State tactics of welfare benefit minimisation: The power of governing documents

Cook, Kay

doi:10.1177/02610183211003474

Cited by 7 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 16 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This quote suggests that parents did not receive clear information regarding exemption. A similar situation was noted by Cook (2021) in the Australian context. Interestingly, the interviews with the Swedish case officers reveal that the latter did not get much information either, making them unsure of how to assess violence and threats.…”

Section: Defining and Assessing Special Reasons Eligibilitysupporting

confidence: 79%

Guaranteed or conditional child maintenance? Examining the 2016 reform in Sweden

Fernqvist

Sépulchre

2021

Critical Social Policy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Family policies promoting gender equality and parents’ shared responsibility for their children tend to assume good parental collaboration post separation. However, this assumption obscures the reality of conflict and intimate partner violence (IPV) in some separated families. Focusing on Sweden, this article examines the 2016 reform which implies that the state ceases acting as an intermediary to organise child maintenance unless ‘special reasons’, including the experience of IPV, are invoked. Thus, the Swedish guaranteed child maintenance scheme became conditional. Drawing on interviews with resident parents and case officers at the Swedish Social Insurance Agency (SSIA), this article suggests that the reform increases the vulnerability of resident parents in several ways. Moreover, the ‘special reasons’ exemption creates a new distinction between ‘violent’ and ‘normal’ families, which case workers struggle to administer, and which leads to a withdrawal of state support for many families.

show abstract

Section: Defining and Assessing Special Reasons Eligibilitysupporting

confidence: 79%

Guaranteed or conditional child maintenance? Examining the 2016 reform in Sweden

Fernqvist

Sépulchre

2021

Critical Social Policy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Given the volume of data contained in each, the two categories were analysed separately. The discursive tactics through which women's choices were coordinated by state documents, such as government forms, information and instructions, are presented separately (Cook, 2021; see this paper also for a detailed description of the sample).…”

Section: Approach and Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Even if mothers using Agency Collect learn that they can change their FTBA calculation method, many are dissuaded to do so. As described by Cook (2021), the government highlights that when using the Disbursement Method, FTBA overpayments may result from child support 'back payments'. The state makes it clear that these debts to the state would have to be repaid.…”

Section: Collecting Child Supportmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Rather, the government made the choices that were in women's best interests obscure, placing the onus on vulnerable women to first identify and then navigate these onerous and opaque administrative processes. At every decision point, Cook's (2021) analysis revealed how the state was the financial beneficiary of women accepting the advised, default or easiest option, as -using the parlance of Herd and Moynihan (2018) -the high learning costs precluded women's successful navigation of the system. In all cases, low-income women's FTBA benefits were reduced and child support was also often foregone.…”

Section: Child Support Research and Administrative Burdensmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As a result, fathers and the state financially benefitted from the high learning costs imposed on women through reduced FTBA outlays and unpaid child support. Of interest to this study is that although mothers in Cook's (2021) study could request Agency Collection of their child support at any time, the department discursively kept women in Private Collect arrangements. Although Private Collections were promoted and encouraged, alternate options were obscured and were made difficult to access.…”

Section: Child Support Research and Administrative Burdensmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Gender, malice, obligation and the state: Separated mothers’ experiences of administrative burdens with Australia's child support program

Cook

2021

Aust J Public Adm

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article provides an empirical account of Herd and Moynihan's theory of administrative burdens as they apply to Australian child support recipients. Interviews with 41 separated mothers revealed how they were compelled to engage in the child support system and then required to expend significant time and effort undertaking administrative work on behalf of the state, often for little financial benefit. Unlike the examples provided by Herd and Moynihan, in this study, it was found that child support system burdens could be used by aggrieved fathers to inflict financial and psychological harms on their ex-partners. The state accepted fathers' imposition of costs on mothers as they shared a financial interest in maintaining women's burdens. As a result, this paper provides three conceptual advancements on the existing theory, by articulating: how administrative burdens can be created and applied by non-government third parties, in this case individual ex-family members; how the state can acquiesce to the imposition of harms if these align with their interests; and how the state distributes obligations and autonomy along social lines, such as, in this case, along the lines of class and gender.

show abstract

What is in a form? Examining the complexity of application forms and administrative burden

2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Analysis of the welfare state emphasises that access to social security support is a key component of the relationship between the state and the citizen. Recent literature has identified administrative burden as a concept that helps us to understand an emerging dynamic between the state and the citizen, where citizens must deal with increasingly onerous administrative 'costs' in order to access services or support from the state.Increased administrative burden has been identified at many stages of access to social security support and government services. Burdens are often talked about in general terms, that is, the amount of administrative complexity associated with a particular welfare service. In this paper, we look at how administrative burden can be found in even the smallest unit of administrationapplication forms. Taking a form from the Australian National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), we contribute to the growing literature on application forms and administrative burden by developing a framework to assess the complexity of questions on an application form. We show that in areas where citizens lives are complex, questions on forms can constrain the capacity of citizens to accurately represent their circumstances and, in turn, constrain their ability to gain access to support.

show abstract

State tactics of welfare benefit minimisation: The power of governing documents

Cited by 7 publications

References 16 publications

Guaranteed or conditional child maintenance? Examining the 2016 reform in Sweden

Guaranteed or conditional child maintenance? Examining the 2016 reform in Sweden

Gender, malice, obligation and the state: Separated mothers’ experiences of administrative burdens with Australia's child support program

What is in a form? Examining the complexity of application forms and administrative burden

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About