Gendering Welfare: Lone Mothers’ Experiences of Welfare-to-Work Programmes in Hong Kong

Hung, Suet Lin; Fung, Kwok Kin

doi:10.1017/s1474746410000527

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Analysis of welfare regimes have faced criticism for their failure to adequately consider the importance of gender as a differentiating experience (Sevenhuijsen and Švab, 2004;Tronto, 2010;Hung and Fung, 2011;Bretherton, 2020;England, 2022b). This is especially evident in homelessness, where the extent to which financial and societal exclusion not only places women at elevated risk of homelessness but makes it harder for them to exit it has been, until recently, largely overlooked (Bretherton, 2020).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘It Matters How They See You’: ‘Maternal Activation’ As a Strategy to Navigate Contradictory Discourses of Motherhood and Neoliberal Activism in the Welsh Homelessness System

England,

Henley

2024

Social Policy and Society

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Despite increasing attention to the importance of gender as an analytic to understanding neoliberal welfare reform, little attention has been paid to how motherhood operates to structure experiences. We propose the term ‘maternal activation’ to describe how homeless mothers as a group are subject to, and yet repurpose and resist, specific forms of social control characterising neoliberal paternalistic welfare structures. Drawing on a Critical Discourse Analysis of semi-structured interviews with fifty-four frontline homelessness workers, and eighteen homeless mothers, within the newly conditionalised Welsh homelessness system, we argue that homeless mothers have distinct experiences of neoliberal welfare governance. They navigate contradictory demands of attentive caregiving and economically engaged citizenship, amid devaluation of care created by a neoliberal emphasis on entrepreneurialism. However, performing intense motherhood offers strategic advantage for homeless mothers by enabling them to be read as ‘legible’. This highlights the utility of motherhood as a framework to understand welfare citizenship.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘It Matters How They See You’: ‘Maternal Activation’ As a Strategy to Navigate Contradictory Discourses of Motherhood and Neoliberal Activism in the Welsh Homelessness System

England,

Henley

2024

Social Policy and Society

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“…Yet current Irish activation policy has no specific training or education programmes for lone parents. International evidence suggests that lone parents with low levels of education generally participate in low wage, low skill service industry jobs, typically on a part‐time basis (Evans et al ; King ; Stephenson and Emery ; Riccio et al ; Gloster et al ; Hung and Fung ). As low levels of education are a significant barrier to employment for lone parents in most countries, participation in education and training is a prerequisite prior to moving into paid employment.…”

Section: Low Levels Of Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lone Parent Activation in Ireland: Putting the Cart before the Horses?

Millar

Crosse

2017

Soc Policy Adm

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Lone parents and their children are the biggest group at risk of living in poverty in Ireland, and activation is regarded as the solution to this problem by policymakers. While workfare requirements are now placed on lone parents whose youngest child is aged 14 or over, we question the capacity of the current activation policy to deliver an adequate income for these families. Drawing on evidence from other countries and the current Irish context, we argue that the absence of tailored support for lone parents, low levels of educational attainment, difficulties with childcare, the efficacy of financial supports to provide income adequacy and the failure to take into consideration their parenting responsibility mean that the implementation of the policy is fraught with difficulty.

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“…In Hong Kong, the model of the male family breadwinner with a full-time job is still the norm (Hung and Fung, 2011). The death of the breadwinner is always traumatic for the surviving family members, in particular the wife, who typically has few outside social contacts.…”

Section: Background: the Socio-cultural Context Of Chinese Widows In Hong Kongmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coping with bereavement of widows in the Chinese cultural context of Hong Kong

Tsun

et al. 2014

International Social Work

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Although Hong Kong has developed into a Westernized city, many widows still feel the strong pull of cultural demands in coping with the loss of their husbands. The purpose of this study was to explore how Chinese women in Hong Kong cope with bereavement and widowhood. Results reveal that the coping methods of the 26 participants are pragmatic and culturally dependent, and can be grouped into four categories, namely, remaining lonely and stigmatized, submitting to predestination and fate, seeking a transition from feeling aggrieved to active coping, and searching for new family relationships. The implications for social work practice are discussed.

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Gendering Welfare: Lone Mothers’ Experiences of Welfare-to-Work Programmes in Hong Kong

Cited by 5 publications

References 25 publications

‘It Matters How They See You’: ‘Maternal Activation’ As a Strategy to Navigate Contradictory Discourses of Motherhood and Neoliberal Activism in the Welsh Homelessness System

‘It Matters How They See You’: ‘Maternal Activation’ As a Strategy to Navigate Contradictory Discourses of Motherhood and Neoliberal Activism in the Welsh Homelessness System

Lone Parent Activation in Ireland: Putting the Cart before the Horses?

Coping with bereavement of widows in the Chinese cultural context of Hong Kong

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