“I Feel Like It’s a Heavier Burden. . .”

The Gendered Contours of Heterosexual Partnering after Welfare Reform

Datos Bibliográficos

ID21106917
AutoresJill Weigt (0000-0002-8929-8581, California State University, San Marcos, autor de correspondencia)
Año2010
Volumen24
Número5
Páginas565-590
Fecha de publicación2010-10-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaGender & Society (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0891-2432 • E-ISSN: 1552-3977
EditorialSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0891243210382865
OpenAlexW2137948345
IdiomaNL
Citas recibidas7
Referencias citadas38

One of the explicit goals of the 1996 welfare reform in the United States was to create conditions that would encourage marriage as a means of reducing poverty and welfare “dependency.” With the exception of a few notable studies that examine reliance on abusive partners and former partners, relatively little scholarly attention has been given to the contours of partnering after welfare reform. Using a feminist lens on data from two qualitative studies, the author examines the partnership experiences of a sample of mostly white women three to four years after they had left welfare. An exploration of women’s views of their transitions into and their experiences with partnering reveals that women (re)align with a logic of heterosexual partnering that holds the potential to complicate their lives. The analysis sounds a precautionary note and provides empirical evidence that partnering in the context of the reduced options of welfare reform can diminish women’s long-term stability and that encouraging partnering is, ultimately, an unsustainable policy direction for the support of lone mothers

Economic growth · Economics · General partnership · Geography · Political science · Poverty · Welfare · Welfare reform · Family Dynamics and Relationships · Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics · Intergenerational Family Dynamics and Caregiving · Law