Taming ‘Barbarians’: Young Men, the Patriarchal Family and In-Work Relief

Abstract

In the previous chapter we saw how certain aspects of market workfare were developed in the context of the importance of neo-liberal analyses of ‘the family’ to free-market economies. It was shown how in such analyses ‘the family’ is seen as a crucial institutional transmitter of traditional moralities that are held to ensure the continued prosperity of ‘the market’. That chapter focused upon the ways in which in the short term governments have attempted to ensure that children in lone mother-headed households are exposed to the specific traditional morality of a role model in paid work in the formal economy. Using Walby’s distinction we argued that a particular form of market workfare — Family Credit (replaced by the ‘new Labour’ version, WFTC) and Parent Plus (replaced by the NDLP and SWFG by ‘new Labour’) — aimed to renegotiate public patriarchy with a greater emphasis upon ‘the market’.