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Full-Text Articles in Social Welfare Law
Welfare Law, Welfare Fraud And The Moral Regulation Of The 'Never Deserving' Poor, Shelley A. M. Gavigan, Dorothy E. Chunn
Welfare Law, Welfare Fraud And The Moral Regulation Of The 'Never Deserving' Poor, Shelley A. M. Gavigan, Dorothy E. Chunn
Shelley A. M. Gavigan
The dismantling and restructuring of Keynesian social security programmes have impacted disproportionately on women, especially lone parent mothers, and shifted public discourse and social images from welfare fraud to welfare as fraud, thereby linking poverty, welfare and crime. This article analyzes the current, inordinate focus on 'welfare cheats'. The criminalization of poverty raises theoretical and empirical questions related to regulation, control, and the relationship between them at particular historical moments. Moral regulation scholars working within post-structuralist and post-modern frameworks have developed an influential approach to these issues,however, we situate ourselves in a different stream of critical socio-legal studies that takes …
From Mothers' Allowance To Mothers Need Not Apply: Canadian Welfare Law As Liberal And Neo-Liberal Reforms, Shelley A. M. Gavigan, Dorothy E. Chunn
From Mothers' Allowance To Mothers Need Not Apply: Canadian Welfare Law As Liberal And Neo-Liberal Reforms, Shelley A. M. Gavigan, Dorothy E. Chunn
Shelley A. M. Gavigan
In this paper we examine changes in the form and content of Canadian welfare law through a historical, feminist lens using the exemplar of mother-headed families. Our analysis of how the state dealt with sole support mothers in several provinces throughout the twentieth century reveals important continuities, as well as discontinuities, between the past and the present that have shaped and reshaped the lives and experiences of poor women and their children. In doing so, it helps to illuminate how they have been rendered "undeserving" or "never deserving" with the neo-liberal (re)formation of the Keynesian state in Canada.