Women and Social Security

Recent statistics indicate that 72% of the elderly poor are widowed, divorced, or never-married women. The fact that many of these women are left destitute in their old age can be looked at from several perspectives. My particular interest is in how Social Security policy contributes to the potential poverty of women. The area of investigation is that of dependency—the designated category through which most women collect Social Security benefits.

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‘Market Workfare’: Social Security, Social Regulation and Competitiveness in the 1990s

Journal of Social Policy ◽

10.1017/s0047279499005449 ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 28 (1) ◽

pp. 73-96 ◽

Cited By ~ 24

Author(s):

CHRIS GROVER ◽

JOHN STEWART

Keyword(s):

Social Security ◽

Capital Accumulation ◽

Security Policy ◽

Social Regulation ◽

The Social ◽

Low Levels ◽

The Government ◽

Social Security Policy ◽

Social Security Benefits ◽

Regulation Approach

A Regulation Approach framework has been adopted to analyse the very rapid period of change in social security policy since the late 1980s. It is argued that the changes can be explained in terms of a number of regulatory dilemmas which emerged or were intensified under neo-liberal capital accumulation. Some of the regulatory dilemmas – high levels of economic inactivity, inflationary pressures consequent to higher employment and low levels of wages – it was thought could be managed through the social security system using what we call ‘market workfare’; by which we mean in-work means-tested social security benefits which have some measure of compulsion to work attached, such that it counts as workfare. The aim of in-work benefits is to reduce wages further so that the market can respond by creating more low-wage employment. By this stratagem it is the market which responds to labour demand, rather than the government creating work opportunities. The parliamentary neo-liberal right's approach to ‘market workfare’ is discussed, and then it is suggested that the marked similarities between New Labour and the previous parliamentary neo-liberal right can be explained because both administrations were attempting to manage the same regulatory dilemmas.

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Social Security Policy and Vindictiveness

Sociological Research Online ◽

10.5153/sro.2111 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 15 (2) ◽

pp. 30-41 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Chris Grover

Keyword(s):

Social Security ◽

Security Policy ◽

Drug Users ◽

Modern Society ◽

General Behaviour ◽

New Period ◽

Recent Developments ◽

Social Security Policy ◽

Social Security Benefits ◽

Late Modern

This paper uses the work of Jock YOUNG (2002 , 2003 ) on the emergence of vindictiveness in late modern society to examine two recent developments – the withdrawal, in certain circumstances, of Housing Benefit from those people evicted for ‘anti-social’ behaviour and the proposed introduction of a Treatment Allowance for ‘problem drug users’ – in social security policy. The paper argues that while since the development of collective responses to poverty there has been concern with the behaviour of individuals in relation to paid work, we are entering a new period of social security policy where it is the general behaviour of individuals that increasingly defines access to social security benefits, rather than their financial needs.

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