Workfare: Reading Women's Social Status?

Abstract

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.