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A new deal for lone parents? Training lone parents for work in West London
Author(s) -
Smith Fiona,
Barker John,
Wainwright Emma,
Marandet Elodie,
Buckingham Sue
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
area
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.958
H-Index - 82
eISSN - 1475-4762
pISSN - 0004-0894
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2008.00796.x
Subject(s) - workfare , inequality , work (physics) , training (meteorology) , government (linguistics) , labour economics , sociology , class (philosophy) , political science , gender studies , economics , welfare , geography , engineering , law , mechanical engineering , mathematical analysis , linguistics , philosophy , mathematics , artificial intelligence , meteorology , computer science
In this paper we explore the impacts of the training programmes offered to lone mothers with young children on the Government's ‘New Deal for Lone Parents’ in one local labour market: West London. Our research suggests that regulatory workfare policies are (re)producing and reinforcing gendered inequalities in the labour market by encouraging lone mothers to undertake training in feminised occupational areas such as childcare. We will argue that in a local economy such as West London where more childcare workers are desperately needed to enable other more highly skilled workers to take up employment opportunities, such training programmes may be doing little more than exacerbating the already gendered and class‐based polarisation of the labour market – embedding low‐skilled, poorly qualified lone mothers into low‐paid jobs.