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Moral Codes of Mothering and the Introductionof Welfare-to-Work in Ontario

AMBER GAZSO

York University

Dans cet article, je trace les paralleles entre la reforme de l’assistancesociale en Ontario, principalement dans l’application de l’employabilitedes meres seules via les programmes de transition de l’assistance socialeau marche du travail apres les annees 90, et la transformation des codesmoraux predominants de la maternite: de �mere au foyer� a �mere autravail�. De plus, j’utilise ce cas comme porte d’entree afin de considererl’implication des allegeances public et politique a ces codes moraux pourtoutes les meres. Mon argumentation principale est que l’introductiondes programmes de transition de l’assistance sociale au marche dutravail n’est pas que le resultat de la politique neoliberal de l’etat, maisaussi de la propagation des idees de la maternite morale a l’exterieur despolitiques dans les politiques.

In this paper, I trace how the reform of social assistance in Ontario,especially the post-1990s enforcement of lone mothers’ employability viawelfare-to-work programs, parallels shifts in dominant moral codes ofmothering, from “mother-carer” to “mother-worker.” Additionally, I usethis case as an entry point to consider the implications of public andpolicy allegiance to these moral codes for all mothers. The centralargument I make is that the introduction of welfare-to-work programs inOntario did not occur in a neoliberal state-sanctioned vacuum but alsoinvolved the circulation of ideas about moral mothering outside of policyinto policy.

CONSIDERABLE RESEARCH EXPLORES the negative outcomes of ne-oliberal inspired reform of social assistance programs and policies inCanada1 for lone mothers. The National Council on Welfare (2010) finds

The author gratefully acknowledges the helpful comments on this paper that were provided by theanonymous reviewers. As well, special thanks to Cheryl Athersych for her review of earlier drafts ofthis paper.

Amber Gazso, Department of Sociology, Founders College, Room 134, York University, 4700 KeeleStreet, Toronto, ON, Canada M3J 1P3. E-mail: [email protected]. Each Canadian province designs and administers social assistance programs.

C© 2012 Canadian Sociological Association/ La Societe canadienne de sociologie

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Moral Codes of Mothering 27

that reforms have resulted in monthly social assistance benefits that arenot enough to raise a mother and her child above the Low Income Cut Offs(LICOs). Scholars have observed how reforms have paralleled changes inpolicy conceptualization of lone mothers’ social citizenship rights (Bezan-son 2006; Breitkreuz 2005) or how lone mothers’ lives are morally regulatedthrough social assistance policy (Little 1994, 2006). The critical emphasison neoliberalism as the driving force behind social assistance reform, how-ever, has resulted in a lack of attention to how neoliberalism is but onediscourse of many (Padamsee 2009) that have influenced provincial so-cial assistance reform and impacted low income mothers’ experiences ofmothering alone.

In this paper, I ask: How does the introduction of welfare-to-workpolicies and programs and the concurrent enforcement of lone mothers’employability in Ontario social assistance policy parallel cultural shiftsin dominant moral codes of mothering? I take up principles of ideationalanalysis (Beland 2009; Padamsee 2009) to place attention on how policychange must also be understood as reflecting social cultural ideas anddiscourses about mothering. I reveal a shift in moral codes of motheringwithin the wider Canadian social milieu from the postwar period onward.I then trace how Ontario social assistance policy has been reformed toregulate lone mothers’ conformity to these moral codes through changesin the conditions of lone mothers’ entitlement. Finally, I use this caseas an entry point to consider the larger implications of public and policyallegiance to these moral codes for all mothers.

My central argument is that the introduction of welfare-to-work pro-grams in Ontario did not occur in a neoliberal state-sanctioned vacuumbut also involved the circulation of ideas about moral mothering outside ofpolicy into policy. Practices of and attitudes toward moral mothering thathave transformed outside of policy are linked to changing perceptions oflone mothers’ citizenship rights and expectations of their behaviors withinpolicy. And social assistance policy change must also be read as reveal-ing changes in discourses about moral mothering in general. With theentrenchment of new moral codes in our wider society, all mothers, re-gardless of their income, share particular challenges in their efforts to begood mothers today.

IN BRIEF: A NEOLIBERAL ACCOUNT OF SOCIALASSISTANCE REFORM

The reform of social assistance programs and policies in each Canadianprovince tends to be understood as connected to a national neoliberalagenda (see, e.g., Bashevkin 2002; Breitkreuz 2005; Coulter 2009).2 Ma-terializing in the 1970s as an economic doctrine and ideology (Hartman

2. As Peck and Tickel (2002:387) observe, neoliberalism as a policy paradigm is variegated in character.It has been used to justify both the roll back of social policy through economic restructuring throughout

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2005), neoliberalism “Canadian-style” stressed the need for retrenchmentor the “rolling back” of existing social programs rather than redistribu-tion of limited state supports, largely in response to the perceived fiscalcrisis associated with spending (e.g., deficits and debts) on social welfareprograms (Peck and Tickell 2002). This orientation was shared with otherliberal western welfare3 states, including the United States and GreatBritain, which experienced similar crisis discourses about social spend-ing in the midst of economic recessions and unpredictable internationaltrading markets (Bashevkin 2002).

With an emphasis on smaller government, greater free market compe-tition, individualization, and reduced collective security for citizens, neolib-eralism has increasingly driven policy reform at national and provinciallevels in Canada (Baker and Tippin 1999; Brodie 1996). Throughout the1990s, reforms once primarily influenced by economic concerns were com-plemented by the “rolling out” of new forms of government intervention andregulation embedded within social policies (Peck and Tickell 2002). Theseneoliberal processes have impacted the reform of social assistance pro-grams and policies across Canada, particularly via the replacement of thenational Canada Assistance Plan (CAP) with the Canada Health and SocialTransfer (CHST) in 1995. Dramatically altering minimum conditions forthe provision of income support to residents in provinces and eliminatingthe 50/50 funding arrangements for its cost, the CHST created economicuncertainty in provinces and thereby opened up opportunities for provincesto experiment with social welfare provisions (Battle 1998). In particular,the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario responded to re-duced funding from the federal government, their yearly deficits, and largecaseloads of “dependent” mothers with a mix of “roll back” and “roll out”neoliberal measures: cutting benefit amounts, introducing stricter employ-ability requirements through welfare-to-work policies, and ratcheting upof eligibility criteria (Cooke and Gazso 2009).

Many scholars have also observed how post-1990s neoliberal reformstrategies have produced a citizenship shift, a shift from perceiving citi-zens as having rights to social welfare on the basis of need alone—socialcitizenship—toward perceiving citizens as “employable” and thereforerequired to meet certain paid work conditions in order to receive benefits—

the 1970s to 1980s and the roll out of newer social policy ideas and actions about regulation especiallyfrom the 1990s onward. They also stress that neoliberalization processes may operate differently atthe local level but are part of transnational discourses; they have “local peculiarities” and “genericfeatures” (388). My paper is grounded in the scholarly awareness that some general principles contourthis ideology and its impact on Canadian social policy—hence my reference to a “national project”and “neoliberalism Canadian style”—and that some of these same features are shared by other liberalwelfare states. Simultaneously, my analysis reveals how “roll back” and “roll out” neoliberal processeshave generally shaped social assistance reform in Canada.

3. Liberal welfare regimes are characterized by targeted means-tested benefits, modest redistributionon the basis of universality, and greater expectations of the achievement of income security throughmarket participation (Esping-Andersen 1990).


market citizenship (Evans 1996; Pulkingham, Fuller, and Kershaw 2010).Gender differences are often neutralized in market citizenship claims tostate support; women and men are increasingly perceived to be equallyresponsibility as employable citizens (O’Connor, Orloff, and Shaver 1999).With regard to social assistance, the introduction of the CHST has beennoted as symbolically and actually transforming citizenship rights to in-come support (Lightman and Riches 2000). Whereas the right to adequateassistance and freedom from enforced participation in job and/or train-ing programs was preserved under CAP, these citizen rights disappearedunder the CHST. Their absence and reduced attention to gender differ-ence were most noticeable in the considerable leeway provinces targetedwelfare-to-work programs (e.g., participation in job training, job searches,or education program) at recipients designated as employable from 1995onward. For example, since 2002 in British Columbia, employable lonemothers have experienced time limits on their receipt of support that aretied to their employability efforts. Once their youngest child reaches agethree, they have two years to find paid work (Klein and Montgomery 2001).In Alberta, lone mothers designated as employable have been expected toseek paid work when their youngest child is three years of age since 1993.Across Canada, lone mothers’ rights to income support are now increas-ingly contingent on their employability, their actual or eventual partici-pation in paid work (Breitkreuz 2005; Evans 1996), and/or their marketcitizenship.

Although social assistance has always been understood as a programof last resort and recipients were expected to improve their labor marketpotential and to exit assistance (especially since the early 1980s) (Light-man and Riches 2000), participation in welfare-to-work type programs wasnot strictly enforced under CAP. Post-CHST, participation in welfare-to-work is often legally mandated and reflects punitive and regulatory con-ditions associated with roll out neoliberalism. Neoliberal welfare-to-workprograms and policies thereby constrain and regulate individual choiceand citizenship enactment by enforcing a strong market ethos above allelse (Harvey 2007). It is the practices of meeting this objective and thecontingency of benefit receipt in line with it that acutely illustrates howcitizenship rights to support have changed with the introduction of welfare-to-work programs. The specific neoliberal reforms and changing citizenshiprights in Ontario in tandem with shifts in moral codes of mothering are thefocus of this paper. Before sharing my findings, I explain my conceptualframework and analysis strategy in the next section.

ANALYZING MORAL CODES OF MOTHERING INRELATION TO SOCIAL ASSISTANCE REFORM

Adopting some principles of ideational analysis is suitable for answer-ing the primary question of this paper: How does the introduction of

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welfare-to-work programs and the enforcement of lone mothers’ employa-bility in Ontario social assistance policy parallel cultural shifts in dominantmoral codes of mothering? First, ideational analysis requires shifting thefocus from perceiving social assistance reform as solely attributable to ne-oliberal ideology and instead seeing neoliberalism as a discourse runningparallel to other hidden ideational dynamics behind reform. Second, thisapproach operates on the assumption that policymakers and governmentofficials are the major social actors behind policy change but that their po-sition in wider culture shapes the conditions under which they entertainand make change (Padamsee 2009).

According to Padamsee (2009), ideational analysis is a method ofpolicy analysis where the focus is on how culture, ideas, and discourseplay a role in policy change. This method assumes Nancy Fraser’s (2006)argument that cultural norms cannot be divorced from material eco-nomic realities and are institutionalized in policy design and adminis-tration. Beland (2009) and Padamsee (2009) usefully define the centralconcepts of this approach. Culture is defined as representing systemsof meaning that guide the beliefs, norms, and values of group mem-bers, whereas ideas include claims about the social world and/or beliefsabout the legitimacy of particular norms. Discourses organize the di-verse meaning systems and ideas into multiple texts (see Beland 2009;Padamsee 2009). A wealth of feminist scholarship confirms the useful-ness of this approach. For example, Orloff (1996) reveals how welfareregimes must be understood as shaped by normative ideas about gen-der relations, including discourses about mothering, that are sociallyand culturally constructed and vice versa. For Orloff (1996), the wel-fare state reproduces gender hierarchies and patriarchal family dynamicssuch that men have historically had more powerful citizenship claims onstate support as paid workers than women. Lewis (2002) traces changesin social policy alongside transitions in models of and discourses aboutfamily life, finding that when a masculine model of men’s paid workis generalized to women, it has profound implications for their caregiving.

For the purposes of this paper, the ideational approach facilitates anunderstanding of: how systems of meaning about moral mothering becomesocially constructed through and constituted by social policy; how moralideas about mothering are shaped and held by people in general societybut also adopted by social actors and institutionalized in state responses;and how discourses about moral mothering are multiple, across severalsocietal and policy domains, and change over time. From this perspective,then, moral ideas and discourses about mothering are understood to shapepolicy change, especially the introduction of welfare-to-work programs viathe transformation of lone mothers’ citizenship in Ontario social assistancepolicy.


Philosophically, morality encompasses the efforts of individuals toguide their conduct by reason (Rachels 1986). Sociologically, moralityrefers to the “totality of rules, codes, values and norms which are usedto justify behavior by labeling it ‘right’ or ‘wrong’” (Sevenhuijsen 1998:36). An individual’s morality is displayed or performed as “good” or “bad”when they engage in behavior that does or does not comply with a cul-ture’s norms. The linkages between morality and mothering are observ-able through dominant ideas and discourses within a particular culture.The performance of mothering is culturally derived (Liamputtong 2006).For example, in western liberal and other postindustrial states, womenare to bear children and as “good” mothers are perceived to be nurturing,loving or affectionate, and self-sacrificing carers, permitting the meetingof others’ needs to outweigh the meeting of their own. Mothers are selflessand “live for others” rather than themselves (Rich 1976). “Good” mothersare also providers, protectors, and teachers, engaging in the necessary andoften hidden work to ensure bodies are fed and bathed and manners andsocial norms are taught so that offspring can actively and normativelyengage in society throughout their life course.

Whereas May (2008) maintains that codes for moral behavior can bethought of as synonymous with social norms, Foucault (1985:25) offersa more convincing argument that morality itself is recommended and/orlearned via socialization by individuals through their interactions withvarious cultural institutions, such as the family, educational system, andchurches. Individuals conduct and constitute themselves as ethical sub-jects by behaving in the ways determined by the moral code of any prescrip-tive system (Foucault 1985 [emphasis added]). As Brock (2003) explainsfurther, through their interactions with others and institutions, individu-als within society experience moral regulation of their behavior accordingto certain forms of conduct and expression, or a code. The state is an in-stitution that practices moral regulation by adapting cultural norms andvalues about “good” behaviors into rights and responsibilities and codify-ing it in law (e.g., criminal law) and social policy (Brock 2003). And as Rich(1976) argued over 30 years ago, motherhood itself is an institution repletewith powerful and gendered scripts of morally appropriate behavior. How-ever, since all institutions transform parallel with economic, demographic,political, and cultural changes, so too do moral codes, only sometimes tothe point of disappearance (Foucault 1985). And since moral codes are notuniversal but rather differentially constructed in different cultures thatare varyingly modern, what is moral about mothering in one society maynot be the case in another (Liamputtong 2006; Rachels 1986) and may behighly contested (Brock 2003).

In my analysis that follows, I assume that mothering is performedmorally if it conforms to the moral code of a given society during a par-ticular period of time. Moral mothering is socially constructed and cultur-ally and discursively prescribed (Reilly 2004). Drawing on assumptions of

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ideational analysis, this conceptualization of moral codes of mothering, andsecondary research, I now turn to how different ideas about mothering arecodified in wider culture and become imbricated within social assistancepolicy change in Ontario with particular consequences.

CHANGING MORAL CODES OF MOTHERING: POST WWIIONWARD

The immediate postwar period in Canada has been characterized as oneof social wariness and fragility. Politicians and economists were strug-gling with facilitating a healthy economic and social climate for individualsseverely impacted by the insecurities created by the world wars, includingfractured familial bonds and unstable incomes because of the loss or dis-ability of family members and the precariousness of the Canadian politicaleconomy (Finkel 2006). The development of economic and social policy onthe basis of social liberalism (Mahon 2008) and Keynesianism suggestedpoliticians’ awareness of these societal risks and a desire to harness themin a collective social project oriented toward redistributing wealth, creatingfamily security, and nation (re)building (Brodie 2008).

Smart (1996) maintains that rules and ideas about mothering becomemost visible through state constructions of and responses to mothers. Thenorm of full-time mothering4 at home, particularly noticeable during the“Golden Age” of the 1950s family, was linked to especially generous post-war social policy provisions for veterans (Cowen 2008) and a labor marketoriented toward providing a living wage for male earners. Full-time moth-ering at home was increasingly perceived as socially valuable, morallygood, and culturally normative for several other political and personal rea-sons. Bearing and rearing children in a matrimonial home correspondedwith nuclear family values and gender roles (Liamputtong 2006) and wasfor the good of the nation (Hayes 1996). Full-time mothering at home wasalso perceived to ensure children’s optimal psychosocial development (May2008) and the eventual socialization of adults who would be normativelyand actively engaged citizens in society (Finkel 2006; Hayes 1996). More-over, the key to women’s self-actualization and fulfillment was perceivedto be through their mothering (Hays 1996). This cultural codification of“good” mothering represents what I term the “mother-carer” moral code.

The “mother-carer” moral code is not identical to but assumes somequalities of what Hayes (1996) identifies as an ideology of intensive mother-ing. From the mid-twentieth century onward, Hayes maintains that moth-ers have been persuaded to see children as priceless and that their indi-vidual mothering must involve tremendous amounts of time, energy, andmoney and be informed by “expert” methods—all in order to be a “good”

4. Full-time mothering refers to women who do not work for pay in any manner and instead engage solelyin unpaid domestic labor.


mother. Like Hayes (1996) observes about the ideology of intensive moth-ering, I recognize the “mother-carer” moral code as a social constructiondeeply rooted in powerful and changing discourses about mothering. WhileI note the existence of this code in the postwar period, historical accountsreveal that motherhood as an institution emerged by the nineteenth cen-tury through several discourses and included the idea that the nurturingand caring performed by mothers in the private sphere was strongly sup-ported by the state. For example, the middle class cult of domesticity, whichstressed women’s management of the home through norms of femininity(e.g., nurturing, caring), shaped the mothering of especially nonracializedmiddle class mothers throughout the nineteenth century (Cott 1977; Silva1996). Maternalist feminists advocated for social rights for women on thebasis of their citizen claims as mothers (Orloff 2006; Smart 1996). Thesereformers sought social policies that supported women’s roles as mothersbut also, when necessary, their roles as paid workers with care-giving re-sponsibilities (Orloff 2006). Women who entered the public and politicalsphere as mothers were entitled to state support that would protect theiridentities as mothers and their children, leading to what Orloff (1996)terms women’s equality in difference. In Canada, the universal Family Al-lowance created in 1945 by the Liberal government to help families withthe cost of raising children, crystallized maternalist efforts for recognitionof their gender differences in care-giving demands, though without cre-ating opportunities for women’s independence. Family Allowances werepaid to all mothers with children under 16 (18 in later years) each monthregardless of their net family income or employment status (Baker andTippin 1999; Battle 1998) but were to supplement the wages of workinghusbands and/or mothers themselves rather than replace them.5

Negative repercussions of the “mother-carer” code are well establishedin the wider literature. The “mother-carer” code was distinctly classist andEurocentric and so largely overlooked the experiences of poor and racial-ized mothers (Hooks 1981). Male privilege was also maintained throughthe code’s preservation of nuclear family gender relations (Silva 1996). Theattributes and activities of mothering, including those which successfullyreproduced men’s paid work and leisure opportunities, were perceived assubordinate to men’s earning power and privilege in the public sphere(Luxton 1997). Nonetheless, post-1945, the existence of the “mother-carer”moral code can be credited to North American culture, to specifically fem-inist aspirations for recognition of women’s different and unique responsi-bilities as mothers, qualities of intensive mothering, and the patriarchalmodel of the nuclear family (Eichler 1997), all noticeably valorized by 1950smedia (e.g., the American television show Leave it to Beaver) and assumedin the design of immediate postwar social policies.

5. In 1993, universal Family Allowances were replaced with the means-tested Child Tax Benefit. Whileimportant changes have since occurred, this policy is not the focus of this paper.

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The moral code of “mother-worker” that materialized from the 1970sonward was and is qualitatively different than that of the code preceding it.Although the “mother-carer” code has not completely disappeared, the ac-tual performance of mothering and normative ideas about it began to shiftthroughout the experimental time of the 1960s. Several interconnectedfactors influenced this shift in Canada, including women’s increasing en-trance into the workforce, the advocacy and civil rights efforts of feministmovements, and the changing economy.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, women made significant inroads inthe labor market. In 1971, 37 percent of married women were in the laborforce compared to 11.2 percent in 1951 (Fox with Yiu 2009). Whereas 42percent of all women over the age of 15 were part of the paid work forcein 1976 (Statistics Canada 2007), 62 percent of all women were part of thelabor force in 2010 (Statistics Canada 2011). Women’s increased entranceinto and experience of the paid labor market is linked to the considerableefforts of the post-1950 Canadian women’s movement (Hamilton 2005).Liberal feminists were particularly influential in denouncing maternalistclaims of women’s difference and superiority in the private sphere and in-stead argued for women’s inclusion in all facets of the public sphere. Suchan “equality in opportunity” orientation toward women’s participation inthe public sphere was linked to reformers’ efforts to improve women’sopportunities in paid employment and state supports for family care pro-visions to enable this employment. Feminist advocacy therefore assisted inthe eventual displacement of the patriarchal model of the family assumedwithin social policy in favor of the adult worker model (Lewis and Giullari2005) or what Scott (1999) terms the gender-neutral worker-citizen model,where women and men were increasingly perceived as equally necessary totheir family’s emotional and financial well-being. Developments in socialpolicy and law also illustrate this shift toward neutralizing gender differ-ences among women and men across private and public spheres. Whereasthe 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms preserved gender equality asa right for all citizens, Eichler (1997) observes that within the context ofCanadian family law, husbands and wives were increasingly understood tohave equal responsibilities of paid work and care giving. UnemploymentInsurance underwent changes, including the introduction of maternityleave, throughout the 1970s and 1980s that increased women’s eligibilitylargely on the assumption that women were as likely to be involved inpaid labor as men and so just as likely to require temporary support whenunemployed (Pulkingham 1998).

Women’s entrance into paid work and the increasing definition of themas paid workers similar to men was connected to other changes in the po-litical economy. From the 1960s onward, nuclear families became increas-ingly less capable of achieving economic stability on a husband’s wagealone (Hamilton 2005). Such material circumstances also facilitated theseparation of women’s care giving from the private realm. For example,


65 percent of all mothers with children under the age of three partici-pated in the labor market in some way in 2005, compared to 28 percent in1976 (Statistics Canada 2007). According to Silva (1996), the increase inwomen’s paid labor participation reflects the demand for women workersin the service economy and their amenability to this form of part-time paidwork because of care-giving demands. For Silva (1996), these two trendshave colluded to de-center larger social constructions of women’s identitiesas mothers and carers and opened up opportunities to perceive them aspaid workers.

Whereas we can understand post-1940 moral mothering as histori-cally associated with child rearing and caring, entrenched in powerful dis-courses of domesticity and maternalism for middle-class mothers, moralmothering of the latter half of the twentieth century and early twenty-first century is mothering characterized by an inseparability of caring andearning (see also Hayes 1996) and, thus, a newer gendered division of laborin nuclear families (Mason 1999). As Arlie Hochschield painted the imageso vividly in The Second Shift: Working Parents and the Revolution atHome, the epitome of mothers today are “supermoms”—the “women withthe flying hair”—dressed for the office with their child and briefcase inhand (Hochschild 1989). Today, public consensus on the performance ofgood mothering is connected to heavier emphasis on mothers’ paid laborengagement and the necessity of this performance in a capitalist economy.The “mother-worker” moral code of mothering retains some elements of in-tensive mothering or what Reilly (2004:14) terms “sacrificial mothering,”particularly the idea that mothers are deeply satisfied with the mother-ing role, committed to being the best carers for children, and continuedallegiance to “expert” discourses. But these elements are tempered by aneoliberal and gender neutral policy discourse of labor market participa-tion directed at all mothers.6 The “mother-worker” moral code interlocksthe intensity associated with the perceived innate qualities of motheringwith the demands of the capital market place.

Two distinct moral codes of mothering are noticeable in Canadianculture from the 1940s onward. The two moral imperatives attached towomen’s mothering were and are connected to the changing political econ-omy in which mothering is performed and shifting norms about mother-ing. The institutions of the family, state, and market have colluded in thesystematic prescription of these codes. However, while it is tempting toargue that a distinct shift in moral codes of mothering has occurred, it ismore pragmatic to note one important caveat: older moral codes continueto exist alongside new ones, perhaps weakened in impact if not in mean-

6. Notably, there are exemptions in the effect of the “mother-worker” moral code. Middle- and upper-classmothers who are part of nuclear families where their husbands are high-income earners may exemptthemselves from allegiance to a “paid work” norm.

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ing (Phoenix 1996).7 Sevenhuijsen (1998) summarizes the moral dilemmasand choices today’s mothers face when mothering and, in doing so, deftlycaptures the intractability of moral codes of mothering:

. . . it often seems as if women can only enter into the ranks of the moral com-munity, the collection of people who are considered capable of true morality,if they are prepared to leave behind ‘feminine’ phenomena such as embod-iment, affectivity, and connection and consider themselves and their sex ingeneral to be purely rational beings. A different route to moral acceptance isto fulfill the traditional image of womanhood in which women are attributeda specific morality of self-denial and dedication to others. If a woman fulfilsthe image of self-sacrificing moral mother there will always be a pedestalwaiting for her. Both solutions imply that women must sublimate their owninterests and desires and subordinate themselves to something or someoneelse. (P. 49)

PARALLEL SHIFTS: MORALLY MOTHERINGON SOCIAL ASSISTANCE AND THE INTRODUCTIONOF WELFARE-TO-WORK

Boychuck (1998) classifies the Ontario social assistance system as a con-servative regime, characterized by differential treatment of citizens whoare perceived as deserving or undeserving of income support and the re-inforcement of particular “gendered familial-status hierarchies” that aresubject to change over time. While he maintains that the changing classi-fication of lone parents as employable or unemployable in any social assis-tance regime implicitly reveals the model of optimal family arrangementendorsed by the state, I find it also parallels moral codes of mothering.The “mother-carer” and “mother-worker” moral codes are embedded in thepost-1945 restructuring of social assistance policy in Ontario in two ways:(1) implicit ideas and discourses about the mothering performed by lonemothers; and (2) explicit changes in the conceptualization of lone mothers’social citizenship rights to income support. Table 1 is a visual depiction ofthese processes.

In immediate postwar Ontario, mothers’ allowances (introduced in1921) were the main source of income support for low-income lone moth-ers and were funded by the province and administered by municipalities

7. For example, Hayes (1996) maintains that this is one of the major contradictions of the ideology ofintensive mothering in society. With more women engaged in paid labor, one may expect a subsequentdecline in the expectations of mothers to so intensely engage in child rearing and caring. Instead,the ideology of intensive mothering has been preserved, and has even taken on newer and sometimesdivergent meanings, including the importance placed on mothers’ paid work attachment in orderto provide for their children. As well, Hayes (1996) notes the growth of new methods oriented towardhelping mothers be successful at balancing their mothering with competing time demands, for example,the reliance on expert and expensive child care.


Table 1

Moral Codes of Mothering and Social Assistance Policies

Moral codes of mothering

“Mother-Carer” “Mother-Worker”

Social assistancepolicy

Postwar Ontario Mothers’Allowance to FamilyBenefits

Post-1995 Welfare-to-Work Ontario Works

Culture, Ideas, and Discourses about “Good” MotheringPerceptions of

motheringNurturers and carers Earners and carers

Model of the family Male breadwinner Adult workerRecognition of

genderdifference

Gender specific Gender neutral

Citizenship rights Social citizenship Market citizenshipConception of

welfarerecipient

Dependent Independent

Assessment ofdeservedness

“Good” motheringinvolves care givingthat conforms todominant ideas anddiscourses

“Good” motheringinvolves employabilityefforts that conform todominant ideas anddiscourses

(Finkel 2006).8 Generally grounded in a social liberalist orientation, as-sistance benefits were granted to lone mothers on the basis of their socialrights as mothers and carers so long as they were found in dire economiccircumstances. The assumption was that their “good” mothering at homewas a “legitimate alternative to labor market participation” (Boychuck1998:34). Lone mothers were perceived by social actors as unemployablein the strict sense of paid work employment. Instead, mothers in eco-nomic need who applied to receive benefits and deemed as deserving werethought to share an employment status of caregiver for future genera-tions (Boychuck 1998 [emphasis added]). When perceived in this manner,women were paid carers for the state and the state itself replaced the roleof economic provider typically held by men (Little and Morrisson 1998).The meager rate of benefits, however, ensured that mothers’ receipt ofthe allowances avoided challenging men’s privileged role in earning. Andto maintain the perception of their deserving of support for their perfor-mance of nurturing and caring, mothers were subject to excessive intrusioninto and surveillance of their lives (Little 2006).

8. Mothers’ allowances existed alongside other social assistance programs for Ontarians (Boychuck 1998).

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According to Little (1994, 2006), moral regulation of mothers has al-ways been part of Ontario Mothers’ Allowances (OMA). Financial supportwas directly contingent on mothers’ allegiance to norms and expectationsconcerning “good” motherhood. Mothers experienced the constant threatthat their mothering may not measure up to state expectations and severeconsequences could then materialize, such as the removal of their children(Boychuck 1998:35). Little (1994, 2006) also observes that ideas about lonemothers’ deservedness of support and modes of regulation changed overtime. Poor widowed mothers were perceived as most deserving of OMA.Although reforms made to the program from the 1950s onward reflectedgreater awareness of the various pathways in which women became lonemothers, receipt of benefits were still accompanied by constraining condi-tions. Deserted wives became eligible for support after a six-month wait-ing period and if they were unaware of the whereabouts of their spouse.Divorcees became eligible in 1951 but only if they had a divorce decreeand full custody of their children. In 1955, unwed mothers who conceivedand had children on their own were entitled to support after a two-yearwaiting period during which their fitness as mothers was used to assesstheir worthiness (Little 1994, 2006). At the same time that policy becamemore inclusive of some lone mothers, it continued to exclude separatedand common law mothers. Separated mothers were not deemed eligible forsupport until 1979 (Little 1994:236). All lone mothers who were perceivedas living in marriage-like relationships with men also risked the termi-nation of their benefits under the “spouse-in-the-house” rule, discussedbelow (Boychuck 1998). And since employment opportunities increased forwomen from the 1950s onward, lone mothers were heavily monitored forparticipation in paid work and expelled from caseloads should their paidwork earnings amount to more than approved income and asset levels foreligibility (Little 2006).

These changing perceptions of lone mothers’ social citizenship rightsto income support can be traced parallel to the general “mother-carer”moral code of wider society and its attendant assumptions of patriarchalnuclear family relations. For example, it is reasonable to infer that wid-owed mothers were understood by social actors as most deserving becausethey had mothered within the confines of a nuclear family unit where, con-ceivably, their partners had active labor market attachment prior to theirdeaths. The earlier commodification of a deceased husband’s labor essen-tially acted in ways to achieve a widowed mother’s de-commodification andentitlement to support from the state. Perhaps more meaningful than this,widowed mothers could be perceived to have borne a child within the moralpurview of marriage rather than out of wedlock. Because these mothershad cared and reared their children in the ways deemed appropriate bythe general “mother-carer” code before their husband’s death, they wereentitled to support. Widowed lone mothers performed the socially valuablework of child rearing and caring for the benefit of the common good, a


moral basis upon which they could make a rights-based claim to incomesupport.

Viewing OMA reforms in tandem with the “mother-carer” moral code,it is also not surprising that the inclusion of unwed mothers as eligiblewas controversial (Little 2006) and that these mothers’ deservedness wasparticularly tested and consistently scrutinized. Any caseworker’s alle-giance to the “mother-carer” moral code would require adopting the view-point that mothers who had children on their own with no immediateintimate attachment to an able-bodied man were morally circumspect.Unwed mothers contravened the social norms of the nuclear family andideas that children were best raised by two parents occupying specific gen-der roles. As well, deserted wives could be afforded similar perceptions. Ahusband’s leaving was likely interpreted as not simply due to his characterbut also suggested in some way that the mother in question was deficientat being a “good” mother and caregiver.

Despite differences in how lone mothers were subject to moral reg-ulation because of their pathways into lone motherhood, they were gen-erally perceived as entitled to income support if they conformed to the“mother-carer” moral code. “Good” mothering on state support, in accor-dance with “middle-class moral and social standards” (Mason 1999:96)was interpreted as a form of “good” dependency. As Knijn and Kremer(1997) maintain, postwar pensions for single mothers and widows bothgranted freedom and morally obliged mothers to care for their children.Ideas and discourses about mothering on OMA conformed to the “mother-carer” moral code that prioritized the project of mothering above and be-yond other routes to active citizenship.

Mothers’ allowances underwent reforms from the 1970s onward thatbegan to signal transformations in lone mothers’ eligibility. Following theintroduction of the CAP, the Family Benefits Act replaced OMA and wasOntario’s social assistance program for those deemed unemployable overthe period 1967 to 1997. With this replacement, mothers were no longertargeted as a specific group in need of support (Little 2006). Gradually, thestatus of lone mothers as unemployable in the strict sense of paid workattachment also became questionable. A 1985 agreement between the thenfederal Conservative government and the provinces enabled provinces toexperiment with the work incentives in their social assistance programsunder CAP (Baker and Tippin 1999); this agreement did not overturn theassumption that lone mothers would voluntarily participate in paid workoriented programming. Although lone mothers in Ontario were increas-ingly perceived as potentially employable throughout the 1980s, their full-time work participation was discouraged in favor of part-time work thatfacilitated continued care giving (Boychuck 1998).

From the mid-1990s onward, there was a pronounced shift in per-ceptions of lone mothers’ citizenship rights to income support. Like otherprovinces in the early to mid-1990s, economic uncertainties plagued On-

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tario, including budgetary deficits and high unemployment, and were ex-acerbated by the replacement of CAP with the CHST. Coupled with theincreasing number of lone mothers on social assistance, the policy and po-litical climate was ripe for neoliberal reduction of social spending and socialassistance restructuring (Coulter 2009; Mason 1999). In 1995, PremierMike Harris’s Conservative government began its term with an alreadyestablished agenda of social assistance reform (e.g., the Common SenseRevolution) (Maxwell 2009). With subsequent reforms, new definitions ofdeservedness and therefore new forms of moral regulation emerged in so-cial assistance governance. More explicitly punitive effects of policy alsomaterialized. Benefit rates were reduced by 21.6 percent and later frozen(Coulter 2009), pushing lone mothers’ incomes even further below LICOs.Eligibility for lone mothers living with an adult of the opposite sex was cur-tailed under a reinvigorated application of the “spouse-in-the-house” rule.Investigations of welfare fraud were dramatically increased and, under theHarris government, accompanied by a telephone “snitch” line that enabledthe general public to report apparently fraudulent behavior of recipients(Little 2006).

In 1997, the Ontario Works Act was implemented and contained therequirement that all employable recipients participate in some form ofwelfare-to-work programming and often specifically “workfare”9 in orderto remain eligible for benefits (Gorlick and Brethour 1998). Whereas em-ployable lone mothers once volunteered to participate in educational up-grading, job readiness, or job search programs, this was no longer the caseunder Ontario Works (OW). In effect, mothers’ rights to full-time mother-ing for very young children were largely curtailed and de-gendered at thesame time that expectations of their engagement in paid work were ratch-eted upward and re-gendered. The assumed employability of lone mothersremains an integral part of OW today. In fact, the Community Placementprogram is the most obvious example of workfare. It obligates employablelone mothers to engage in unpaid work, up to 70 hours per month in order toreceive their monthly benefit (Little and Marks 1999; Ministry of Commu-nity and Social Services 2011b). Participation in welfare-to-work programsis mandatory for Ontario mothers whose youngest child is “school ready”(Cooke 2009; Evans 2007; Mason 1999).10 Moreover, as under OMA, lonemothers continue to experience regulation of their lives but through newermandatory practices, including the need to meet every three months with

9. Workfare refers to compulsory programs and requirements of recipients in order to receive their benefitswith the objective of “enforcing work while residualizing welfare” (Peck 2001:10). Compared to otherCanadian provinces, Mike Harris’s Conservative provincial government was the first to make explicit“workfare” a condition of welfare receipt.

10. Little (2005) observes that under Ontario Works, the designation of “school ready” is at the discretionof individual caseworkers. Children as young as three years of age can be deemed “school ready” andtheir mothers expected to participate in welfare-to-work programs if public kindergarten is available.


a caseworker to review their eligibility conditions, monthly reports of theirparticipation in welfare-to-work activities, and random audits of their as-sets, income, and expenses to prevent fraudulent behavior (Ministry ofCommunity and Social Services 2011a).

Post-1990s, changes to social assistance for lone mothers in Ontariocan also be traced parallel to shifts in moral codes of mothering. As depictedin Table 1, the introduction of welfare-to-work policies and programs werenot just an evolution of neoliberal policy reform but also reflected the shiftfrom the “mother-carer” moral code toward the “mother-worker” moralcode and so social actors’ increasing ascription to and prescription of ideasabout mothering conjoined with a gender neutral model of the adult workerfamily.

Under OW, mothering is inseparable from actual or future paid workparticipation (Evans 1996). Caring and earning are the purview of low-income lone mothers in the ways constructed by the “mother-worker” moralcode in wider society. Whereas “good” mothering under OMA involved anapproved dependency on social assistance, “good” mothering on OW in-volves temporary dependency, and more implicitly the reconceptualizationof lone mothers as morally independent and responsible for their own andtheir children’s economic and social well-being. For employable lone moth-ers, “good” mothering is assessed as morally deserving of income supportif its practice entails efforts at independent earning and caring as demon-strated through participation in welfare-to-work programs. The introduc-tion of welfare-to-work programs are implicitly modeled on the assumptionthat women should have equal opportunities with men in the Canadianlabor market, echoing the liberal feminist orientation underpinning the“mother-worker” moral code. Re-training and employment placements arepromoted by social actors as opportunistic for lone mothers. As noted on anOW bulletin published by the Ministry of Community and Social Services(2011c:2): “The goal of Ontario Works is to help you get into the work-force and become financially independent.” This same bulletin, however,also confirms that for all potential recipients, regulation to achieve theirequal opportunity in the paid labor market will occur: “It’s important toknow that if you receive help from Ontario Works, you have to take partin opportunities that will help you find a job.”

There are contradictions within current OW policy that especially il-lustrate how older and newer moral codes of mothering continue to informpolicy change and sometimes in less than expected ways. For the shortterm, until their child reaches school age, lone mothers appear to be ableto nurture and care according to the “mother-carer” moral code. And somelone mothers continue to be permitted to mother in this way because ofmental or physical health reasons, such as the time needed to recuperatefrom an abusive relationship. However, once lone mothers are designatedas unemployed and therefore employable (Mason 1999), there is little roomfor any long-term notion of their deservedness of support on this basis. Very

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quickly mothers are expected to demonstrate conformity to the “mother-worker” moral code and, thus, a strong employment orientation, or riskexpulsion from the caseload.

A similar observation can be made about the now defunct “spousein the house rule.” Under this rule, a lone mother was perceived unableto live with a man unless he was supporting her financially; any manwho appeared to live with a lone mother was understood to be her spouseunless proven otherwise. Even male roommates or boarders were assumedto have a sexual relationship with mothers or to share social and financialresponsibility for their children (Little and Morrisson 1998). Such a ruleimplicitly suggests that if a lone mother at all appeared to be parentingwith a male partner, they were perceived as behaving in the confines ofapproved gender relations but not absolutely conforming to the “mother-carer” moral code of the nuclear family created through legal marriage.Post-1990, the “mother-carer” moral code of mothering was less in favorthan the moral code of “mother-worker.” Because perceptions of mothers’deservedness were (and are) tied to their eventual or actual employabilityefforts under OW, they could be perceived as violating the “mother-worker”code when they appeared to be living with a partner and so were expelledfrom the caseload.

Finally, the introduction of the “snitch” line under OW offers per-haps the best example of how the dominant moral code of “mother-worker”becomes implicated in policy change. The provincial telephone line wasdesigned to allow citizens to anonymously report suspected fraud by socialassistance recipients as part of their civic duty (Little and Marks 1999).Still in use today, the telephone line directly involves the public in reg-ulating lone mothers’ behavior according to the “mother-worker” moralcode. Citizens may report “bad” lone mothers, including those who receivebenefits and other sources of income (e.g., payment from paid work or tu-ition) each month in addition to their benefits. Mothers who engage insuch behavior are perceived by citizens and social actors of the state as notconforming to a model of moral mothering involving earning and caring.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

The above analysis has implications for how social assistance policy changetargeted at lone mothers is understood. Certainly, social assistance reformand the introduction of welfare-to-work programs and policies in Ontariohave been influenced by neoliberal ideology. The postwar restructuring ofOntario social assistance policy is an example of how neoliberalism has cre-ated opportunities for embedding market citizenship relationships withinsocial policy and resulted in negative implications. The introduction ofwelfare-to-work expectations for lone mothers who are impoverished andwith few resources (e.g., money, child care) to fulfill expectations have beenwidely (and justly) critiqued as unfair and punitive. Enforcing welfare-to-


work participation can require denying care-giving demands and over-looking other barriers lone mothers face when trying to take advantageof employability opportunities. In the 2004 Review of Employment Assis-tance Programs in Ontario Works & Ontario Disability Support Program,the government of Ontario even acknowledged that the emphasis on recip-ients’ employability is contradicted by several factors, including: recipientsare only allowed to keep 25 percent of earnings a year, which is a poor in-centive to labor market attachment; if recipients quit a paid employmentposition, they are eligible for benefits for only three months after; and re-cipients cannot always access subsidized day care with flexible hours thatwould make paid work possible (Matthews 2004). A new advisory coun-cil was subsequently struck in January 2010 to set the terms of a morecomprehensive review of social assistance in Ontario. According to a May2010 report, the review will focus on how OW may be transformed intoa long-term program that stresses adequate skill building and educationto achieve full labor market potential (Ontario Social Assistance ReviewAdvisory Council 2010).

These negative implications of the introduction of neoliberal welfare-to-work programs and policies are important to note. However, recall thatthe objective of this paper was different, to acknowledge such implicationsbut deliberately widen our sociological lens by drawing on principles ofideational analysis. From this perspective, social assistance reform fromthe postwar period onward cannot be solely attributed to problematic ne-oliberal ideology but also viewed as reflecting societal discourses on moth-ering. Social actors have not blindly followed neoliberal logic in reformsover time. They have also ascribed to, normalized, and regulated moralcodes of mothering in their redistribution or retrenchment of resources tolone mothers through welfare service provisions.

Our understanding of social assistance reform directed at lone mothersis improved upon if we recognize that Ontario social assistance policy hasbeen shaped by deeply entrenched beliefs about moral mothering. This ismost evident in how shifts in lone mothers’ citizenship rights to supporthave been buttressed by parallel shifts in moral codes of mothering. UnderOMA, mothers were perceived as entitled to income support on the basis oftheir engagement in reproductive mechanisms (e.g., forming households,maintaining children) and so conformity to a “mother-carer” code. Post-1960, wider societal cultural norms of mothering stressed the importanceof earning as per the “mother-worker” moral code. Mothers’ rights to socialassistance in Ontario were therefore replaced with entitlement contingenton their performance of paid work and/or efforts to achieve it and, thus,their conformity to a “mother-worker” code.

Tracing social assistance policy change parallel to shifts in moral codesof mothering produces a deeper understanding of the arguments for en-forcing welfare-to-work participation upon lone mothers. Welfare-to-workinitiatives create opportunities for lone mothers’ paid work because they

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reflect a particular orientation to the moral mothering of women today:mothers should engage in paid work and care giving to the benefit oftheir children. A “mother-worker” moral code is even commonsensical in acapitalist society that is predicated on individual responsibility for incomesecurity. Mothers have rights to autonomy and financial independence,rights that can be realized through paid work, as men (and fathers) do.

My presentation of different views on the usefulness of embedding a“mother-worker” moral code within social assistance policy today is de-liberate. My intent is not try to resolve the age-old debate of whethereconomic equality for lone mothers should be on the basis of gender spe-cific (difference) or gender neutral (sameness) opportunities but to makethe point that when ideas and discourses on moral mothering become cul-turally normative and change over time, why should we not expect thesesame ideas and discourses to appear in our social policies for lone mothers?

The case of Ontario offers an entry point for the conclusion of thispaper, to consider the implications of public and policy allegiance to thesemoral codes for all mothers. Neoliberal reforms have produced a socialassistance policy that demands labor market participation as symbolic of“good” mothering. But this occurs in a much wider policy context, wherethe total work of social reproduction performed by all mothers is woefullyoverlooked (Bezanson 2006). Lone mothers on social assistance experiencemoral regulation according to dominant codes of mothering but so too doother mothers that are not on social assistance. All mothers today, regard-less of their income, experience the influence of the dominant “mother-worker” moral code in their lives. There are class differences, however, inthe impact of this code on their lives. Some mothers, through marriage orother circumstances, are able to engage in full-time mothering at home.For especially married mothers who represent the middle or upper class,vestiges of the moral code of “mother-carer” have particular significancein their lives. As Fox (2009) reminds us, their material conditions andpersonal resources permit such full-time mothers to more fully conform tothe models of intensive or sacrificial mothering compared to mothers indifferent economic situations. And yet, full-time mothers are also privy tothe “mother-worker” code, that “good” mothers are those mothers who canrear their children and earn or contribute to a reasonable family income.While they may not act upon them, full-time mothers may also feel pres-sures from others to conform to the “mother-worker” moral code, to enterinto the labor market as soon as possible. Other mothers who cannot affordfull-time mothering and so engage in part-time or full-time paid work inconjunction with care giving (often within nuclear families) also feel theinfluence of the “mother-worker” moral code perhaps more profoundly. Tobe a “good” mother can mean being responsible for finding good child carein lieu of the care that a mother cannot provide when working for pay.

The “mother-worker” moral code suffers from one major limitation forall mothers, the tendency for the discursive construction of this code to


result in more stress placed upon women’s paid employment opportunitiesthan their care-giving responsibilities. The most pressing evidence of thisis the increase in mothers’ employment and yet a continued absence ofa national child care system in Canada. Of mothers who had children 16years and younger, 72 percent were engaged in either full-time or part-timepaid employment in 2003 to 2004; 65.6 percent of mothers with childrenunder age six were employed full time or part time (Canadian Council onSocial Development 2011). While feminist efforts have improved women’semployment situations, there has been considerable policy stagnation con-cerning child care provisions. Child care has not been on our nationalpolicy agenda since the promise of a national strategy disappeared withthe demise of the Liberal government in 2006.

The “mother-worker” moral code demands that employed and un-employed mothers (including lone mothers on social assistance) rely onoutside child care. Employed mothers do increasingly consume child carethrough purchase on the market (Mahon 2008). In 2002 to 2003, 54 per-cent of children aged six months to five years were in some form of non-parental care compared to 42 percent in 1994 to 1995 (Bushnik 2006).However, several problems confront mothers’ efforts at finding suitablecare. Although subsidized child care is available and is conditional onincome earned, the Canadian Council on Social Development (2011) re-ports that regulated child care spaces could be accessed by only 15.5percent of all children aged 0 to 12 in 2003 to 2004. As well, moth-ers’ earnings directly affect their capacity to purchase regulated childcare, which is often expensive. Recent data from Statistics Canada showthat in 2004, the hourly earnings of mothers were 12 percent less thanthe hourly earnings of childless women. Lone mothers’ hourly earningswere 20 percent less than the hourly earnings of childless women (Zhang2009).

If, as these brief observations attest, the performance of motheringaccording to the moral code of “mother-worker” is problematic in differentways for all mothers, it seems reasonable to entertain newer ideas anddiscourses around moral mothering. If we completely acknowledge thatthere is indivisibility between the paid and unpaid work performed bymothers in contemporary society, a timeless argument of feminist schol-ars, we should entertain the adoption of a new moral code of mothering:the “mother-worker-carer” moral code. Such a code would positively influ-ence policy change. For lone mothers on social assistance, welfare-to-workexpectations would be accompanied with monthly benefit incomes that areabove LICOs. Lone mothers would no longer experience a dollar-for-dollardeduction in their monthly assistance incomes as a result of receiving childbenefits. For all mothers who engage in paid work and qualify for child caresubsidies, they would not risk losing these subsidies after three monthsof unemployment, which is the current practice in some Canadian cities(City of Toronto 2009). Moreover, a national child care program would be

46 CRS/RCS, 49.1 2012

available to any mother in need on the basis of mothers’ claims to careas a social good (e.g., the construction of socially cohesive communities)(see, e.g., Childcare Resource and Research Unit 2011) rather than ascontingent on their engagement in paid employment). A “mother-worker-carer” moral code would, of course, provide new opportunities for the moralregulation of mothers too. However, collectively, we risk the complete dis-appearance of care giving as a social right for all mothers from the policyand public imagination if we continue to persist in our allegiance to the“mother-worker” code. At the very least, the “mother-worker-carer” codewould explicitly define “good” mothering as both paid work and care givingand sanction the state into provision of social policies to accommodate thistoo.

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