Staying Afloat on Social Assistance: Parents’ Strategies of Balancing Employability Expectations and Caregiving Demands

Amber Gazso

doi:10.18740/s4f018

Abstract

<p>Using a feminist political economy lens, this paper explores the balancing of work and family by parents on social assistance in British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan. In all three provinces, restructuring of policy has made parents' entitlement to assistance increasingly contingent on their employability efforts (e.g. mandatory job searches, participation in welfare-to-work programs). This entitlement relationship is implicated by simultaneous and contradictory processes embedded in neo-liberal restructuring - gendering and familization - that problematically affect parents' ability to balance their actual or potential employability expectations with family caregiving demands. Drawing on qualitative data from 46 interviews, this paper reveals the strategies that parents then utilize to manage these competing demands so that they can maintain their family's survival- or ";stay afloat"; - while living on social assistance. In terms of thematic areas, these intricately inter-related coping strategies include: learn the system; play the system; social support; pawning. The significance of these findings for feminist challenges of neo-liberalism and for meeting social justice goals (i.e. economic security; equality) is discussed.</p>

Highlights

In recent years, it has become increasingly apparent to feminist researchers that family lives are dramatically affected by reforms made to social assistance programs (Albelda, 2001; McMullin, Davies, and Cassidy, 2002)
Using a feminist political economy lens, the objective of this paper is to explore the strategies parents use to cope with and manage their competing work and family demands by incorporating qualitative data from interviews with parents on assistance in British Columbia (BC), Alberta, and Saskatchewan
The findings reported are categorized according to themes that capture the coping strategies used by parents to balance policy expectations of their employability with their caregiving demands

Summary

Introduction

It has become increasingly apparent to feminist researchers that family lives are dramatically affected by reforms made to social assistance programs (Albelda, 2001; McMullin, Davies, and Cassidy, 2002). The popularity of restructuring social assistance policy to re-connect parents back to the labour market as soon as possible through a variety of regulations, including mandatory engagement in welfare-to-work programming and punitive practices (i.e. time limits in British Columbia), has both positive and negative implications for family lives. -called ‘active’ welfare-to-work programming produces the ministry’s intended consequence of connecting parents to the Canadian labour market, thereby reducing ‘dependency’ (or caseloads) and suggesting the success of such initiatives. What starkly contrasts with these desired restructuring outcomes are the everyday realities of many parents on social assistance. The poverty parents experience while living on assistance exacerbates their meeting of basic social reproduction needs, such as providing food, clothing, and housing. Especially in the case of lone mothers, the denial of family care responsibilities for very young children as a basis of entitlement to income support occurs at the same time that day care is costly and scarce

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