“If You Sit and Cry No One Will Help You”: Understanding Perceptions of Worthiness and Social Support Relations among Low-Income Women under a Neoliberal Discourse

Abstract

Drawing on Wax's concept of “condition reciprocity,” this study draws on data from 35 in‐depth interviews to examine how low‐income women in Israel frame their reliance on personal networks for survival. Findings reveal that women used a similar rationale focusing on productivity with respect to their interpersonal relations. Consistent with the neoliberal principle of market citizenship, most women perceived themselves as worthy of support from personal networks based on their work commitment. By contrast, women who could not rely on a current, past, or future definition of productivity did not consider themselves as deserving support and experienced extreme social isolation.

Social workers' emotional labour with families in poverty: Neoliberal fatigue?

“…This split is strongly linked to the public discourse that differentiates between the deserving and undeserving poor. The interviewees' emotionality echoes the neoliberal imperative of market citizenship, according to which, those who strive to support themselves through productive means are deserving and worthy of aid but those who depend on others are undeserving of external support (Lavee & Offer, 2012;Liebenberg, Ungar, & Ikeda, 2015). They feel angry with those who "choose" not to work and those who do not demonstrate rational economic behaviour-for instance, by having children without adequate material resources:…”

Helping Hands: Race, Neighborhood Context, and Reluctance in Providing Job-Finding Assistance

“…Although her Latina/o respondents were also of lower socioeconomic status, Latina/o communities do not have as long a history of systemic disadvantage and ghettoization (Massey ). Furthermore, Latina/o enclaves tend to follow more collectivistic goals of social support than the neoliberal individualism espoused in disadvantaged communities heavily populated by other racial and ethnic groups (Anderson ; Elliott ; Newman ; Smith ; Luthra and Waldinger ; Lavee and Offer ). Second, black workers are viewed and assessed more negatively than their other race and ethnic counterparts by managers (Kirschenman and Neckerman ; Moss and Tilly ; Waldinger and Lichter ; Kmec ).…”

Credit and Credibility: Homeownership and Identity Management in the Midst of the Foreclosure Crisis

“…Yet by recounting her own work history, she simultaneously differentiates herself from others whom she imagines are less committed to work. Lavee and Offer () found that Israeli low‐income mothers similarly rely on past productivity and efforts as one strategy to define themselves as worthy of support.…”