This is the English-language adaptation of one of the most important contributions to welfare economics published in recent years. Professors Leibfried and Leisering offer a time-based (dynamic) analysis of the study of poverty, and suggest the need for a radical re-think of conventional theoretical and policy approaches.

Preface R. Dahrendorf; Part I. The Welfare State and the Life Course Passages Through Poverty: 1. Poverty in the welfare state: the life-course approach; 2. Life course as politics; Part II. Poverty in the Life Course: The Dynamics of Social Decline and Ascent: 3. Objective time: how long do people claim social assistance?; 4. Subjective time: how social assistance is perceived and evaluated; 5. Living time: poverty careers between exclusion and integration; 6. Institutionalised time: does social assistance create dependency?; Part III. Poverty and Social Change Debates and Policies: 7. Between denial and dramatisation: images of poverty in postwar Germany; 8. Disruption and continuity in life courses: poverty in unified Germany; 9. Increasingly dynamic? The impact of social change on social assistance dynamics; Part IV. Poverty and Society: Towards a New Welfare State?: 10. Time and poverty: towards a new picture of poverty and social exclusion; 11. Paths out of poverty: perspectives on active policy; 12. Social inequality in transition; 13. Individual lives and the welfare state - recasting the German welfare regime.

'With their unique longitudinal analysis, the authors tackle the questions which are likely to be central as nations across the world examine and reform their social policies: How long are people poor, what leads them into poverty, and what can lead them out? The authors' careful, creative analysis should be read by thoughtful people who care about poverty and policy in Germany, Europe, and the world.' David Ellwood, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University