Family, Dependence, and the Origins of the Welfare State: Britain and France, 1914-1945

"The development of the European welfare state in the first half of this century has often been seen as a response to the rise of class politics, its institutions as a means of alleviating the insecurities and inequalities of the labor market. Yet as this study demonstrates, the social reformers and activists who shaped early welfare policies in Britain and France were often quite as concerned with gender relations and family maintenances as they were with social class. Feminists hoping to win a measure of independence for wives, doctors and social workers concerned with children's health, industrialists combating demands that all workers be paid a 'family wage', and pronatalists worried about the capacity of the population to meet the demographic challenges of mass wars all sought to redistribute income and resources not simply across class lines but toward families with dependent children and the mothers occupied in caring for them. Very different distributive policies emerged from their campaigns, with important consequences for the wage system, the well-being of children, and the citizenship status of men and women."--The introductory preamble.