The risks of being a lone mother on income support in Canada and the USA

Abstract

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -This paper aims to explore how neo-liberalism shapes income support policy and lone mothers' experiences in Canada and the USA. Design/methodology/approach -A critical comparative analysis is undertaken of how Canadian and US governments take up sociological concepts of risk, market citizenship, and individualization, whether explicitly or implicitly, in the design and administration of neo-liberal income support policies directed at lone mothers. Specifically, the contradictory life circumstances that Canadian and American lone mothers experience when they access income supports that are designed ostensibly to construct/reconstruct them as citizens capable of risk taking in their search for employment and selfsufficiency are compared. Findings -The paper finds that the realities for poor lone mothers are remarkably similar in the two countries and therefore argue that income support policies, particularly welfare-to-work initiatives, underpinned by neo-liberal tenets, can act in a counter-intuitive manner exposing lone mothers to greater rather than lesser economic and social insecurity/inequality, and constructing them as risk aversive and dependent.Research limitations/implications -The economic and social implications/contradictions of neoliberal restructuring of income support policies for lone mothers is revealed. Originality/value -This paper contributes to broader scholarship on the gendered dimensions of neo-liberal restructuring of welfare states in late modernity.

“Activated, but Stuck”: Applying a Critical Occupational Lens to Examine the Negotiation of Long-Term Unemployment in Contemporary Socio-Political Contexts

“…For example, Brady's [25] ethnographic work has highlighted the importance of examining how service providers actively negotiate governmental guidelines and enact discretion to help clients fit activity expectations and paid work within mothering practices and identities. Gazso and McDaniel's comparative study concluded that "both Canadian and American lone mothers' experiences of neo-liberal support policies can, in a largely counter-intuitive matter, expose them to greater rather than less economic insecurity and inequality" [16] (p. 369). Breitkeurz and Williamson's [37] research with welfare-to-work participants concluded that approaches premised on promoting self-sufficiency can be potentially harmful to low-income parents when policies fail to acknowledge the challenges at the nexus of child care, low-paying jobs, and non-standard work hours.…”

“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

“…Low‐income mothers in particular demonstrate that work commitment and striving for self‐sufficiency exist concomitantly with reliance on external sources of support for survival. One major reason for this tension, which neoliberal income and social policies have failed to acknowledge, is women's extensive caregiving responsibilities (Gazso and McDaniel 2010). The need to care for children, combined with limited opportunities in the labor market, creates a severe conflict for low‐income mothers and makes it particularly difficult for them to find and maintain jobs that provide a descent living (Hays 2003; Weigt 2006; Dodson 2007; Gazso 2007; Woodward 2008; Hennessy 2009).…”

“…2010). In a counterintuitive manner, the new social and economic policies “have made poor women more rather than less dependent on insecure work and others to survive” (Gazso and McDaniel 2010:380). These trends constitute a contradiction in neoliberal terms, since mothers who demonstrate a high work ethic and work hard are still unable to provide for the basic needs of their families independently (Nelson 2005; Hennessy 2009).…”

“…In recent decades, neoliberalism has become the dominant ideology in the public economic discourse of many industrialized nations. Emphasizing the primacy of the market and treating individuals as “rational and self‐interested beings who seek material advancement, while rejecting public or social intervention in their lives” (Howard 2007:3), the core neoliberal principle states that citizenship is achieved through work commitment and participation in paid labor (Lister 2004; Gazso and McDaniel 2010). Hence, neoliberal policies are grounded on the notion that paid employment is the basis for all adults' social rights, and they favor those who are able to support themselves and their families independently under free market conditions.…”

“…The reform in welfare services implemented in many states since the late 1990s, with its retrenchment and increased deregulation and privatization, reflects this approach. Through the reduction of benefit amounts, intensification of work requirements, and imposition of time limits, welfare restructuring has aimed to promote personal responsibility and reinforce the notion of market citizenship (Gazso and McDaniel 2010). Consequently, official aid has become limited in scope and is no longer based on entitlement or the evaluation of individuals' long‐term means of subsistence; rather its goal is to promote people's attachment to the labor market and help them deal with temporary misfortune and the vicissitudes of economic life by covering their basic needs until they can go back to work (Galston 2005).…”