Open AccessWorkfare: Reading Women's Social Status?
Author(s) -
Janet Bedggood
Publication year - 1970
Publication title -
labour, employment and work in new zealand
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2463-2600
DOI - 10.26686/lew.v0i0.1007
Subject(s) - workfare , welfare , wage , work (physics) , state (computer science) , reproduction , government (linguistics) , political science , domestic violence , reading (process) , economics , sociology , labour economics , market economy , poison control , biology , injury prevention , law , mechanical engineering , medicine , ecology , linguistics , philosophy , environmental health , algorithm , computer science , engineering
This paper looks at the proposal for a community wage for domestic purpose beneficiaries as an initiative that recasts the gendered nature of welfare allocation. It raises broader theoretical questions on the implications of workfare for women's social status which has traditionally been defined in terms of their unpaid domestic work. It concludes that the government's retreat from an imposed workfare regime on domestic purpose beneficiaries with young children amounts to a reaffirmation of the primacy of the domestic role for women by the state. The paper takes the line that this state reproduction of women's domestic role legitimates women’s inferiority.