What Is a Social Architecture?

Social architecture is the term used to describe the roles and responsibilities as well as governance arrangements that are used to design and implement relationships among family, market, community and state – the four sectors that we capture with the image of a welfare diamond.

Each country makes its own choices about the shape of its welfare diamond and therefore the relationships across sectors. For example, while all rely heavily on the labour market as the primary source of income, some (like Canada) are reluctant to allow markets to distribute access to all goods and services (such as health care or public education). While all countries assume that families have primary responsibility for ensuring the well-being of their children, some countries leave parents on their own to purchase what they can afford in the market, while others provide low cost or free services (early childhood education and care, for example) and/or ensure that parents have adequate income to meet the needs of their children.

Canada’s New Social Risks: Directions for a New Social Architecture

By

Jane Jenson

Canadian Policy Research Networks Inc. (CPRN)

600 – 250 Albert Street, Ottawa, Ontario K1P 6M1 Tel: (613) 567-7500 Fax: (613) 567-7640 Web Site: http://www.cprn.org