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Like Singapore, Japan is projected to age rapidly. Japan is the first country in the world where more than 20% of the total population is over 65. Even as Japan adapts from western Europe and America where population ageing is more advanced up till now, it has been pioneering its own aged care policy, given the differences in sociocultural and political contexts. Of particular interest is its introduction of long‐term care insurance and its effectiveness in meeting the needs of the long‐term care of the aged and their family caregivers. In this article I seek to compare and contrast Singapore and Japan in terms of their demographic changes leading to rapid ageing, and their respective policy and program responses to a rapidly ageing population, drawing lessons from the Japanese experience.

This article reports on the results of a survey of 540 Chinese school children's adjustment in temporary school relocation after the Wenchuan earthquake. The overall results depicted a positive picture of functioning. The findings were contrary to expectations, as earlier observational reports suggested that pupils had adjustment difficulties.

Because resources are limited, the benefits and costs of social-work interventions—like all interventions—must be compared with the benefits and costs of alternatives. Evidence-based practice should ask, What works? How well does it work? And what does it cost? This article analyzes the provision of Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) with a new cost-effectiveness framework meant to help make assumptions and judgments explicit. In the specific IDA program examined, 1 month of services for 1 participant costs about $64. The mere existence of a cost figure— regardless of whether it is seen as high or low—has sparked many questions in the IDA community: How can costs be reduced without sacrificing quality? Which features of IDAs are essential? Are IDAs worth it? This sort of healthy questioning is precisely the purpose of cost-effectiveness analysis in social-work practice.