Introduction

This chapter approaches retirement using the concept of a SDW. Thus we beginwith an account developed within the ‘orthodox’ tradition ofsocial policy (Lee and Raban, 1988). The basic features of the SDW were setout in the Introduction; the task here is to show how Titmuss’soriginal essay, suitably revised, continues to provide an invaluabledescriptive and analytic approach. The chapter initially sets outTitmuss’s approach in a little more detail. However, Titmuss’saccount is not without its flaws and questions of economic, social andpolitical power, that acknowledge the close correspondence with gender,class and ‘race’, have to be posed. Revisions to the originalidea from Sinfield (1978) and Rose (1981) that have developed the conceptualfeatures of the SDW are then explained in turn. The chapter provides someevidence of the different elements of the SDW and identifies informalwelfare as a fourth element. Rights, security, choices, forms of dependency,and income are all related to the different elements of the SDW. Towards theend of the chapter the idea of welfare regimes is briefly introducedalongside questions about the different means by which welfare can beprovided. It will hopefully be shown that the SDW continues to provide auseful framework for exploring the different forms of welfare that havedeveloped for retirees.

Titmuss’s approach

Richard Titmuss was the first Professor of Social Administration to beappointed in the UK, taking up his post at the influential London School ofEconomics and Political Science. He was formerly the government’sofficial historian for social policy during the Second World War and helater worked closely with members of the Labour government. He trained ageneration of scholars (Lee and Raban, 1988, pp 72-8) who themselves went onto distinguished academic careers, and there is little doubt that he has hadan enormous influence on the study of social policy (Esping-Andersen, 1990;Deacon, 1993). The SDW was first set out by Titmuss in a lecture in 1955,and initially published in 1956, although it is most often cited from hiscollected Essays on ‘The welfare state’(1958). Titmuss places ‘the welfare state’ within quotationmarks to indicate reservations about the idea of a single, unitary system ofwelfare.