This book contains new theoretical discussion and new empirical evidence on the way people think about and cope with the risks and uncertainties of modern life. The national surveys cover areas ranging from lone parenthood to medicine, from house purchase to long-term care, from personal finance to the welfare state. People's confidence in their capacity to cope with uncertainty is closely related to social class, gender and access to support networks. Policies that assume that people are self-interested rational actors are likely to produce unsatisfactory results and to damage the essential social capital of trust.

Peter Taylor-Gooby is Professor of Social Policy at the University of Kent, UK. He chairs the British Academy New Paradigms in Public Policy Programme and the HEFCE Social Work and Social Policy Panel. His recent publications include New Paradigms in Public Policy, Reframing Social Citizenship, Risk in Social Science (with Jens Zinn), Ideas and the Welfare State, and New Risks, New Welfare.