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Punishment By Another Name? The Welfare State’S Disciplinary Role In The United States And Britain, Kavya Padmanabhan

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Scholarship on the changing nature of the welfare state in both the United States and in Britain has revealed how the influence of neoliberal ideologies has heightened the experience of punishment for poor mothers. Through a comparative literature review on the welfare states in the United States and in Britain, this article builds upon prior research to consider how the welfare state’s contemporary focus on discipline may be the product of neo- liberalism and may encourage similarities across different contexts. Furthermore, this article considers how the welfare state’s different agencies may be united in their goals and treatment of poor …

"I Play Golf With My Kids, Not My Colleagues": Politicians, Parenting, And Unpaid Work As A Choice?, Cheryl Najarian Souza

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Through in-depth interviews with thirty women and men politicians, this paper investigates their unpaid work as parents and their paid work. Using Goffman’s (1959) concepts of “front stage” and “back stage” performances, the author argues that the women and men developed strategies to do this work. Decisions about whether or not to run for their first job in politics were gendered. Another finding was that the experiences of their families and the making of public policies were gendered. The women organized their “village” while the men saw their fathering roles in terms of scheduling dad time. Finally, there were differences …

Public Attitudes And Gender Policy Regimes: Coherence And Stability In Hard Times, Jing Guo, Neil Gilbert

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Drawing upon data from the European Social Survey on public attitudes and social welfare, this paper analyzes the extent to which attitudes toward gender equality in work and family life vary among 13 countries which represent different welfare regimes. The analysis also examines how these attitudes have changed with the onset of the economic recession in 2007. The findings suggest that public attitudes toward gender issues are largely consistent with welfare regimes, and most notably, reveal a clear direction of moving away from traditional views of gender, family and work issues in economic hard times.

Engendering Citizenship? A Critical Feminist Analysis Of Canadian Welfare-To-Work Policies And The Employment Experiences Of Lone Mothers, Rhonda S. Breitkreuz

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Like other liberal-welfare states, Canada, in a climate of balanced budgets and deficit reduction, has been active in developing policies intended to move welfare recipients into employment in order to achieve selfsufficiency. The purpose of this paper is to employ a critical feminist analysis to examine the extent to which these policies, developed under the ideological umbrella of neo-liberalism, are gender sensitive. Literature on the economic and non-economic impacts of welfare-to-work policies is reviewed to evaluate whether these initiatives, while mandating lone-mothers into employment, recognize the gendered nature of work, employment and poverty. Gaps in current research are identified and …

The Mommy Track: The Consequences Of Gender Ideology And Aspirations On Age At First Motherhood, Jennifer Stewart

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

While there is extensive and compelling evidence that growing up in an impoverished background leads to early fertility, few studies explain why early socioeconomic disadvantage leads to early childbearing. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, I test whether gender ideology, as well as educational and occupational aspirations, mediates the connection between poverty and teen fertility patterns. Traditional gender ideology depresses age at first motherhood. Adolescent aspirations appear to act as protective factors in the production of early pregnancy.

The Increase In Incarcerations Among Women And Its Impact On The Grandmother Caregiver: Some Racial Considerations, Dorothy S. Ruiz

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This article analyzes census data on the increase in incarcerations among women, with specific emphasis on some racial differences. The steady rise in female incarcerations and its impact on grandmothers who are caregivers of their children is the focus of this analysis. The article includes sociodemographic and health characteristics of imprisoned mothers, a review of relevant research, the impact of incarcerations on family caregivers, and implications for research. The rate of female incarceration has increased by 11% per year since 1985. A disproportionally higher number are women of color. Approximately fifty-three percent of the children whose mothers are imprisoned are …

The Higher Education Option For Poor Women With Children, Shanta Pandey, Min Zhan, Susan Neely-Barnes, Natasha Menon

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Postsecondary education is the key to exiting from poverty permanently. Yet, the PRWORA allows women only up to 12 months of vocational training while on welfare. This paper focuses on bringing back the importance of investing in the education of poor women, particularly the postsecondary education of poor women with children, to the forefront of the welfare debate. In this paper we review federal and state level welfare policies toward postsecondary education of poor women with children. Some states are interpreting federal welfare policy strictly and allowing only up to 12 months of vocational training while on welfare. Other states …

The Spatial Shift In The Growth Of Poverty Among Families Headed By Employed Females, 1979-89, W. Richard Goe, Anisa Rhea

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The number of working poor families in the United States increased substantially during the 1979-89 period. This increase was found to disproportionately consist of families headed by employed females. The growth in poverty among families headed by employed females during this period was found to be nonstructural in nature and inequitably distributed across labor markets in the U.S. It was found that at the onset of the 1980s, high rates of poverty among families headed by employed females were predominantly concentrated in labor market areas in the South. Over the 1980s, the highest increases in poverty rates among such families …

The Impact Of Education And Family Attributes On Attitudes And Responses To Unemployment Among Men And Women, Liat Kulik

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The study deals with differences between jobless Israeli women (n = 361) and men (n = 253) in relation to the following aspects of unemployment: Reasons for rejecting potential jobs, job search intensity, and responses to unemployment. The women mentioned more reasons for rejecting potential jobs, and their health-related responses to unemployment were more extreme than those of the men. However, the men tended to seekemployment more intensively than did the women.

Married respondents of both sexes showed the greatest tendency to reject potential employment due to conflict with family responsibilities. Married women were also more likely than their male …

"He's Not Mr. Right, He's More Like Mr. Now"* Patrifocal And Matrifocal Discourses Among Homeless Mothers In Kentucky, Joanna M. Badagliacco

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

What strategies do homeless mothers use to cope with their situations? In-depth interviews in Kentucky of 68 homeless mothers with children revealed similarities and differences among the women, as well as a con tinuum of approaches to gender relations. Although differing in race/ethnicity and place of origin (rural vs. urban) among other factors, the overwhelming majority of the women experienced unstable and abusive households and social relationships while growing up. Most did not complete high school and had their first births while still teenagers. Moreover, two primary approaches to gender relations were observed. These approaches delimit a continuum along which …

Family Structures And The Feminization Of Poverty: Women In Hawaii, Susan Meyers Chandler, Jennifer Williams

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The quality of life for many single mothers and their children is shrouded in economic hardship. Women outside the traditional nuclear family, attempting to raise children, are doing so in poverty and without much public support. Marital disruption, teenage mothers, and out of wedlock births have resulted in an alarming number of improverished children living in America. This paper examines census data in the state of Hawaii and the impact of family structure on the quality of lives of women with children. Women living in multigenerational family arrangements, rather than in "traditional" families have higher income, holding family size constant. …

Like Other Women: Perspectives Of Mothers With Physical Disabilities, Susan Shaul, Pamela Dowling, Bernice F. Laden

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This article is based on interviews with ten women, ranging in age from 19 to 45 and living in the Puget Sound area of Washington State. Their disabilities are neurmuscular or musculoskeletal and include spinal cord injury, multiple sclerosis, post-polio and spina bifida. Their children range in age from 11 months to adulthood. The article focuses on specific issues and concerns regarding early childhood ranagement, and includes some discussion of pre-natal and cbstetrical care. Cann misconceptions concerning motherhood and disability are also discussed. men with disabilities also have special concerns as parents. Although their concerns are not addressed in this …

The Women's Liberation Movement And Its Various Impacts On American Men, Arthur B. Shostak

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Writing in 1974 about women and athletics 26 years ahead in the year 2000 journalist Lucinda Franks foresees a sexist backlash she tags the "New Male Chauvinist Movement." It all begins with a rebirth of the Age of Reason which, after 1980, includes a new celebration of the humanizing potentialities of sport and games. Women, as prime agents of this pivotal cultural reform, will have advanced so fast and so far in competitive and non-competitive athletics that "the Total Human has been born" and " the average body is no longer just a neglected dormitory for the mind." There is …

Attitudes Toward Abortion: A Comparative Analysis Of Correlates For 1973 And 1975, Theodore C. Wagenaar, Ingeborg W. Knol

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This paper contains an analysis of both the level of support for abortion and the correlates of such support for both 1973 and 1975, as indicated by National Opinion Research Center data. In comparison to previous research, which focused primarily on bivariate analyses of demographic variables, we examine the role of demographic and other variables (such as work status, unemployment history, receipt of government aid, and belief in an afterlife) at both the bivariate and multivariate levels of analysis. The result indicates an abatement of the previously increasing level of support; this datum plus the increase in persons responding "don't …

Work Incentive Policies: An Evaluation Of Their Effects On Welfare Women's Choice, Jacqueline Ballou

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

It is argued here that Work Incentive Policies treat the symptoms rather than the basic causes of poverty with high costs to society. The writer's own experience with WIN participants as well as attitudinal surveys has suggested that there is a very high motivation to work among welfare mothers, however, the low-wage jobs available to them are not very competitive with benefits available through AFDC with its various in-kind programs such as Medicaid and day care. As Sawhill (1976) notes, the combined benefit-loss rates associated with work incentive programs remain high, as budgetary constraints associated with raising net welfare- wage …