Family, dependence, and the origins of the welfare state : Britain and France, 1914-1945

The development of European welfare states in the first half of this century has often been seen as a response to the rise of class politics. This study of social policies in Britain and France between 1914 and 1945 contests this interpretation. It argues, by contrast, that early policymakers and social reformers were responding equally to a perceived crisis of family relations and gender roles. The institutions they developed continue to structure the welfare state as it exists today. This book is innovative in the range and scope of its research, its comparative focus, and its argument, which poses a challenge to older class-based interpretations of the development of the welfare state. It will be of interest to scholars of European history and politics, as well as to those interested in social policy and women's studies. "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 Frontmatter (page N/A) List of tables and figure (page xi) Acknowledgments (page xiii) Abbreviations (page xv) Introduction: On dependence and distribution (page 1) 1. Programs and Precedents (page 23) 1. The family in question: State and family in prewar thought and politics (page 25) 2. The impact of the Great War (page 79) 2. Reworking the family wage in the twenties (page 135) 3. Family policy as women's emancipation? The failed campaign for endowment of motherhood in Britain (page 138) 4. Family policy as "socialism in our time"? The failed campaign for children's allowances in Britain (page 178) 5. Business strategies and the family: The development of family allowances in France, 1920-1936 (page 224) 3. The politics of state intervention in the thirties (page 289) 6. Engendering the British welfare state (page 292) 7. Distributive justice and the family: Toward a parental welfare state (page 357) Conclusion (page 413) Bibliography (page 427) Index (page 465) When British and French social reformers and politicians discussed measures to aid families in the period between the wars, they often had the same policy in mind: cash allowances for dependent children.