From social security to individual responsibility (Part Two): Writing off poor women's work in the Welfare Reform Act 2009

Abstract

This is the second paper of a 2-part article which draws on interdisciplinary feminist perspectives to critique New Labour's welfare reform agenda. Through examining the Welfare Reform Bill and the subsequent Welfare Reform Act 2009, the paper argues that the increased use of conditionality and sanctions in relation to female benefit claimants – particularly lone mothers – “writes-off” their caring and informal work and pushes these women into low-paid, highly gendered employment in a precarious labour market. Despite the gender neutral language of ‘lone parents’, the 2009 Act continues a classed and often racialised government tradition of targeting lone mothers in an attempt to privatise social issues, such as povertv and unemployment. Rather than alleviating child poverty and developing the employability skills of claimants – as maintained by the Government – welfare-to-work measures exacerbate the economic insecurities experienced by poor women and their families, restricts their autonomy in choosing work that is right for their family circumstances, and subjects them to ever-increasing degrees of surveillance and coercion.

Keywords:

• lone motherhood
• conditionality
• poor women
• feminism
• welfare reform
• New Labour
• workfare
• child poverty

Notes

i. We have tried to ensure that the legislation and policy discussed here are correct as of December 2009. This article is based on an earlier collaborative response to the consultation paper ‘No One Written Off: Reforming Welfare to Reward Responsibility’ by the AHRC Centre for Law, Gender and Sexuality (see Barker et al. 2009). We would like to thank our co-contributors to that response: Nicola Barker, Sarah Lamble, Kate Bedford and Helen Carr. We would also like to thank Brenna Bhandar, Davina Cooper, Peggy Ducoulombier, Ruth Fletcher, Ben Hunter, Julie McCandless and Helen Beckett Wilson for valuable contributions and insights. Finally, many thanks to Iain McDonald and the anonymous reviewers for the Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law for insightful and helpful comments.

ii. With this in mind, it is significant that the welfare reforms target partners receiving benefits. The White Paper highlights that 21% of partners receiving benefits are of non-white ethnicity, compared with 9% of the working-age population, with the majority of these partners (75%) being women (DWP 2008(b), para. 6.81).

iii. These statistics are obviously more complex than the 20% figure indicates. As the Fawcett Society shows elsewhere (Fawcett 2009), research shows that the pay gap is 14% for black Caribbean women and 26% for Pakistani women (citing Longhi and Platt 2008).

iv. See, for example, Harriet Harman QC MP's foreword to the 2008 Equality Bill: ‘This Government is, and always has been, the champion of equality in public policy and in representation in our democratic institutions’ (Government Equalities Office 2008).

v. Recent legislative initiatives in the employment sphere include the introduction of equal pay questionnaires for assistance in equal pay cases, as well as the extension of anti-discrimination law to cover sexual orientation and religious discrimination (The Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003; The Employment Equality (Religion and Belief) Regulations 2003), and as age (The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006. The government has also this year introduced the Equality Bill into Parliament, which aims to harmonize and update all existing discrimination legislation (The Equality Bill 2009, 131-0809).

vi. Section 1 of the Work and Families Act 2006, in conjunction with the Statutory Maternity Pay, Social Security (Allowance) and Social Security (Overlapping Benefits) (Amendment) Regulations 2006, extended the period during which SMP can be claimed from 26 to 39 weeks. For maternity/paternity/adoption rights in relation to employment generally, see Part VIII Employment Rights Act 1996, as amended.

vii. This is the figure for 2009.