Women's Political Agency and Welfare Reform: Engendering the Adult Worker Model

Abstract

Welfare states in advanced, industrial countries are undergoing a significant process of reconfiguration that has wide-ranging implications for women. Yet, academic work on women and the welfare state tells us little about women's capacity to shape the contours of the emerging regimes. The existing literature has made important contributions on the gendered outcomes of welfare policies, on the agency of women as recipients of social benefits and beneficiaries of the welfare state, and a historical literature outlines the political roles of women in shaping nascent welfare states. However, a gap in the literature exists on women's political agency in contemporary processes of welfare reform. This article investigates the capacity of women with agency as political citizens to shape the outcome of current welfare reform processes. It argues that the recent spate of welfare state reconfiguration in the direction of the adult worker model presents a window of opportunity for women to shape the outcome of welfare rather than accepting existing gendered relationships. Furthermore, it sets up a framework for evaluating women's political agency in the process of welfare reform that assumes a dynamic interrelationship among agency, political institutions and discourse.