Welcome to My Life : The experiences of single mothers managing multiple state provided benefits

ISBN-13: 9783639165388 / Angielski / Miękka / 2009 / 132 str.

Sara Cumming

Opis

This book takes the lens of social reproduction as a starting point for an examination of the effects of recent social welfare reforms in Canada on the lives of single mothers. As the cumulative effects of diminishing state provided benefits take hold, tensions are heightened as single mothers internalize the insecurity of earning an income in a capitalist labour market, while trying to carry out all that is involved in social reproduction with inadequate means of survival. Through interviewing single mothers who are the recipients of multiple state provided benefits (social assistance, student loans, subsidized housing and subsidized childcare), this book illuminates the continued regulation of women in an effort to ensure social reproduction is occurring at the lowest cost possible. State provided benefits are set up in such a way that it is near impossible for single mothers to make ends meet without entering the labour force or entering into co-residential relationships. This push towards the labour force and/or marriage via punitive welfare policies illuminates the devaluation of the labour that is done at home.

O autorze

Sara J. Cumming resides in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada with her
two daughters Madison and Kennedy. Sara is currently finishing
her PhD in sociology at the University of Waterloo and teaches
sociology courses at both the University of Waterloo and at
Brock University. Sara's academic work focuses on the plight of
single mothers.