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When Social Security Fails to Provide Emotional Security: Single Parent Households and the Contractual Welfare State

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 April 2013

Evelien Tonkens  and
Loes Verplanke
Evelien Tonkens
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Amsterdam E-mail: e.h.tonkens@uva.nl
Loes Verplanke
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Amsterdam E-mail: jansenverplanke@uva.nl
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Abstract

The provision of services in the contractual welfare state is conditional. If one wants to receive a service, one has to comply with the demands of the provider. If one fails to do so, the organisation threatens to terminate its services, and indeed often does so. There are, however, people who breach their contracts time after time, falling back into the same dire situation that prompted them to ask for help in the first place. Social workers must then visit these people to help them re-enter the contract. This article draws on an in-depth analysis of such ‘behind the front door’ policies, focussing on single mothers on welfare. It argues that for many single mothers on welfare, social security fails to provide emotional and relational security, which undermines their ability to fulfil the terms of the contract. So long as the welfare state is based on the idea of (material) social security, ‘behind the front door’ workers remain urgently needed.

Keywords

Multi-problem familiessingle mothers on welfareconditional welfare statebehind-the-front-door programsemotional security
Type
Themed Section on Welfare State Reform, Recognition and Emotional Labour
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , July 2013 , pp. 451 - 460
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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