Book Launch: Women and Welfare Conditionality

This is the first of our termly Urban Studies and Social Policy Research Seminars.

We are delighted to welcome our own Prof. Sharon Wright to discuss her award-winning monograph, which won the Social Policy Association Richard Titmuss Prize 2024.

Following the discussion, guests are invited to 25 Bute Gardens for refreshements.

Abstract:

Recent welfare reforms, based on austerity narratives and a gender-neutral rationale, have failed to recognise the ways in which women and men experience the different demands and rewards of paid employment and unpaid care.

This book draws on a wealth of qualitative longitudinal evidence to cast light on women’s lived experiences of welfare and work. Giving voice to social security recipients, this book uncovers the hidden gendered bias of conditional welfare reforms to challenge dominant political discourses, policy design and practice norms.

It combines and develops three interdisciplinary perspectives – feminist analysis, lived experience and street-level bureaucracy – to offer a new understanding of British welfare reform policies and practice.

Host or Publisher Division of Urban Studies and Social Policy, University of Glasgow