Social Well-Being and Social Assistance Expenditures in Georgia, 1950-1970

Southeastern Geographer Vol. 22, No. 2, November 1982, pp. 130-149 SOCIAL WELL-BEING AND SOCIAL ASSISTANCE EXPENDITURES IN GEORGIA, 1950-1970* John Offord and William H. Berentsen Studies of territorial social well-being and of "welfare geography" have mostly appeared over the last decade. (J ) The aim of such studies has been to describe spatial patterns of social welfare and to examine both the reasons for social inequalities and the effects of policies designed to ameliorate them. (2) The twofold purpose of this paper is to present a case study of the spatial and temporal variations in social wellbeing in the state of Georgia, and to try to assess the equity of state social assistance expenditures. A factor analysis of socioeconomic data for the 159 counties of Georgia for both 1950 and 1970 provides the measure of social well-being used in the study and forms the index of need with which social assistance expenditures will be compared. LITERATURE REVIEW. Research in social well-being and quality of life is relatively new. Although early works on the topic do exist, (3) the widespread growth of material on the subject has been confined to the last decade. The origins of what has been called the "Social Indicators Movement" lie in the need to facilitate the measurement of social progress in a manner complementary to existing economic monitors. (4) Early work concentrated on methodology and the definition of social indicators (5) and on problems of terminology and definition. (6) The latter differentiates between social well-being and quality of life. Social well-being can be measured by social indicators, which are the observable incidence of phenomena that reflect general conditions such as income levels or housing condition. Quality of life also includes intangible phenomena quantifiable only by the individual, such as job satisfaction , community participation, and cultural enhancement. * The authors gratefully acknowledge helpful criticism from Professors James S. Fisher and Howard A. Schretter and from the editor and anonymous reviewers . Partial financial support came from a research grant from the Association of American Geographers. Mr. Offord is a doctoral student in geography at Queen Mary College, University of London, in London, England El 4NS. Dr. Berentsen is Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Georgia in Athens, GA 30602. Vol. XXII, No. 2 131 The precursors of the development of territorial social indicators can be found in the work of Thompson et al. on the economic health of New York state, and in Lewis' study on levels of living in the Northeastern United States. (7) These studies relied heavily on economic variables. The full application of social indicators was not effected in geography until the publication of Smith's The Geography of Social Well-Reing in the United States in 1973. (S) Other studies at an interstate level followed , while comparable work was undertaken in France and in Britain at a county level. (9) Further work has been done at smaller areal scales. Intermetropolitan differences in the United States have been looked at by Liu and by Flax, and for the South by the Dakans. (JO) There are intraurban studies on Gainesville, Florida; Atlanta, Georgia; and London , England. (JJ) Few studies have focused on variations in social well-being by county in the U.S. (12) Recent research has moved beyond the straightforward description of social well-being and emphasized explanation of observed variations. (J3) This research focus is formulated in the question "Who gets what where, and how?," and has given rise to the idea of "welfare geography ." (J4) It is beyond the purview of this study to offer a detailed discussion ofthe necessity to provide social assistance benefits to the socioeconomically deprived, a topic that has been discussed elsewhere. (15) Suffice it to say that the governments of all of the advanced industrial nations have recognized the necessity of some measure of public welfare. The fact that the distribution of social assistance expenditures shows distinct spatial variations at the state and metropolitan levels has received attention from geographers, though few studies have been undertaken for county-sized units. (16) Research has also considered the determinants of social assistance spending by focusing on political decision making. Several studies by...