Knowledge on Wellbeing Processes before Universal Social Policy

Social policy is concerned with wellbeing and has depends on frameworks from a select group of welfare states. As regards the global South there is lack of knowledge about core wellbeing processes and a concomittant tendency to apply social policy theories that have helped shape our understanding of the industrialized North. There are problems with this that may have undercut social policy processes in the global South. This paper is based on quantitative analysis of aggregate data on eighty developing countries. The paper addresses universal path models that reveal key wellbeing processes of the global South. Infant survival is used as an indicator of wellbeing, and the paper estimates the relative contributions of women’s schooling, poverty alleviation and child health provision. The level of poverty has the largest contribution, followed closely by women’s schooling, the effect of which is mediated by women’s reproductive autonomy and an enhanced child health provision. The paper stress that the universal social policy may be an effective general strategy for the global South. Before designing extensive universal social policy programmes, solid understanding should have been formed between major sectorial elements of wellbeing processes.