Family Economics and Public Policy, 1800s–Present by Megan McDonald Way

Author:Megan McDonald Way
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781137439635
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan US

Except for the “extensive maternity leave” (which, in contrast to “parental leave” relegates women to infant and toddler care as opposed to men), the United States welfare regime was developed along the above lines and continues to have these characteristics today. Going back to an early form of public welfare, mother’s pensions, provides a vivid illustration of the norms enforced through welfare systems. Mothers’ pensions were first enacted by local governments or charity groups in the 1800s. They were offered to poor women—usually widows or abandoned women claiming to be widows—in an attempt not only to provide relief but to mold these women to middle-class norms idealizing motherhood and women’s place in the home. White widows were heavily favored, often on the requirement that they not work outside the home and accept a high degree of supervision. 38 The decade of 1910–1920 saw 40 states enacting mothers’ pensions as the result of middle-class female activism. 39 But they were offered with many strings attached, including requirements to stay at home with children rather than working, and involved often heavy-handed and intrusive interactions with social workers and inspectors. They were withheld when poor women were deemed unworthy. Women of color, divorced, and never-married mothers were often denied help. 40

As mothers’ pensions evolved in the 1920s, legal pressure on men to support their children was increasing. This pressure included a “court-centered regime for policing delinquent husbands” through family courts. These courts often required poor women who applied for pensions to track down their husbands and hand them over to the law, which then supervised them and punished them for unemployment or drunkenness. 41 Public welfare systems in the United States as regards to men supported the male worker, growing to include unemployment and worker’s compensation programs, disability insurance, generous veteran’s benefits, and social security based on earned wages. All of these supports were free of the stigma applied to welfare for poor mothers, but the flip side was that support for men outside of the labor system barely existed. The stingy welfare benefits for poor mothers also reflected the male-breadwinner model. “One explanation for the tentative nature of such redistributive strategies as the 1920s mothers’ pensions initiatives (which were punitive in nature, discriminatory in their application, and incorporated requirements that revolved around women’s successful performance of their home roles) lies in the violation of male claims to providerhood.” 42

For poor, female-headed households, the economic choice facing them if they were eligible for mothers’ pensions tied their non-labor income to not working. Women had to accept a meager pension with no chance to supplement it with earnings, or do without and attempt to support themselves and their children by working. Work outside the home required them to enter an economy that offered few job options for uneducated, unskilled women that provided the pay and the flexibility needed to care for children simultaneously. Both solutions consigned many mothers to poverty, reinforced the idea that mothers belonged at home, and left poor working mothers and their children at high risk of a panoply of preventable harms.

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