Workfare and Women: Work Requirements and Sexism from the New Poor Law to Clinton-Era Reform

Author: Lauren Barrett

Field of Study: Arts and Humanities

Program Affiliation: Source Project Research Program

Faculty Mentors: Will Glovinsky

Easel: 41

Timeslot: Morning

Abstract: Welfare has been distributed in the English-speaking world since the Elizabethan era, but the prospect of cash relief without work has often proved controversial. In response, so-called workfare, or welfare with work requirements, has repeatedly been implemented, yet often forces poor people to take on jobs with terrible working conditions and little opportunity for advancement. By comparing Britain’s switch from outdoor relief to workhouses in 1834 and the transition to conditional aid during the 1996 U.S. welfare reforms, this project examines the impact of work requirements on women. Drawing on parliamentary reports, government documents, newspaper articles, and discussions by historians and economists, this paper delves into the ideology of those who created the legislation and the perspectives of those who were affected by it. In both reforms, sexism and neo-Malthusian concerns of poor women reproducing led legislators to impose work conditions for welfare, as an attempt to increase self-sufficiency.