| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 國家發展研究所 === 101 === Social service has become one of the major approaches to solve poverty. When families living in poverty use social assistance services to get through financial problems, the interaction between those families and the system is generated, which is the focus of this analysis. Using qualitative research, this study conducted purposive sampling based on the geographic scope of an administrative district in Taipei City. Service cases of the Social Welfare Center of the Department of Social Affairs in the district are the research subjects. To draw a conclusion on how the system affects families in poverty, data such as characteristics of the impoverished households, significant life events, adaptation strategies, experiences of using social services and expectations as well as perceptions towards social policy were collected by in-depth interviewing of 19 interviewees.
Examining the service experience of families in poverty using social service with the life course perspective at the macro level, the study attains to four types of interactions. First, the “Stagnant” type—families living in long-term poverty, the strength of the linkage between which and the social service system can be easily observed. Second, the “In and Out Repeatedly” type—families that are temporarily lifted out of poverty, the system and the experiences of social service with which are disrupted and discrete. At different life stage, the reciprocation of the system and these families make them repeatedly slipping into and out of the poverty threshold. Third, the “In Fact, Still An Outsider” type—low- and middle- income families, with which the social services provided cannot meet the needs, denoting services that can be seen but cannot be available. Fourth, the “Included After Being Excluded” type—after lingering outside the doors of the system for such a long time, families that are finally admitted into the social service system according to subparagraph 9 of paragraph 3 of the Article 5 of Social Assistance Act. The rival between the system and these families are even more evident.
In conclusion, social services have the following impacts on families in poverty: first, due to the design of the social service system, poor families are easily content with living in poverty, indicating less actions of self-sustaining or anti-poverty. Second, the eligibility for welfare for the families in poverty and the welfare resources actually received by them are clearly stratified. Third, impoverished families are more susceptible to the social service system than ordinary families. The system resembles an invisible hand controlling the life stage and the development of the families. Fourth, social services are inflexible to families in poverty, indicating disrupted and discrete impacts will appear in either the experiences of receiving assistance or the development of the life stage.
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