Roberts, Dorothy. 1997. “The Welfare Debate: Who Pays for Procreation?” Pp. 202-228 and 243-245 in Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty. NY: Pantheon Books.
In this article, Roberts discusses welfare, welfare reform, and the ways in which welfare is viewed by the U.S. as a whole. She argues that many of the issues welfare recipients face such as strong negative social stigma, reproductive controls, etc. stem directly from racism. She maintains that as soon as welfare switched from being viewed as the problem of the "worthy white widow" to the "Black welfare queen," welfare was forever changed and the resulting stigmas and policy limitations are a result of systemic U.S. racism.
Clinton's welfare reform law, enacted in 1996, changed welfare in the U.S. from the policies enacted under the Social Security Act of 1935. The new policies were unfortunately due almost entirely to a mostly false negative image of welfare that the American public had internalized since the Reagan administration. The new law gives states increased authority over welfare spending - they are given a lump sum by the government and given almost no incentives to increase welfare spending, only incentives to get higher percentages into paid work. The new law includes a lifetime limit of 5 years to any family and heads of households must get a job within two years. Additionally, women previously were able to stay home with their children until age six - this was reduced to age three, and in some states it was pushed all the way to age one, so anyone without a brand new infant must be in the workforce. Roberts argues that these changes are a result of welfare taking on a new social role. It was no longer seen as charity or as assistance for struggling families, but rather seen as a "means of modifying poor people' behavior" because the believe has become that their poverty is their own fault. Roberts points out that America's welfare system "has always stood out among Western nations for its stinginess and limited social programs" and that the system has systemically excluded Black people for the majority of its existence. Roberts discusses three prevalent myths about welfare that inform the current welfare program and cause much miscommunication and misunderstanding of welfare recipients: welfare induces childbirth, welfare causes dependency, and marriage can end children's poverty.
The first myth, that welfare induces childbirth, has extremely broad cultural implications, especially when considering the proposed solutions to this myth. Many support forced sterilization, forcing women on long-term birth control methods such as Norplant, or implementing child-cap laws, which has already occurred in the state of New Jersey. The belief that welfare mothers simply have more children in order to rack up more benefits is absolutely ludicrous. The meager dollar increase per month is not at all worth having another child and will in no way pay for everything necessary to take care of another child - it will simply decrease the amount of money available per household member and stretch a poor family's resources even thinner. Roberts explains, "many studies have found no causal relationship between welfare benefits and childbearing" and, in fact, mothers suffer a financial loss every time a child is added to a family. Additionally, this issue raises the question - is procreation a privilege of the middle and upper classes? Is procreation only an option for those who can afford it? And, can policies such as these be considered a form of eugenics? Studies have shown that minority women are far more likely to be asked to use long-term birth control or sterilization methods than white women. The social stigma of the minority welfare mother may impact the likelihood that people will support such methods included in welfare policies because of racism. In fact, the majority of welfare mothers are white. And it is my personal belief that anyone who should choose to bring a child into the world should be allowed to. I believe that laws such as child-caps, etc. will only increase abortions and are very contradictory to the values our country claims to hold.
The second myth, welfare causes dependency, brings up some interesting ideas. Roberts explains, "mothers who receive welfare are thought to teach their children a life of dependency by undermining their children's motivation to support themselves." However, there is no similar social stigma for lifelong dependency on things such as inherited wealth, or even other governmental supports such as life insurance proceeds, agricultural subsidies, social security benefits, etc. Roberts argues that this is because of the groups of people these various systems are perceived to benefit. Single mothers are considered different than widows because "the needs and rights of women and children are determined not by universal standards but by the nature of their prior relationship to a man." This is an issue of patriarchy as well as racism, because, again, welfare is perceived as assisting mostly minorities. In fact, most welfare recipients do not remain on welfare for more than two years and mostly use it while their children are young in order to care for them. Unfortunately, the system of welfare now makes it far more difficult for these people to pull themselves out of poverty by flinging them into minimum wage jobs with little opportunity for promotion. The perception of welfare recipients as "lazy" and dependent is extremely inaccurate. Many women with full-time jobs still live in poverty. The wage inadequacies and the unavailability of jobs makes supporting a family very difficult - particularly when trying to live off of a single mother's income.
The final myth, that marriage can end children's poverty, is outright ridiculous and is one of the best examples of the current welfare system's attempt to modify poor people's behavior as a way of remedying their poverty. Roberts points out, "just as marital breakdown is unlikely to be the cause of Black mothers' poverty, so marriage is unlikely to be the solution." Bush has poured millions of dollars into a "marriage promotion act" within the welfare system, attempting to impart the supposedly "better" traditional middle class values of marriage and family on the belief it is "better for children," failing to see the alternative systems of child-rearing already in place in poor communities. The communal raising of children and "othermother" systems have been extremely helpful for poor families raising children. Promoting marriage between two people who make only minimum wage is very unlikely to pull them out of poverty. The idea of the independent, nuclear family simply does not work within a poor community. It takes more people pulling together to pool resources and raise children. Additionally, child support collection from minimum wage fathers will not aid their children's poverty. Roberts views marriage promotion as an attempt to "penalize single, rebellious Black mothers."
Finally, Roberts conducts an in-depth discussion of the issue of privacy within the welfare system and the violation of recipients' basic rights as Americans. She explains:
'One of Americans' most cherished freedoms is the right to keep government agents out of their homes. The police must obtain a search warrant to inspect even the homes of suspected criminals. Yet the court has ruled that welfare workers can demand home entry as a condition of welfare eligibility; there is no need to get judicial approval even when an applicant protests the home inspection."
Through welfare rules such as this, as well as mandated paternity proceedings, severely interfere with the recipients' right to privacy. Women are even forced to discuss their sex life and sexual activities in order to receive welfare for their children. Value judgments are placed on these women from the moment they walk in the door and they are made to feel shameful for who they are - regardless of their situation. Roberts' concluding argument is that "white Americans have resisted the expansion of welfare precisely because of its benefit to Blacks" and she argues that America's inadequate welfare system stems directly from "a racist unwillingness to include Blacks as full citizens."
Sharon Hays. 2003. “Money and Morality." Pp. 9-24 in Flat Broke with Children: Women in the Age of Welfare Reform. New York: Oxford University Press.
Has welfare reform been a positive change? According to Sharon Hays, the overall national reply has been, yes. She explains that a nation's laws reflect a nation's values, and Clinton's welfare reform law is no exception. The 1996 "Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act" "provides a reflected image of American culture and reinforces a system of beliefs about how all of us should behave." There is a strong relationship between a nation's laws and more widespread cultural norms, beliefs, and values. Hays argues that "The Personal Responsibility Act can ultimately be understood as a social experiment in legislating family values and the work ethic." By forcing welfare recipients into paid work, any kind of paid work, welfare reform has shown an increase in the number of recipients in the workforce. However, there has been almost no examination of the quality of life with this paid work and with the extreme restrictions on the length of time one can be on welfare, it is difficult to determine whether or not people are coming off of welfare because they have alleviated their poverty or because they were forced off the rolls. American ideals of individualism, hard work, and stigma against perceived dependency all factored into this new law.
From the very beginnings of welfare, people have made distinctions between "deserving" and "undeserving" poor. The changing vision of the family has changed the definitions of those who are considered worthy and those who are not. Originally, for single mothers, the state stepped into the "father-breadwinner" role and became the support system so that "good" mothers could remain at home, raise their children, and maintain the traditional family structure. Now, women are expected to work. One of the claims is that women are now considered competent enough to be responsible for their own breadwinning, so the fact that they are expected to work while on welfare should be considered positive for women's liberation, because they are given the same expectations as a man. However, a lot of the reforms still encourage marriage as the ideal and discourage single mothering of any kind, which is again reinforcing "traditional" values. In this view, women are forced into poorly paid work if they do not comply with certain value standards. According to Hays, there are two different ways of viewing this plan that cause it to be acceptable in the minds of people with very different mindsets. These two distinct and contradictory views of work and family life can be found in her two definitions: "The Work Plan" and "The Family Plan."
According to the "work plan," work requirements are a way of rehabilitating mothers. Hays explains that, in this view, work is "transforming women who would otherwise 'merely' stay at home and care for their children into women who are self-sufficient, independent, productive members of society." The "family plan," on the other hand, views work requirements as a way of punishing mothers for their failure to get married and stay married. Hays explains, "work requirements will teach women a lesson; they'll come to know better than to get divorced or have children out of wedlock. They will learn their duty is to control their fertility, to get married, to stay married, and to dedicate themselves to the care of others." She points out it is almost similar to arguments among feminists about whether to stress women's independence or valorize women's caregiving.
Essentially, depending on one's angle of vision, welfare reform can be seen as, "a valorization of independence, self-sufficiency, and the work ethic, as well as the promotion of a certain form of gender equality," OR "it can serve as a condemnation of single parenting, a codification of the appropriate preeminence of lasting family ties and the commitment to others, and a reaffirmation that a woman's place is in the home." It is easy to see two opposing views being able to agree on this reform because of the different ways in which the work requirements can be viewed. Unfortunately, in practice, welfare reform needs to be reexamined, because while the theories seem appealing, actual quality of life needs to be considered and whether or not these policies are actually able to pull people out of poverty.
Glass, Jennifer. 2004. “Blessing or Curse? Work-Family Policies and Mothers’ Wage Growth Over Time.” Work and Occupations 31:367-394.
Jennifer Glass conducts research on mothers' wage growth over time and the impact of the use of work-family policies on their wages. She hopes to discover whether or not family-friendly policies actually aid mothers' success in the labor market and whether or not their use might impede career progress. These are important questions because many employees fear that taking advantage of work-family policies will hinder their job mobility and wages. Mothers have shown the slowest wage growth over time. Women without children now make almost as much as similarly situated men, but women with children earn roughly one half as much as men with similar qualifications. Many argue that this is a result of mothers' decisions - decisions to work fewer hours, etc. but it is difficult to determine how much actual 'choice' goes into these decisions. Additionally, studies show that lack of workplace flexibility actually makes mothers less productive at work because they are more preoccupied and stressed, so it is beneficial for employers to provide work-family policies.
Glass followed a group of 195 working mothers from their pregnancies through the time when their children were about 6 or 7. She studied their wage growth over time and looked at the family policies available at their workplaces and whether or not they took advantage of them. She identifies four major policies that mothers may take advantage of: Child care assistance, reduced work hours, flexible schedule, and working from home. Work at home and reduced hours showed significant and negative effects on wage growth over time. Unexpectedly, so did the use of child care assistance. The use of child care assistance had a smaller impact and was only among those who remained continuously with the same employer. Use of scheduled flexibility showed no significant impact, and Glass found that often women were able to informally rearrange work without penalty rather than setting up specific flextime plans.
Glass concludes that employers want employees continuously available for work, as most employees expect. Those who used policies that cut down on "face time" in the workplace (working from home or reducing hours) lost the most in wages. This may be because this signals weaker commitment and dedication to the workplace. Unfortunately, Glass was forced to conclude that, in fact, family-friendly policies do NOT increase mothers' success in the labor market, and, as many fear, their use may in fact impede their progress.
Gerstel, Naomi and Dan Clawson. 2001. “Unions’ Responses to Family Concerns.” Social Problems 48(2):277-298.
Gerstel and Clawson examine the responses of various unions to family concerns in the workplace. In doing so, they hoped to bring further attention to class differences or similarities in family needs. The authors explain that analyzing work-family issues through unions "reinvigorates the class component" because work-family needs and policies are so often focused at the professional level and tend to ignore blue-collar families. The authors identified four factors that impact work-family focus in unions: member expectations, gender of members, gender of leaders, and union strength. Overall, they found that members tend not to expect or demand much as far as work-family policies - their focus tends to be on wages, healthcare, and pension. However, the authors also believe that this may be because many workers to not view it as appropriate to demand help from their employers for family issues (which are considered private in individualistic America) but when union leaders push for these benefits and get them, members are very pleased. The gender of members absolutely makes a difference because unions made up primarily of men, who typically are not expected to take responsibility for childcare and family issues, are less likely to push for family-friendly policies. The authors explain that "family caregiving is considered a woman's responsibility," but that single fathers also strongly back the issue, which is interesting because when they become the primary caretakers, all of a sudden, men "get it" and begin lobbying for family issues. The gender of leadership is also extremely important. When there is a female leader, there is likely to be more discussion of work-family policies and when a woman leader lobbies for these policies, they are more likely to be implemented. As previously mentioned, members may not feel they have a right to demand such policies, but when a female leader steps up and fights for them, they do tend to be pleased with the results. Union strength is of extreme importance to negotiating any position with employers. One union explained it only won paid family leave in locals where worker retention was important. Ultimately, employers need to be shown some benefit for their bottom line in order to implement any new policies. Therefore, employers may grant benefits they believe to be inexpensive, but are reluctant to do anything that could cost a significant amount of money.
The authors identified the most important work-family issues for those interviewed: alternative work schedules, childcare, and family leave. Alternative work schedules are a touchy issue for unions, particularly when it comes to overtime and mandated overtime. Overtime hours can be very difficult for those with family responsibilities, but at the same time, many people need the extra money and do not want unions pressuring employers to cut down on overtime. Additionally, flextime is a tough concept because flextime plans often simply end up making workers work overtime without paying them the extra money. Childcare is also tough, because employees tend to prefer informal arrangements such as babysitters or family members caring for children rather than dropping them off at a child-care center or having them at an on-site childcare center. The most popular form of childcare assistance is informal subsidies, where the parents are granted a certain amount of money per month for childcare and they can use it to pay anyone other than their spouse (aunt, mother-in-law, babysitter, etc.) to care for children. Unfortunately, this is also a more expensive form of childcare assistance because of the vast amount of employees that would make use of it, so most employers do not want it. Finally, family leaves are the most widely supported overall because no matter what, man or woman, parent or not, most people at some point are going to need some kind of family leave. One of the primary responsibilities of unions has become the enforcement of the FMLA for employees - often employers either do not understand or choose to ignore the new rules.
In conclusion, the authors found that there is no overall "union position" on work-family policies and there is much variation across unions and even across union locals. They explain, "unions have the potential to serve as social movement entrepreneurs, mobilizing resources that could make work-family issues a priority in the populations that have been least able to win benefits." They believe that one of the primary issues may be the fact that employees do not feel entitled to demand family-friendly policies (which may have to do with class and different senses of entitlement), but when leaders are proactive in demanding family-friendly policies, workers do tend to benefit.
Burkett, Elinor. 2000. “Unequal Work for Unequal Pay” (Chapter 1) from The Baby Boon: How Family-Friendly America Cheats the Childless. Free Press.
Elinor Burkett presents an interesting perspective in this article. We have focused a lot on families and parents with children dealing with workplace issues, but childless workers have not often been considered. Burkett points out that only one-third of the workforce has children under the age of 18. She goes through an extensive examination of Corporate America and their new obsession with being "family-friendly" (though it really still doesn't seem like it). She makes a good point in her explanation of benefits and how family benefits do not benefit two-thirds of the workforce. On a daily basis, it is also interesting to look at worker relations and non-parents constantly having to work late to help out parents so they can shuttle kids around or make it to a soccer game, etc. Burkett explains, "single and childless employees feel discriminated against because they can't take advantage of benefits created for the family." It is tough at times to connect with the article when many of the (clearly bitter) non-parent employees are referring to parents as "breeders" and claiming they are "punished for not squirting out spawn." I am not entirely sure that I want to have children someday, but I am certainly not going to judge those who do, and I believe that we should assist parents who are trying to support their families and be good employees at the same time.
However, Burkett brings up a very good question: should men and women who have taken the detour of children be as far along as those who haven't? Shouldn't those who have sacrificed children in order to focus on work and move up the ranks be justly rewarded for their hard work? It is tough. Because we have so many complaints nowadays that having children blocks you from moving up the career ladder. But, having children does take away some of your focus from your career, so is this actually what is fair? My only issue with this is that I believe that this primarily impacts women. Studies have even shown that men who are fathers may actually make more money than childless men. It is women who are punished for having children. I found Purnick's speech to college grads very interesting. She is right. It is sad, but she is right. However, I do agree with Kaus' critique that she did not fully identify this struggle as a women's issue - because it is a women's issue. There is an unlevel playing field between working dads and working moms.
I do agree with some of Burkett's critique and I think that the value of company benefits should be considered and redistributed in other options that can be utilized by those employees without young children - some kind of college benefits for older kids would be extremely helpful to my parents. This alternative point of view is important to examine and I am very glad we had to read this article.
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