Institutionalized individualism and the care of the self: Single mothers and the state

Abstract

In the last two decades, the Australian income support (Social Security) system has shifted from an emphasis on providing a financial safety net to a focus on building the capacities of individuals to plan for their futures and move into employment. In this respect, Australia shares a broadly similar trajectory to welfare reforms in other industrialized countries, where the priority in recent years has been on reducing “welfare dependency” and “activating” recipients though individualized interventions. In Australia, as in other jurisdictions, this policy direction has attracted considerable criticism from welfare advocates and academic observers. New “active” income support arrangements have been critiqued for penalizing the vulnerable, ignoring the special challenges faced by groups such as single parents, and lacking necessary material supports, such as transport or childcare subsidies (Goodin 2001; Howard 2006).