Learning to Labor, Love, and Live: Shaping the Good Neoliberal Citizen in State Work and Marriage Programs

2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Randles ◽  
Kerry Woodward
Keyword(s):  
Welfare Reform ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
Work And Family ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Family Welfare ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
Emotional Skills ◽  
Self Sufficiency ◽  
Ethnographic Data

Promoting work and marriage were primary aims of the 1996 welfare reform bill, yet implementation of these dual goals has not been analyzed comparatively. In analyzing our respective ethnographic data from government-funded work and marriage classes, we identified similarities in the programs’ focus on teaching the cognitive and emotional skills presumed to comprise what we call the good neoliberal citizen. Drawing on the programs’ curricula and our class observations, we reveal how both pillars of welfare reform sought to promote individual responsibility and economic self-sufficiency among poor parents by teaching skill-based strategies for regulating participants’ thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. We argue that by framing economic mobility as the result of learned capacities for skillful self-regulation and proper planning in the realms of work and family, welfare programs’ attempts to create good neoliberal citizens obscure the structural factors that sustain poverty and the need for welfare.

scholarly journals Action Regulation at the Work–Family Interface: Nomological Network and Work–Family Consequences

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Hirschi ◽  
Nicola von Allmen ◽  
Anne Burmeister ◽  
Hannes Zacher
Keyword(s):  
Goal Attainment ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Work And Family ◽  
Family Role ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Family Social Support ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Work Family ◽  
Role Demands

AbstractPursuing personally valued goals in work and family is important for many people, yet research has only partially addressed how individuals can actively manage the work–family interface. We examined the role of action regulation at the work–family interface (AR-WF) as an integrated individual-level approach to attain favorable work–family outcomes through the selection and pursuit of goals at the work–family interface. We investigated the relation of AR-WF to theoretically derived correlates and outcomes in two time-lagged studies with samples from the USA and Germany, based on a newly developed and validated measure to assess AR-WF. Overall, results showed that AR-WF is positively related to dispositional self-regulation, work and family role commitment, work and family goal regulation, and work and family social support. In contrast, AR-WF was largely unrelated to work and family role demands and segmentation or integration boundary enactment. AR-WF further positively related to work and family goal attainment, as well as work–family enrichment beyond related constructs. However, AR-WF was also positively related to increased work-to-family conflict. We discuss how a focus on action regulation can be useful for attaining a better understanding of the active role that people play in managing multiple role demands at the work–family interface.

The Social Construction of an Imperative: Why Welfare Reform Happened in Denmark and the Netherlands but Not in Germany

2001 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 463-498 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Henry Cox
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Welfare Reform ◽  
German Unification ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
Slow Start ◽  
The Social ◽  
Welfare Systems ◽  
Institutional Differences ◽  
Governing Institutions

This article seeks to explain why Denmark and the Netherlands made dramatic progress reforming their welfare systems in the 1990s and why Germany had a relatively slow start. Some possible explanations found to be incomplete are institutional differences in welfare programs, the uniqueness of circumstances (for example, German unification), and the balance of political power in governing institutions. An important part of the puzzle is an increasing perception of the need to reform that was more widespread in Denmark and the Netherlands. The social construction of an imperative to reform in these countries generated a political consensus that was elusive in Germany but that may be developing under Gerhard Schroder's government.

scholarly journals Role of the Elected Panchayat Samity Members in National Health and Family Welfare Programs: A Case Study

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Subhash Barman
Keyword(s):  
State Government ◽  
National Health ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Geographical Area ◽  
Family Welfare ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
Tier System ◽  
Agrarian Communities ◽  
Block Level

The geographical area of this study is West Bengal - a constituent state (province) of India. The state government policy aims at administrative decentralization through Panchayats (or Village Councils) in rural areas. It is a 3-tier system, comprising a Gram Panchayat in every village, Panchayat Samity (block level), and Zilla Parishad (district level). Focusing mainly on Panchayat Samity members, the study explores the knowledge, attitudes, participation, and involvement of the Panchayat Samity members in National Health and Family Welfare Programs. The categories of respondents are the Health Committee members of Panchayat Samity, and health personnel of Block Primary Health Center and Rural Hospital. With a positive frame of mind, they are found to be involved in promoting awareness about health and family planning, and in providing child immunization and other health measures to predominantly agrarian communities.

From Enabling to Bootstrapping: Welfare Workers' Views of Substance Abuse and Welfare Reform

2005 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 429-455 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Dohan ◽  
Laura Schmidt ◽  
Stuart Henderson
Keyword(s):  
Substance Abuse ◽  
Substance Use ◽  
Welfare Reform ◽  
The United States ◽  
Poor People ◽  
Substance Use Problems ◽  
Self Sufficiency ◽  
New Policies ◽  
Drug Problems ◽  
Welfare Workers

In the United States, a trope of “deservingness” shapes policy related to public aid and substance abuse. In recent decades, poor people with substance use problems have increasingly been seen as “undeserving.” Federal welfare reform, passed in the mid-1990s, is an important exemplar of this trend. Welfare reform empowered line workers to directly and indirectly withhold aid from people with substance use problems. This paper uses in-depth interviews with workers to explore their views of these new policies. Workers generally applauded welfare reform's renewed attention to deservingness, including program emphases on client self-sufficiency and personal accountability and policies that time-limited cash aid and mandated working. They felt that these changes allowed them to stop “enabling” substance abuse and to encourage clients with alcohol and drug problems to bootstrap their way into jobs. Workers' embrace of these policy changes appears likely to shape how substance abuse problems are addressed within the welfare system.

Aging Societies, Civil Societies, and the Role of the Past: Active Aging beyond Demography in Contemporary Poland

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 893-909 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica C. Robbins
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Demographic Change ◽  
Social Engagement ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Active Aging ◽  
The Past ◽  
Anthropological Theory ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Ethnographic Data

This article belongs to the special cluster, “Politics and Current Demographic Challenges in Central and Eastern Europe,” guest-edited by Tsveta Petrova and Tomasz Inglot. Like other countries in Europe, Poland’s population is growing older, because of a combination of increasing life expectancies and decreasing birth rates. Such demographic change poses challenges for policy makers, who often understand population aging to put strain on social-service, health care, and pension systems. In response, governments and civil society often emphasize “active aging,” a rubric encompassing a wide range of policies and programs meant to promote health, workforce participation, lifelong learning, and social engagement. Although active aging is often part of neoliberal policies that focus on individual responsibility, recent anthropological theory shows that neoliberal ideals of self-care cannot fully explain contemporary forms of responsibility and social relations. Anthropological theory and ethnographic data can thus help to analyze the effects of demographic change as evident in social policy and programs. In this article, I integrate an analysis of Polish governmental documents meant to promote active aging with an analysis of ethnographic data of older Poles’ experiences of active aging. This article provides an ethnographically grounded perspective on the concept of active aging that focuses on how people actually experience such policies by exploring the meanings such programs and activities take on in the lives of individual and groups. Ethnographic data reveal that the past has multiple emotional valences that shape people’s experiences of these programs, stemming from histories of violence and rupture in the region. This suggests that making explicit the multiple, complex meanings of the past could shape active aging policy and thus civil society to be more inclusive.

Thinking About Data With Grounded Theory

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (8) ◽  
pp. 743-753 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathy Charmaz ◽  
Linda Liska Belgrave
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Grounded Theory ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Research Participants ◽  
Self Sufficiency ◽  
Access To Data ◽  
Deductive Research

This article examines qualitative data in an era of neoliberalism and focuses on the place of data in grounded theory studies. Neoliberal values of individual responsibility, self-sufficiency, competition, efficiency, and profit have entered the conduct of research. Neoliberalism fosters (a) reifying quantitative logical-deductive research, (b) imposing surveillance of types and sources of data, (c) marginalizing inductive qualitative research, and (d) limiting access to data in grounded theory studies. Grounded theory relies on data and resists current efforts to abandon data. The method resides in the space between reifying and rejecting data. Data allow us to learn from the stories of those left out and permits research participants to break silences. Data can help us look underneath and beyond our privileges, and alter our views. Grounded theory is predicated on data, but how researchers regard and render data depends on which version of the method they adopt. We propose developing a strong methodological self-consciousness to learn how we affect the research process and to counter the subtle effects of neoliberalism.

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