in the rate of change of inequality rather than its absolute value. These fluctuations result in social and economical instability. It is worthwhile to mention that although evaluation the income distributions are very crucial, no statistical data is available on income distribution at the moment. The only statistical available data is on distribution of household spending.

Objectives: Improving economic welfare of people and poverty reduction is one of the main goals in economic development plans in all nations. Direct payment or distribution of subsidized commodities is the most well-know way of transferring income to low income groups of society, having long run precedence in both of developing and developed nations. However, due to government limited budget using the subsidies efficiently and leading it toward target groups (the poor) is important. Approaching a way to determine the target groups simply and low costly may be regarded as increment in efficiency of poor-supporting system. The under consideration topic in developing poverty reduction plans is to determine the poor characteristics precisely and to take antipoverty measures accompanied with location oriented policies.Method: Based on the above spokes, this study tries to determine socioeconomic characteristics affecting poverty throughout rural households of Iran. In addition, the welfare changes of rural households was analyzed using real per capita consumption expenditure changes over 2000-2002. In order to analyze the poor characteristics, under poverty line households were recognized using FGT criteria in 2002, then being or not being as poor household was applied as a function of socioeconomic characteristics, 1 for the poor households and 0 for others. The socioeconomics variables are household head’s age, gender, education level and occupation, square of household size, agricultural income, non agricultural income, number of educated individuals, number of occupied individuals, and location variable of province. Logit model was used to analyze the mentioned variables effect on poverty. The data was obtained from Household Survey, conducted by Statistical Center of Iran annually.The sampling method was two-stage random selection. In first stage the provinces including Markazi, Khorasan, Isfahan, Golestan, and Ardabil were selected by cluster classifying, and then the households were selected throughout the provinces randomly. The provinces were also classified based on their per capita expenditure.Findings & Results: Based on the findings, food materials and tobacco with 40% has the highest expenditure share in households’ expenditures and is followed by housing. We also found increased average per capita expenditure in 1382 compared to 1379 throughout all income deciles. Based on the FGT criteria about 79.8% and 45.8% of individuals were regarded as poor in 1379 and 1382 respectively. The estimation results of factors affecting poverty showed that increment in head age, percentage of families headed by men, agricultural monetary and non-monetary revenue, having household heads occupied in agronomy and animal husbandry and education level of household head rise probability of coming up the poverty line, while increase in household size may result in decreased welfare. It was also revealed that there are local differences in rural regions.

Objectives: Poverty in Iran is one of the interesting issues that researchers tried to find influential factors on it. However, quantitative studies about this issue, due to the lack of access to information or not using of advanced statistical methods, need to be generalized in order to specify effective factors on poverty. In this paper influential factors on poverty are determined and measured by the use of an ordinal cumulative logistic model. This model that includes the special case of binary response (poor or rich), has the advantage (relative to the available researches) that it increases states of the poverty levels to more than two categories (considering the ordinarily of  the categories) and in this way, it uses more information to interpret the results. Using this model comparison of different poverty levels is also more efficient.Method: By a logical way, we have categorized the total cost variable of the urban civilians by the poverty indexes into four ordinal categories, poor, pseudo-poor, not-poor and pseudo-rich or rich. Although this categorization prevents the use of continues nature of initial cost variable, we prefer to use the created ordinal variable for two reasons. The first reason is the error due to the people’s statements and their evaluation of their total expenditure which can be reduced by the recoding the responses into being or not being in a specific category. Secondly, this categorization enables us to recognize the poverty situation of Iranian households with respect to their cost situation and calculated absolute poverty line of Iran. So, we assume that the new categorized ordinal variable which considered as an ordinal response variable takes the value 1 for poor people, 2 for pseudo-poor people, 3 for not poor people and 4 for pseudo- rich or rich people.  Because of ordinal nature of the response variable, we have used the cumulative ordinal logistic model for response of poverty situation in order to find effective economical and social factors on poverty and also measuring the amount of their effects. This model can give us the ability to find the odds of being poor against the other poverty levels (pseudo-poor, non-poor and pseudo-rich or rich). By this model one can also obtain odds of being poor or Pseudo-poor against non-poor and Pseudo-rich or rich. also this model has the advantage of using the ordinal information of responses over the other simple logistic models. Findings & Results: The data extracted from the urban family's cost and income survey in statistical center of Iran, show that employment status, marriage status, education status, gender of the head of the household and also home situation and number of family members in the house are important factors which affect the probability of being poor or pseudo-poor. Results show that the chance of being poor for single household (male or female) is so less than that of households with family size of 5 or more. For households with any family size the chance of being poor for females is more than that of males. Finally, the very important result is that the poverty situation for households with high family size is critical for people who are tenants.  

Objectives: Household Consumer Price Index (CPI) will be determined in most countries without considering the differences in income (cost), in expenditure patterns and finally in goods prices for each household. The approach causes some kind of gap between the official inflation rate and the actual rate, is experienced by each household. That causes the CPI and official inflation rate, publish by the Government, and based on that economic policies and decisions are taken, would be representative of inflation rate faced by affluent household. In such a situation, the poor household may face inflation rate higher than official inflation rate, which is ignored in decision-makings. The paper is seeking to examine the inflationary discrepancy resulting from the differences of social and economic variables in the household consumer basket pattern and the analysis of the effects ignoring of this discrepancy on the outcome of Government Protectionism for households.Method: The paper takes advantages of Variance Analysis of the inflationary rates that each household has experienced in urban areas between 1995 and 2003 (about 12000 household each year), and the effects of various social and economic factors on the inflationary discrepancy of these households will be examined, Studying the effect of each factor via hypothetical test has been done as the following, in which the treatment effect of each factor has been done in the form of analysis of Variance variation resulting from that factor and error factor.H0: a1=a2=….ai=0H1=$ai¹0i= The Number of treatmentFor the CPT data we have utilize the Statistical Center of Iran Consumer services and Goods Prices Indexes information. The Statistical Center of Iran CPI data is available only for 2003-005 (1384-82). In order to examine the weights used in calculation of CPL we have taken advantage of foods and non-foods costs statistics of Urban Household Expenditure and Income survey, during the same period.Findings & Results: The paper reveals that the social and economic factors including income Deciles, household size, household’s head occupational status and job and ... are effective on the developing of the inflationary discrepancy; and in order to analyze the actual consequences of the government social and economic policies on the household welfare, taking note of this discrepancy is very crucial. Examining the inflation rate among the income Deciles makes known that in this period the prices has been grown in such a way that poor households have lost more than affluent. households have, Inflation rate analysis based on household size showed that in some years there are meaningful differences in the inflation rate of households with different sizes. Similar results have been reached regarding inflation rate for household by number of its employed members, by the main occupational groups or household’s head occupational status, For example the study of inflation rate among the household by the main occupational groups shows that the households whose heads are among the group of manager or high ranking officers face lower inflation rates compare to other households.

Objectives: In each year, Iranian government provides for food subsidy in its budget. Recently, the effect of food subsidy to the households has been controversial. It is clear that the goal of paying food subsidy is providing the needs of calories for each person and the community food security as a whole. Studies show that about 10-20 percent of Iranian households, intake less calorie than they need. Then it can be a good reason for Iranian government to continue the food subsidy payment.Method: In this Article we use vector autoregressive method for investigating relationship between per capita calorie intake, food subsidy, income and food prices in Iran, using annual data for 1961-2004. Calorie intake is average per capita energy (calorie) intake per day, calculated on the basis of per capita dietary energy derived from national food balance sheets (source FAO:2006). Real per capita GDP is adjusted with CPI in 1990 and the real food price index is the corresponding nominal index deflated by the CPI in 1990 (Source: Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran year book). The real food price index (1990 prices) is the corresponding nominal indexed by the CPI (source: Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran year book). Food subsidy (1990 prices) is deflated by CPI (source: Consumers and Producers Protection Organization).Findings: On the basis of Augmented Dicky Fuller unit root test we find that all variables have only one unit root. In respect to LR, AIC and FPE criteria, the best lag length for initial VAR model is 3 lag. For determining the number of long-run relationships between the variables, we used trace statistics. On the basis of this statistics we only find one long-run relationship (cointegration) between variables. The long run relationship was only significant between calorie intake, income and food subsidy variables. The weakly exogenous test shows that food subsidy does not respond to the discrepancy from long-run equilibrium and income and calorie intake do all of the adjustment. We use the final model for investigating the effect of food subsidy reduction on Iranian households' calorie intake. The final model shows that long run income elasticity of calorie demand is 0/16. Also results show that long run food subsidy elasticity of calorie demand is inelastic at 0/009. Since feedback exists between calorie intake, income and food subsidy variables, this ceteris paribus interpretation is potentially misleading because it ignores relations between the three variables in the VAR model. Then, impulse responses may give a better picture of the relations between the variables. Since all the variables are I (1), the effects of the shocks are permanent. The results show that one unit reduction in food subsidy without income compensation has a considerable negative effect on calorie intake in short-run and that it takes around five years for households to adjust themselves to the new condition. But, if one standard error food subsidy reduction occurs with the same amount of income compensation, then the effect of income compensation not only removes the negative effects of subsidy reduction, but also will have positive effect on calorie intake in short-run and long-run.Results: it seems that focus on food subsidy reduction without considering income growth will deteriorate Iranian household calorie intake.

Objectives: The paper proposes a simple methodology to estimate an affluence line for Iran. There is a reasonable volume of studies about poor and their characteristics, but little is known about rich. In this regard, one can refer to Marcelo Medeiors who estimated an affluence line for the Brazil in l999, utilizing the data from the household expenditure and income survey. The idea that poverty is morally unacceptable and can be eradicated through redistribution of wealth provides the grounds for the methodology. Therefore the line is defined as the value that delimitates the aggregated income required to eradicate poverty by the way of transfers from the rich to the poor. Nonetheless, income transfer to the poor are not a permanent solution to the problem of poverty. A real policy has to take many other aspects of the dynamics of an economy into the consideration. Rather, the affluence line methodology aims at defining a statistical tool to allow studies that can contribute to more effective design of redistributionist measures.This kind of line requires the construction of a redistribution rule. To do this, first, one has to presume that, for all individual, the well-being resulted from the addition of an extra amount of any resources decreases as the owned amount of this resource increases. Since it is for poor individual, the transfer an additional income unit is able to provide a higher well-being than it would for rich individual. As a result of this, it is determined that the transfers for the elimination of poverty should occur from the richest individual to the poorest one.Method: The input from Statistical Center of Iran Rural and Urban household expenditure and income survey, provide necessary data for various studies in measuring both poverty and affluence line. This study also takes advantages of raw data from the same project. The period under the study in this paper, covers the years between 1380 and 1383.The poverty line in this study is absolute, based on the 2300 calories, which has been calculated and applied using data on Household expenditure and income survey. To calculate the affluence line, the data on household total expenditure1 have been used. Since the mentioned statistical data is for the household, so for estimating the affluence line for the household members, provided that all the household members enjoy the same level of welfare, the household total expenditure, divided on its members, will be per head and then the related calculation in following four phase have been accomplished:a) Measuring poverty gap (Gp)b) Measuring wealth differences for each of the population membersc) Determining the number of affluent people in the populationd) Measuring the affluence line (Zr)Findings & Results: Based on the results, in the 1383 on urban areas the affluence line for each individual by month has been about 816 thousand Tomans and the absolute poverty line (2300 calories) about 39 thousand Tomans, and on the rural areas the affluence line for each individual by month has been about 485 thousand Tomans and absolute poverty line (2300 calories) about 19 thousand Tomans, which shows the wide gap between the earning of poor and affluent people. Outcomes based on the calculation of affluence line shows that the number of affluent people (needed for compensation of people below poverty line) in rural areas from 87 thousand in 1380 has been reached to 49 thousand in 1383, while the number of poor people in this period has been reduced. On the contrary, on the urban areas the number of affluent people from 79 thousand has been reached to 173 thousand. The figures illustrate that during the period the poverty alleviation policies have been more effective in rural areas than that of urban. The trend of reducing the poverty rate attesting the very matter, that is to say in rural areas the poverty rate in 1380 has been reduced from 11.5 % to 8.6 % in 1383, while in urban areas it increases from 10% to 12.4%.

Objectives: Households differ in size, age composition, educational level and other characteristics. Generally, we do expect households with different characteristics to have different expenditure patterns. In order to calculate the impact of household, characteristics on their minimum requirements and household’s demand, equivalent scale is introduced.Household equivalence scales provide an economic way of incorporating the impact of demographic change into models for the allocation of aggregate consumer expenditure. they are also useful in welfare economics for comparing levels of welfare among households with different demographic characteristics.Method: In this paper, different common approaches to equivalent scales are introduced. Jorgenson-Slesnick model is one of the most famous and useful methods to measure different aspects of households’ characteristics. In this paper, we have applied this method to calculate household equivalent scale for different demographic characteristics in compare with the reference household that is an urban household consists of an adult couple. We used this scale to compare welfare of households with different characteristics. In this regard, data collected through Household Surveys for the period of 1984-2003 and the cross-section data of 2002 have been used.Findings & Results: The results of this research can be used to compare well-being level as well as the minimum household expenditure requirements for different household types. The results are prerequisite for poverty and inequality measurement as well as for distributing government subsidies over the basic commodities according to the differences of the households’ characteristics, including family size, urban and rural residential areas, educational level of the head of household, and the type of commodities that the households consume.

Objectives: Simultaneous with the bodily growth of Tehran metropolis, some of the important factors have led to the growth of poverty and lack of accessibility to housing by different social group especially low-income people. Some of these pertinent factors are: contradiction between housing, urban and regional planning; limitation of executing power of governments due to disharmony between dwelling programs and policies regarding housing provision; lack of cooperation in housing plan based on policy initiatives and whole socio-economic plans  especially planning of birth control as well as guidance of migration; limitation of governmental financial resources in solving housing problems of low-income group, confronting with this problem and majority of them are included in the needy category; and housing schemes by private agencies for the high-income group who already enjoy high purchasing power.Importance of its subject, i.e. chaotic frameworks and their relation with poverty is in the ratio of slums and number of divorced women has increased enormously in the last few years. The problem that may be propounded here is that what type of relationship does exist between geographical distribution of slums and scattered percentage of divorced housewives in 22 zonal units of Tehran?Method: in this research by using 1996 census, poverty in 22 zones of Tehran has been studied on the basis of two indicators i.e. percentage of divorced housewives and percentage of families with four people to above living in one room, and then with the help of GIS software, their map has been drawn.Findings: Findings show that ratio of married housewives to the total married women are equal to 86 percent whereas ratio of divorced housewives is 47 percent to the total divorced women. In other words, divorced women are less than married housewives. Similarly, findings indicate that zones 11, 13, and 21 are placed in the list of less congested zones, from the point of view of the concentration of divorced housewives to the total divorced women. In zones 11 and 13, due to the establishment of administrative and service center and in zone 21 due to industrial and workshop establishment, employment opportunity is available for divorced women. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 15, and 22 are included in the list of average zones that are scattered in different parts of the city. However 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 9, and 12 are the highest congested zones as far as divorced housewives are concerned. In other words, the above mentioned zones have the highest percentage of divorced housewives.According to the acquired data, two indicators have come out i.e. “percentage of family of four and more living in one room” as a criteria for housing poverty; and “percentage of divorced housewives in the zones located in central and south Tehran” have more concentration than the rest of the zonal units.Results: With due attention to the present research findings, one of the important ways to eliminate poverty and deprivation, is the governmental interference in housing security as well as special attention towards suitable housing construction for the low-income groups with the emphasis on divorced housewives. Because, entrusting the housing problem to the private sectors/agencies bring the cost extensively high and as such restrict the accessibility of low income family to find a suitable dwelling. As a whole, low-income groups, due to the lack of savings, even are incapable of utilizing banking credit and facilities.

Objectives: The development level among the economic different parts of a country as like as its regions is not generally the same. We usually see heterogeneity among the parts of industry, agriculture and social welfare and services of countries. Thus, it is necessary and inevitable to study the development trend economically among the provinces of our country. Presenting good and suitable social welfare and services are from successful economic performance in a country and their improvement cause the increasing people’s welfare. The symmetrical and balanced distribution welfare and services also have a positive effect in increasing of growth and development of countries.Theories of development are divided by unbalanced growth and balanced growth. The followers of unbalanced growth believed that firstly some special regions should be developed, then the development will be spread to other regions through the spread effects. The followers of balanced growth believed that theory of growth pole has not been able to vanish the inequality and duality of different regions in underdeveloped countries. They believed the regional balanced development prepares best conditions and possibilities for general development of all regions of countries. The regional development should be included three agricultural, industrial and social welfare and services sectors. The social welfare and services are included by hygienic, educational services and other suitable facilities for living in cities and villages. The more social welfare and services are presented throughout countries, the more people are enjoyed welfare. The balanced development of social welfare and services in all regions of country are emphasized by all economists. The economists believed regional balanced welfare makes welfare for all the people and is prepared the necessary conditions for training the creative, skillful, healthy and joyful labors, so-called human capital. Having human capital is one of the sign of economic and social development in any country.In this article, we study the development degree in social welfare and services of Iran’s provinces. We want to answer the following question: Is the social welfare and services duality among the provinces of Iran during the studied years decreased or increased? The decreasing social welfare and services duality among the regions of a country is one of the signs of sustainable development.Method: Factor analysis and taxonomy are used for measuring the development degree of different provinces of country. By the above methods, the development degree of provinces are measured .Then, the provinces are classified to developed, relative developed, less developed and underdeveloped regions and finally their social welfare and services inequality are measured and compared in 1373 and 1383.In this research, 54 social welfare and services indices are used for measuring the development degree of 25 provinces of Iran.Findings & Results: The result of research tells us the development level of social welfare and services among Iran’s provinces is increased but its distribution has been more inequitable. Thus, for having a balanced growth and development, the equitable social welfare and services which casue the decreasing poverty and increasing welfare should be spread throughout the country. Presenting suitable and equitable welfare and services in different regions make the conditions for training and increasing human capital and finally having a sustainable development .

Objective: Globalization of economy is characterized by increasing movement of labor and capital, technology, increased international trade, integration of markets and communication. Liberalization and globalization lead to increased foreign investment and increased amount and type of goods and services traded by nations. One of the challenges in globalization literature is its impacts on living condition of income groups and more specifically on poverty and income distribution of different income groups. Some believe in a positive relation between poverty and trade liberalization. However, others have got a negative relation between them. Method: In this study the effect of globalization on poverty was investigated using both of micro and macro frameworks. In macroeconomic lens, globalization effect on Poverty Headcount and Poverty Gap criteria was studied using a variable as foreign trade – gross domestic production ratio. In microeconomic lens the results obtained for Wheat market was used. The Wheat market contains equations of import, domestic production and domestic demand simultaneously. The results of the Wheat market obtained from Mousavi’s(1385) study, conducted to predict the impact of globalization on Wheat market. In the microeconomic approach in addition to the Wheat market results, household expenditure, collected by Iranian Statistical Center, was also used. In the microeconomic approach the impact of different levels of increase in Integration of International Trade (LIT) criterion (as a mean indicating level of globalization) on Wheat (Bread) consumption was investigated. Two approaches were considered in order to investigate the impact of globalization on consumption. In approach one, the total changes in Wheat consumption was regarded as summation of changes in domestic supply and import. While in second one the changes in Wheat (Bread) domestic demand was regarded as consumption changes. Different levels of increase in Integration of International Trade criterion were also 10, 20, 30, 50 and 100 percent. In addition to the increased levels of the Integration of International Trade criterion, the impacts of increase in price of bread on selected households expenditure and poverty indices including Headcount, Poverty Gap and Severity of Poverty was studied.Findings & Results: Based on findings, globalization has no considerable impact on the percent of urban poor, while 1% rise in globalization criterion can reduce urban poverty gap by 2.95%. Inflation index also reveled that increase in prices results in decreased poverty gap in urban Iran. In the case of rural households the findings showed that globalization results in a reduced poverty head count, but it raises poverty gap. In other words participation of Iran in global market will result in more undesirable condition of rural lower income poor, needing for more protection of the mentioned groups. The impact of agriculture sector growth on rural poverty is also interesting in that more growth of it lead to more poverty. Based on the results agriculture sector growth is expected to increase both of the poor number and poverty gap. The results of Headcount criterion revealed that 36.74% of urban and 25.43% of rural households are considered as poor. The results of micro lens evaluation that was also performed using coefficients obtained from Mousavi’s (1385) study and household expenditure showed that globalization of wheat market individually, and increased bread price would not result in a considerable change in poverty Headcount, Gap, and Severity.

Objectives: In the recent century, most of the countries are increasingly developing, so it is necessary to know the development condition of country in order to compete internationally, and to access the development goals. Then in this paper we try to know development condition of Iran.Before 1970s income index has been used for the comparison of the performance of nations in social and economic areas. But this index doesn't consist of many aspects of human life. Looking for some corrections on the distortions imposed by the income index, the human development index (HDI) was created by economists Mahbub ul Haq and Amartya Son in 1990 to aggregate two new dimensions to the problem: longevity and educational level of countries.Method: In this paper, we analyze the human development condition of Iran by computing HDI for all the provinces in years 1996 and 2001. The human development index (HDI) focuses on three measurable dimensions of human development: living a long and health life, being educated and having a decent standard of living. For each dimension, have been selected a suitable indicator. Adult literacy and combined cnrolment ratlos have been selected as indicators for the knowledge dimension, life expectancy at birth as the indicator for a healthy life and an adjusted GDP as the indicator for the standard of living. For each dimension, the value of the index is computed on a scale of 0-1 where 0 corresponds to the minimum, and 1 to the maximum assigned value for the corresponding indicator. The overall HDI is then determined as the arithmetic average of the three indices.The HDI clearly illustrates the distinction between income and human well-being. By measuring average achievements in health, education and income, HDI can give a more complete picture of the state of a country's development than can incomes alone.Findings: The findings show that the human development condition of Iran have been improved in 2001 in comparison with 1996 and received from 0.71 to 0.72. But this improvement is very low. In the human development dimensions, training index stands upper, but income index stands lower than the others. The analyses of the human development dimensions in the provinces also show that in the most of them this index has been improved. The most important factors of HDI improvement are the progresses that have happened in the education and sanitation facilities in 2001. Then Iran had put stop forward to progress the goals of human development in five years and to more suitable atmosphere for improving health and education level.According to the study, HDI of Khuzestan province had the highest growth rate, due to the highest growth rate of income index, In the studying years Tehran had more HDI, on the contrary, Sistan and Baluchestan province had lower HDI.HPI, which focuses on the proportion of people below a threshold level in basic dimensions of human development, reduced from 0.21 in 1996 to 0.15 in 2001. Then human poverty in Iran had been improved.Results: The results show that in spite of the progress in the Iran's human development, there are still many differences in the human development of the provinces because of unequally educational, sanitary and monetary facilities and HDI has not only increased in some provinces but also decreased.

Objectives: Domestic violence has a long history in human life and is the most prevalent form of violence against women. It is a worldwide problem that occurs in all societies with different cultures and socioeconomic groups. As this type of violence occurs generally inside families, children may be more prone to be directly exposed to this type of violence and the aftermaths compared to other types. Exposure to domestic violence has serious and long-lasting effects on emotional and cognitive conditions of children and also on their attitudes towards violence as a method for conflict management. This study has done by the purpose of assessment of frequency and nature of Tehran’s secondary school student’s exposure to their parent’s physical violence against each other.Method: It was a questionnaire survey on senior secondary school population in Tehran, in educational year 2005-06. The sampling method followed a multistage cluster sampling based on the exhaustive list of all senior secondary schools in 19 districts of Tehran and included all high schools, vocational training schools, technical training schools, and mixed vocational-theory (Kaar-Daanesh) schools. The frames were separated for girls and boys. Each district was considered as a stratum and the weight for each stratum in the sample was proportional to the population of the district.Findings: There were 1495 students participating in this survey, where the prevalence was estimated to be 22.8% (18.9% - 26.8%) more than half of them had eye-witnessed it (59.8%; 95% CI: 49.6% - 70.0%). It is twice more prevalent in girls than in boys (31.2% vs. 16.1%). Recent exposure to this type of violence was much less prevalent (5.7%; 95% CI: 3.6% - 7.8%) in the last month. The main type of violence was hand beating alone (57.1%; 95% CI: 46.8% - 67.3%) and there was mainly fathers who had perpetrated the violent act (54.3% only fathers vs. 3.4% only mothers). The exposure was long lasting and in those with more than one exposure the mean duration was 5.1 years (4.4-5.8).Results: Exposure to physical violence between parents is a common problem among teenagers in Tehran, a considerable portion of them had eye-witnessed it. It is of a continuous nature starting from childhood and lasting to mid teenages. Based on the results of this study, children are highly exposed to violent behavior between their parents and these events are often continuous. There is an urgent need to explore this possible source of future violence and the short and long term consequences of those exposures. Also, there is a need to conduct more analytical studies on the risk and protective factors for this problem, as well as occurrence of domestic violence per se.

Objectives: Social Problems that has been defined differently in various references, is one of the most important problems in our society. Dimension of social pathology is in a wide range and increasingly expands.Social pathology effects directly on individual (i.e. divorce, suicide attempt, opium dependency, and…) and social functions (i.e. poverty, extortion, living in shantytowns, hooliganism, and…) and regardless of economical detriments, put in risk the physical and mental health of individual and society. Of course it must be remembered that most social pathologies are cannot be individually or socially distinguished, for example unemployment is both an individual and a social problem, and or divorce, and in most instances these two concepts are interlinked with each other, and on the other hand social pathology in most cases work in the cause and as a result of forms, and are interlinked like a chain. For example on one hand divorce can be the cause of addiction and running away and on the other hand divorce can take place because of addiction, and this complexity makes the distinction of social pathology from each other difficult. Therefore social experts and managers always engage in determining boundaries of social pathology.Method: According to this research one of the most important aspects is making priority of social problems and social pathology in Iran by asking social experts and social managers. A questionnaire was sent to more than 1000 managers – of course it must be noted that an expert was invited from each of provinces, and thereafter the questionnaire was briefed to them in a general meeting, and then they filled the questionnaires face to face (of course in instances where the individuals were not reachable, the questionnaire was sent to them) – and their ideas about making priority of social pathology was asked and collected. It must be explained that apart from the said method, other methods such as the Delphi method be used.Findings: At the end we found that joblessness (%81) and addiction (%56/6) are the mose important social pathology and following that poverty and are unemployment and family problems, and at the end of the table being refugees (%4) and widows or widowers (%4/1) are the least important social pathology. The following are studied in this research on social pathology: "job, profession, responsibility, province and so on".Results: in this study we tried to interview all experts and officials who are related to social pathology (management assessment). The conclusion of this research showed that social problems in the opinion of socio-pathology experts in Iran have a higher priority for monitoring and follow-up, and unfortunately family issues that can the source of social pathology are least paid attention to.The results of this study can be a guideline for policy makers and officials who are working in the prevention and social pathology control field in the country. The classification of provincial social pathology can help the authorities to draw the geographic picture of social pathology, and to have specific programs for each province based on its cultural and local problems.