“The new maternalism:
What has happened to women in social policy design?”
Jane Jenson
Canada Research Chair in Citizenship and Governance
Université de Montréal
www.cccg.umontreal.ca
Numerous authors have pointed to what Ann Orloff termed the “farewell to maternalism”
as characteristic of much contemporary social policy (Orloff, 2004; for example, Mahon,
2006). By this they mean that the complement to the male bread-winner model that
characterised much of social policy in the 20th century, that is the stay-at-home mother, is
no longer an element of the favoured paradigm of policy communities. That early model
defined women primarily through their roles as carers – for children, for men, for the
elderly, for the house. Social policy provided support for women to perform those roles
either directly (via for example mothers’ allowances, survivor benefits and welfare
benefits when a male wage was not available) or indirectly by fostering conditions for a
high male wage or replacement for it (pensions, unemployment insurance, and so on)
(Koven and Michel, 1993; Skocpol, 1992).
While there were always variations in access to such benefits and certainly in their
generosity (Jenson, 1986; 1989), there was a certain consensus that the social norm was
the male worker and the female carer, a norm which defined this version of maternalism.
Thus, social policy was most frequently designed to allow women – whether living in
couples or as lone parents – to conform to this norm. However, by the late 1990s it was
evident (Lewis, 2001), that another model was taking its place. This is what Jane Lewis
and others have termed the “adult worker model.” In this perspective, women are no
longer excused from participation in the labour force in order to care; they are expected
to be able to “reconcile” work and family (in Eurospeak, Mahon, 2006) or balance both
work and family. Hence, in Ann Orloff’s term, there has been a farewell to maternalism.
There is no dispute that social policy has moved towards the norm of the adult worker
model. The roots of this shift are numerous, from the claims of the second wave
women’s movement for access to equal work and pay to neoliberalism’s attack on
welfare benefits and state spending. Between the two can be found labour market
restructuring which has rendered a single, even male, wage insufficient, changing family
patterns that have brought a rising number of female-headed lone parent families,
1
Jenson, « The New Maternalism »
demographic shifts that have threatened the fiscal foundations of European and other
social insurance policy instruments, and so on (among many others see Esping-Andersen
et al., 2002; Jenson, 2006; 2010). The point here is not to document the reasons for this
new social norm of the adult-worker model but rather to acknowledge its existence.
The major claim made here is that the new norm has not banished, or said farewell to
maternalism. Rather it has re-inscribed maternalism, of another type, into social policy,
via a particular form of “gender awareness” (Molyneux, 2006).
This re-inscription follows from the social investment perspective that has reshaped much
of European and Latin American social policy since the mid-1990s. It is a perspective
that foregrounds “the child” and places women, often in the guise of “parents,” in the
background. It is a perspective that places great responsibility on mothers, for good
parenting and childrearing practices. In all of this, women as anything other than mothers
disappear from policy discourse.
When the social investment perspective is deployed, and much more than in earlier policy
paradigms, the situation of women as mothers, the issues of care, and consequences of
family transformation, particularly lone parenthood, are front and centre. Women’s
employment and work-family conciliation are no longer the purview of equality-seeking
analysts of gender relations. International organisations such as the European Union and
the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have begun
promoting greater and better public support for work-family reconciliation (Mahon,
2006).Even more dramatic is the path-setting recent political argument of GøstaEspingAndersen. After being vigorously criticised by feminists for his earlier work on social
policy and citizenship that ignored structured gender inequalities and the family
economy, Esping-Andersen now argues that a “new gender contract” is essential if the
goals of progressive social policies are to be achieved (Esping-Andersen et al., 2002). A
third example comes from Latin America where conditional cash transfers (CCT) have
become the policy instrument of choice. They involve income transfers to poor mothers
on condition that they take their children for medical care and keep them in school
(Jenson, 2010).
The social investment perspective and the policies associated with it are the product of
epistemic communities composed of social policy experts and decision-makers seeking to
“modernise” social policy after the failed experiments of the neo-liberal moment.
Women’s movements are notably absent from these discussions (Jenson, 2008).
The social investment perspective in brief
Three key features of this policy perspective can be identified (Jenson and Saint-Martin,
2006). First is the notion of constant learning, leading to a preoccupation with social
2
Jenson, « The New Maternalism »
capital, and especially early childhood education and care. Second is an orientation to the
future; children now are already creating the future according to this discourse. This is
sometimes called a child-centred social investment strategy. Finally, there is the idea that
successful individuals enrich our common future and ensuring success in the present is
beneficial for the community as a whole, now and into the future. Incorporation of these
three principles into social policy has consequences for policy design and state action.
In post-1945 social states, policy communities tended to describe government spending
on social programmes and services as expenditures on social security for social
protection, as well as serving to stimulate the economy in times of downturns in growth
and employment. Social spending was viewed, in other words, as a support for the
economy as well as individuals and families. In contrast to this set of ideas, the
neoliberal perspective of the 1980s assumed that markets could and should generate all
well-being and it spread the diagnosis that social spending and state intervention were in
conflict with economic prosperity. Such ideas generated neoliberals’ vision of the proper
responsibility mix, downplaying the role of the state in favour of “structural
adjustments.” Families were also called on to “exercise greater responsibility” for
themselves.
Despite allocating a larger role to the state and opening up greater space for social
citizenship, the social investment perspective does not reject the premise of either
Keynesians or neoliberals that the market ought to be the primary source of well-being.
It too emphasises the importance of paid employment and other forms of market income.
A common social investment prescription is the need to “make work pay,” not simply by
making it competitive with social benefits rates but also by supplementing wages,
providing low-cost services, or both. This position generates, among other things, the
adult-worker model and what the Europeans term “activation.”
The social investment perspective’s macro-economic analysis retains the focus on the
supply-side that neoliberalism instituted, and it is in this context that talk of social
investment (rather than spending) provides discursive coherence. When enthusiastic
about the market, it is of course natural to speak of investments. Therefore, as more
activities are organised according to market principles, individuals and their families are
called upon “to invest in their own human capital” so as to succeed in the labour market.
At the same time they must invest in their own futures, via savings for their retirement
pensions and their children’s education. But, in contrast to neoliberal ideas, the state is
also meant to share some of this responsibility, by ensuring adequate services (for
example, child care) as well as by income transfers to make up for the fact that market
incomes are often not high enough to meet family needs.
Nor is the perspective simply an anti-poverty measure; social investments are for the
middle-class too. It is an understanding of public interventions, in other words, that
3
Jenson, « The New Maternalism »
rallies those who want social policy to focus on education, including early childhood
education, on training, and on making work pay as well as those who are concerned about
child poverty. Sharing the OECD’s key notion developed in the mid-1990s that social
spending is not a burden but an investment in economic growth, the European Union
could quickly move towards its own version, describing social policy as a productive
factor.
The social investment perspective never achieved consensus. It is most often used to
frame the contemporary policy interventions of Nordic welfare regimes or liberal
regimes.1Bismarckian regimes in Europe have been slow to move towards social
investment while new democracies in Latin America are increasingly adopting the policy
perspective (Jenson, 2010). International organisations, such as the OECD and the United
Nations and its agencies (UNICEF for example) have been important to its development
and spread as well.
Overall, then, there are signs of growing popularity of this policy perspective and a
growing convergence in Latin American and European ideas about social citizenship. In
this convergence, some policy instruments are quite similar across the two regions, such
as those promoting human capital acquisition, programmes for asset-building and credit,
partnerships with NGOs, and local and community-based delivery. The common roots in
ideas about modifying the supply-side of the labour force are obvious. Other instruments
are less similar. In-work benefits to fight child poverty as well as services to support
parental employment have been preferred in Europe while Latin America has innovated
with conditional cash transfers (CCTs) that provide incentives to mothers to send their
children to school and for health check-ups.
Despite these differences in instrument choice, however, two policy objectives inform
action on both continents: using “investments” to break the intergenerational transfer of
poverty so as to improve future outcomes and designing programmes to decrease social
exclusion (especially nonparticipation in the labour market), because of both the current
and long-term consequences of poverty for children. Given this convergence and the
popularity of the perspective, it is reasonable to ask about the consequences of this focus
on children, on social care, on balancing work and family and on mothers’ roles.
A re-inscribed maternity – motherhood in the social investment perspective
It is possible to critique the social investment perspective as yet another social policy
perspective that fails to provide a commitment to gender equality (among others see
Jenson, 2008; 2011). One of the ways it does this is by confining any explicit
consideration women to their maternal roles. A second – which is not contradictory but
1
The exception to this generalisation is the United States under George W. Bush.
4
Jenson, « The New Maternalism »
complementary – is simply to write women out of the story by designating them with the
gender-neutral label parents.
Writing out women – mothers &girls in the social investment perspective
Two examples can be given here. One is from the social science literature that exists at
the intersection of policy analysis and policy analysis. This is Esping-Andersen’s
influential work2 on social investment which has been presented to, published by and
adopted by several policy communities within the European Union and OECD world, and
has been taken up by his followers (see for example, Morel, Palier and Palme, 2011).
This analysis finally recognises women’s central contribution to the achievement of good
societal outcomes, but these contributions are confined to two roles – as workers and as
mothers. Thus, Esping-Andersen, advocates his “new gender contract” to underpin a new
welfare state and support a child-centred social investment strategy. The structure of the
argument is straightforward. Post-industrial economies and modern families depend on
women’s employment. But women are having fewer children. This has created a new
challenge: finding a balance between employment and maternity.
In contrast to standard feminist analysis however, equality between women and men is
not the goal; he simply accepts the existence of a significant gender wage gap. In his
analysis, the most important policy instrument available to achieve an appropriate
balance is non-parental child care. The defamilialisation of care for pre-school children
will allow women to successfully combine employment and motherhood, and thereby
avoid the demographic crisis facing Europe. Defusing this crisis will be the salvation of
European social programmes as his instrumentalist book dedication so bluntly puts it:
“For today’s children who will provide for our welfare when we are old. It is for you –
and hence for ourselves – that we desire the best possible welfare state” (EspingAndersen et al, 2002: np)
A second example of this new maternalism comes from the international policy
community. In the international development community the policy focus on “women
and development” took off in the 1970s, as feminists moved into and struggled within
organisations to force them to consider gender relations and their unequal effects. The
focus has shifted in the last two decades, however, in the direction of the child-focus
common to the social investment perspective and away from adult women.
There is now little doubt that agencies of the United Nations, other international
organisations and NGOs recognise women’s economic contributions as central to any
successful development strategy. The 2000 Millennium Development Goals (MDG), for
example, reflect this focus on women’s contribution to development within a broader
2
In 1996 he provided a first analysis of social investment to the OECD. Esping-Andersen et al., (2002)
was originally commissioned by the Belgian presidency of the European Council in 2001.
5
Jenson, « The New Maternalism »
social investment perspective focused on education and human capital.3 Women are also
key targets in the now very popular micro-credit programmes, an example of an assetbuilding policy instrument in the social investment perspective.
Thus gender awareness is present in the social investment perspective promoted by these
agencies.For example, the third MDG goal is to “promote gender equality and empower
women,” a phrase that sounds very much inspired by a feminist perspective. The actual
agreed target, however, is to “eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary
education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015.”4 This
shifts the focus of the goal towards girls, with no specific target for adult women.
Without a target, attention can ebb and flow.5 Without a target, the definition of
“empowerment” itself remains underspecified and indicators can alter with the times.6
Of course, the place where adult women are consistently present is in the fifth MDG: to
improve maternal health. The target is to reduce the maternal mortality rate by three
quarters between 1990 and 2015. While completely appropriate to target, because
childbirth remains potentially deadly and otherwise damaging to millions of women,
maternity is only one of their multiple social roles. Increasingly, however, within the
social investment perspective explicit attention to adult women is overwhelmingly
focused on maternity, and particularly their contribution to demographic growth.
The much touted conditional cash transfer programmes that were initiated in Latin
America display a similar writing out of adult women. Here is a summary of the
Mexican programme (Molyneux, 2006: 439):
It is clear that the design of the programme shows evidence of gender-awareness: gender is
not only incorporated into, but is central to the management and design of, Oportunidades.
There are four main aspects to this gender sensitivity: first, the programme was one of the
earliest in Latin America to give the financial transfers (and principal responsibilities
associated with them) to the female head of participating households; second, the transfers
3
Craig Murphy writes of this shift, represented by the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) proclaimed
in 2000, this way: “By adopting them, many powerful institutions – both governmental and
intergovernmental – have come to embrace an egalitarian, human-centred view of development that was
not common-place in the 1970s. Moreover, these institutions have accepted the central role of women, and
of their empowerment, in any attempt to achieve the society-wide development goals…” (Murphy, 2006:
210-11).
4
See http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/, consulted 3 July 2009.
Women’s employment and parliamentary representation are sometimes included in annual assessments of
progress, although as a secondary factor. For example in the 2008 Millennium Development Goals Report
(http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Default.aspx), much more attention is devoted to assessing progress on the
education targets than on other possible measures of adult women’s empowerment.
5
6
While earlier reports stayed on the terrain of national decision-making, decision-making in refugee camps
appeared in the 2008 report.
6
Jenson, « The New Maternalism »
associated with children’s school attendance involved an element of affirmative action:
stipends were 10 per cent higher for girls than for boys at the onset of secondary school which
is when the risk of female drop-out is highest; and third, the programme’s health-care benefits
for children were supplemented by a scheme which monitors the health of, and provides
support for, pregnant and breastfeeding mothers and children under 2 years of age. The fourth
aspect of the project design which displays gender sensitivity is the goal to promote the
leadership and citizenship of the women subscribed. These goals are, however, inconsistent:
they represent a combination of equalitymeasures (for the girls) and maternalistmeasures (for
their mothers).
The logic of the design was quite similar to what we have seen for the MDG targets –
equality for girls and protection for maternity. There is very little in the programme
design that targets women’s need and hopes for economic autonomy or security. Indeed,
adult women’s activities except as mothers written out of the story.
Folding in: mothers as parents in the social investment perspective
The second consequence of this re-inscription of maternity in the social investment
perspective is that mothers have been simultaneously been relabelled with the genderneutral term “parent.”
One example of such folding-in comes from the international organisation perhaps most
involved in promoting the social investment perspective for modernising welfare states.
In its Babies and Bosses series, for example, the OECD’s analysis of the work-family
balance nexus was originally driven by several concerns: declining fertility, poverty, and
– in an earlier formulation – gender pay gaps.7 By the time of the synthesis report in
2007, however, the analysis had been pared down to demographic and labour supply
questions, framed in a classic social investment perspective as concern with employment
for all and the future of society:
If parents cannot achieve their desired work/family life balance, not only is their welfare
lower but economic development is also curtailed through reduced labour supply by parents.
A reduction of birth rates has obvious implications for future labour supply as well as for the
financial sustainability of social protection systems. As parenting is also crucial to child
development, and thus the shape of future societies, policy makers have many reasons to want
to help parents find a better work/family balance. 8
While the report itself includes recommendations about gender equity, the focus is on
sharing leave time (via paternity leaves) rather than on equality per se. Attention to such
sharing, just as access to ECEC services, is to be lauded. But the differential situation of
mothers and fathers are lost as they become simply “parents.”
7
See the 2004 presentation of the three country study (New Zealand, Portugal and Switzerland) at
http://www.oecd.org/document/13/0,3343,en_2649_34819_33844621_1_1_1_1,00.html.
8
This quote is from the presentation of the synthesis report on
http://www.oecd.org/document/45/0,3343,en_2649_34819_39651501_1_1_1_1,00.html
7
Jenson, « The New Maternalism »
This emphasis on parenting – which most often means mothering – is part of the
reassertion of woman-maternity connection within the social investment perspective. It
renders invisible the gender equality goals that finally came to underpin post-1960 social
policy as a result of feminist mobilisations at the national and international levels. This
means there has been a shrinking political space for women to make claims for full
citizenship, especially a social citizenship founded on equality between adult women and
men.
References
Esping-Andersen, Gøsta, Duncan Gallie, Anton Hemerijck, and John Myles. 2002. Why we need
a new welfare state. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jenson, Jane. 1986. “Gender and Reproduction: Or, Babies and the State.” Studies in Political
Economy, # 20, 9-46.
Jenson, Jane. 1989. “Paradigms and Political Discourse: Protective Legislation in France and the
United States Before 1914.”Canadian Journal of Political Science, XXII: 2, June, 23558.
Jenson, Jane. 2006. “The LEGO paradigm and new social risks: consequences for children.” In
Jane Lewis (ed.), Children, Changing Families and Welfare States.Cheltenham: Edward
Elgar, 27-50.
Jenson, Jane. 2008. “Writing Women Out, Folding Gender In. The European Union ‘Modernises’
Social Policy.” Social Politics. International Studies in Gender, State and Society, vol.
15: 2, 1-23.
Jenson, Jane. 2010. “Diffusing ideas for after-neoliberalism: The social investment perspective in
Europe and Latin America.” Global Social Politics, vol. 10: 1, 59-84.
Jenson, Jane and Denis Saint-Martin. 2006. “Building blocks for a new social architecture: the
LEGOTM paradigm of an active society.” Policy & Politics, 34: 3, 429-51.
Koven, Seth and Sonya Michel (eds). 1993. Mothers of the New World: Maternalist politics and
the origins of the welfare state. NY: Routledge.
Lewis, Jane. 2001. “The Decline of the Male Breadwinner Model: Implications for Work and
Care.” Social Politics.International Studies in Gender, State and Society, vol. 8: 2, 15269.
Mahon, Rianne. 2006. “The OECD and the work-family reconciliation agenda. Competing
frames.”In Jane Lewis (ed.), Children, Changing Families and Welfare States.
Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
8
Jenson, « The New Maternalism »
Molyneux, Maxine. 2006. “Mothers at the Service of the New Poverty Agenda:
Progresa/Oportunidades, Mexico’s Conditional Transfer Programme.” Social Politics &
Administration, vol. 40: 4, 429-40.
Morel, Nathalie, Bruno Palier and Joakim Palme (eds). 2011. Towards a social investment state?
Ideas, policies and challenges. Bristol: The Policy Press.
Murphy, Craig. 2006. The United Nations Development Programme. A Better Way? Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Orloff, Ann Shola. 2004. “Farewell to maternalism. State politicies and mothers’ employment.”
Paper presented to RC 19, Paris.
Skocpol, Theda. 1992. Protecting Mothers and Soldiers. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
9
Jenson, « The New Maternalism »