social service, any of numerous publicly or privately provided services intended to aid disadvantaged, distressed, or vulnerable persons or groups. The term social service also denotes the profession engaged in rendering such services. The social services have flourished in the 20th century as ideas of social responsibility have developed and spread.

The basic concerns of social welfare—poverty, disability and disease, the dependent young and elderly—are as old as society itself. The laws of survival once severely limited the means by which these concerns could be addressed; to share another’s burden meant to weaken one’s own standing in the fierce struggle of daily existence. As societies developed, however, with their patterns of dependence between members, there arose more systematic responses to the factors that rendered individuals, and thus society at large, vulnerable.

1. Religion and philosophy have tended to provide frameworks for the conduct of social welfare. The edicts of the Buddhist emperor Aśoka in India, the sociopolitical doctrines of ancient Greece and Rome, and the simple rules of the early Christian communities are only a few examples of systems that addressed social needs.
2. The Elizabethan Poor Laws in England, which sought relief of paupers through care services and workhouses administered at the parish level, provided precedents for many modern legislative responses to poverty. In Victorian times a more stringent legal view of poverty as a moral failing was met with the rise of humanitarianism and a proliferation of social reformers.
3. The social charities and philanthropic societies founded by these pioneers formed the basis for many of today’s welfare services.
4. Because perceived needs and the ability to address them determine each society’s range of welfare services, there exists no universal vocabulary of social welfare. In some countries a distinction is drawn between “social services,” denoting programs, such as health care and education, that serve the general population, and “welfare services,” denoting aid directed to vulnerable groups, such as the poor, the disabled, or the delinquent

Welfare of the sick and disabled

Serious illness and disability account for many of the problems addressed by social services. In addition to the need for adequate primary care, the ill and disabled also frequently face disruption or loss of income, inability to meet family responsibilities, the long-term process of recovery or adjustment to handicaps, and ongoing care in the form of medication, therapy, and the observance of dietary or other precautions.

Welfare of the elderly

The elderly now constitute the largest single client group using personal social services worldwide. In all advanced industrial societies the proportion of infirm elderly is on the increase, and, although they constitute only a small minority of the retired population, their claim on social services is disproportionately heavy. Because social care for the elderly is often labour-intensive, most countries give full support to the promotion of family care and the expansion and rationalization of informal care on a voluntary or quasi-voluntary basis. Services include transportation, friendly visiting, home delivery of hot meals, nurse visitation, and reduced-cost medical supplies. Senior centres sponsor group activities such as crafts, entertainment, outings, and meals on a regular basis. Nursing homes, variously funded, provide medical and custodial care for those who are unable to live independently. Paradoxically, the majority of elderly people lead independent lives, seldom utilizing personal social services. Indeed, fit elderly people are increasingly in demand as a source of voluntary service.