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A Socialist Feminist Analysis ofthe Family Support Act of 1988

Nancy A. Naples

This article explores the ways in which sexism is embedded in welfarepolicy by examining the hidden gender assumptions of the FamilySupport Act of1988. An overoiew offeminist perspedives on the statereveals five key ways that the state organizes women's oppression.These five categories of analysis are used to demonstrate how patriar-chal social relations are organized through the ad.

According to Marxist theory, the welfare state helps maintainwomen's dependence in the family and in low-paying positionsinside and outside the home (Pascall, 1986).The welfare stateservescapitalist interests by promoting women's role as reservelabor and as caretakers to reproduce the labor force (seeKuhn & Wolpe, 1978).It also serves the interests of "patriarchy"by promoting women's unpaid labor in the home (Miller,1989).However, these are contradictory tendencies. For example,women's access to paid employment also supports their auton-omy within the patriarchal family (Abramovitz, 1988). Thecontradictions in welfare policy include those emanating fromthe implicit as well as the explicit structuring of gender andracial inequality.

Author's Note: An earlier version of this article was presented at theannual meetings of the American Sociological Association, Washington, DC,'August 13, 1990.

AFRLIA, Vol. 6 No.4, Winter 1991 23·38(11991 Women and Social Work. Inc.

23

24 Affilill Winter 1991

It is low-income women and women of color whose lives areshaped most by the contradictions of state policies. One needonly examine the data on welfare recipients to recognize theracial and gender manifestations of social policy. Women head80percent of all families receiving Aid to Families with Depen-dent Children (AFDC), and almost half those receiving AFDCare black (Sidel, 1985,p. 95).Low-income women actively resistthe oppressive forces of the state, with various degrees of suc-cess (Naples, 1988). To enhance challenges to the patriarchalstate's authority, it is necessary to examine how the state definesthe needs of the poor and organizes its response through socialwelfare policy (Spakes, 1989)-in this case, the Family SupportAct (FSA) of 1988 (Pol. 100-485).

KEY FEATURES OF THE FSA

The FSA emphasizes an increase in the participation of low-income parents in the labor force and the enforcement of childsupport from fathers who do not have custody of their childrenas strategies to decrease the welfare rolls. Many of the featuresincluded in the FSA were first outlined by the White HouseDomestic Policy Council's Low-Income Opportunity WorkingGroup in its report, Up From Dependency. The report called forthe establishment of workfare programs that "require ... thosewho are able to work to do so for their public assistance bene-fits" (U.S. Senate, 1987b, p. 23). Under the FSA, mothers withchildren as young as the age of 3 are required to participate inthe Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training Program (JOBS),those with children as young as 1year may also be included" atthe State's option" (Library of Congress, 1988, p. 278). Themandatory provision ~f the FSA also extends to "unemployednon-custodial parents who cannot afford child support pay-ments. In a two-parent male and female household the Aid toFamilies with Dependent Children-Unemployed Parent pro-gram (A~DC-UP) will provide "welfare-to-work" support forat least SIX months (p. 279), and "beginning in 1992, one family

Naples 25

member of an AFDC-UP household will be required to partic-ipate at least 16 hours per week in an unpaid public work"(Stoesz, 1989,p. 130).For up to one year, "participants" in the welfare-to-work

program are eligible for transitional benefits. Medicaid is pro-vided for six months. If the participants' income is below 185percent of the official poverty level, they may receive anothersixmonths ofMedicaid coverage. States may charge a premiumon the optional coverage if the participants' monthly incomeexceeds the federal poverty level. Families who lose their AFDCeligibility because of" an increase in earned income or employ-ment hours, or a loss of earning exclusions" (Library of Con-gress, 1988, p. 279) can receive transitional child care support.States may also determine a family's ability to pay a portion ofthese child care expenses.

SOCIALIST FEMINIST ANALYSIS

Drawing on socialist feminist theories of the state, the authoridentifies five categories of analysis to illustrate how patriarchalsocial relations are embedded in the FSA. The state contributestowomen's oppression and impoverishment by (1)using gender-neutral language to mask the gender assumptions of socialpolicy, (2) stigmatizing household forms that differ from themale-headed two-parent household, (3) "controlling the workof reproduction" (Pascali, 1986,p. 3), (4)maintaining women inpaid and unpaid caretaking roles that are devalued both ideo-logically and economically, and (5) fragmenting social life instate policy.

Gender-Neutral Language

MacKinnon (1989) offers one of the most convincing argumentsfor the significance of gender-neutral language in institutional-izing men's power over women. From her vantage point as afeminist and a legal scholar, she argues:

26 Affilia Winter1991

The state is male in the feminist sense: the law sees and treatswomen the way men see and treat women.... Formally,thestate is male in that objectivityis its norm.Objectivityis liberallegalism's conceptionof itself. It legitimatesitselfby reflectingits view of society,a society it helps makeby so seeingit, andcalling that view,and that relation, rationality.Sincerationalityis measured by pomt-of-viewlessness, what counts as reason 15that which corresponds to the way thingsare. (pp.162-163)

The" point-of-viewlessness" is presented in gender-neutral lan-guage. Women's differential needs and experiences are hiddenin discussions of "households" and "single-parent families"(Pascali, 1986; Sarvasy, 1988).Strategies for the establishment of paternity and the enforce-

ment of child support payments through a parent locator ser-vice and the automatic withholding of wages are major compo-nents of the FSA. This section of the FSA cannot disguise thegendered target of the law. However, all subsequent sectionscarefully avoid the gendered subject. The word woman is usedonce in connection with an exemption from mandatory par-ticipation, namely, when "a woman [is] in at least her thirdmonth of pregnancy" (Library of Congress, 1988, p. 278). Thispredominantly gender-neutral language could be read as avictory for liberal feminism, but the FSA is not referring toabstract "human beings." Social policies target gendered sub-jects. MacKinnon's (1989) analysis is most relevant here. Theabstractions, "parent or relative of a child under age three" or"participant's spouse" capture specific gendered relationships.The issue is not whether one thinks there should be more egal-itarian child-rearing practices in contemporary society, but whois engaged in particular activities.Despite the gender-neutral terminology, relations of gender

are e~bedded t~~oughout the FSA. The legislation outlines thesanctions that a mandatory Program participant" will f ifh h "fail . h ace Ieors e at swit out good cause to comply with any ... reqUIre-ment Imposed on hISor her participation in such Program":

(1)such participant's needs shall not be taken into a .determiningthe family'sneed forAFDCBenefits;and g)oi~~~:~

Naples 27

participant's spouse is not participating in the Program, thespouse'sneedshallnotbe taken into accountin determining thefamily's need for AFDC benefits. (Library of Congress,1988, p. 278) •

If a "participant" does not comply with the workfare require-ments a second time, sanctions will continue for three months.A" subsequent noncompliance" will lead to the imposition of asix-month sanction. In the abstract language of "participant's"and" family's needs" and participant's spouse," one loses sightof the concrete relations within a family and a family's complexrelationship to the economy and the state. The fear of sanctionswill shape these relationships.

StigmatizingDifferent Household Forms

Abramovitz (1988,p. 2) defined the" family ethic" as a "preoc-cupation with the nuclear family unit featuring a male bread-winner and an economically dependent female homemaker."Sarvasy (1988, p. 244) pointed out that in addition to the con-tradictions between caretaker and wage laborer, the state's needto support families whose male breadwinners are absent versusthe desire to protect "the male breadwinner model" of thefamily creates an additional tension in welfare policy. The lowlevel of supporfoffered to families on AFDC is one result of thiscontradiction (Abramovitz, 1988).The premise of the FSA is the belief that women who head

single-parent households can achieve economic independencethrough paid employment and adequate child support from thenoncustodial fathers. However, because of the lack of jobs thatwill pay a single worker a "family wage," the only way a womancan raise her family's standard of living is to take a secondfull-time job or to collect adequate child support payments,which implies either a two-parent household or two-parentsupport of the family. But evenif the biological father can beidentified, he may not hold a job that pays enough to supple-ment the mother's earnings and to raise the household incomeabove poverty.

28 AjfiliJI Winter1991

Representatives of the Working Seminar on the Family andAmerican Welfare Policy argued In their congressional testi-mony at the Senate hearings on welfare reform that "the cruci-ble for the next round of welfare reform must be the family"(U.S. Senate, 1987b, p. 90). But, as Pascali (1986, p. 68) noted" 'support for the family' in social policy can almost always beinterpreted to mean support for the most rigidly demarcatedbreadwinner / dependent model of the family." The representa-tives of the Working Seminar, among those of other groups whotestified at the hearings, were concerned that "ali our effortsshould be directed toward reducing the number of single-parent families with children under 18" and toward enforcing"parental responsibility" (U.S. Senate, 1987b, p. 90). They be-lieve that if the poor finish high school, remain married, and"stay employed at a job, any job, even at first at the minimumwage," they are "unlikely to stay long in poverty" (U.S. Senate,1987b, p. 88). They do not factor gender and race into the equa-tion. However, racism and sexism in the labor market continueto shape the structure of opportunity for American workers(see, for example, Bergmann, 1986; Wilson, 1987).The emphasis on the two-parent male and female household

in social policy supports the gender division of labor inside andoutside the home. The structure of social support programs,such as social security and child care, prevent women fromchoosing their relationship to paid labor and the family. Fur-thermore, the state's "preference" for the two-parent male andfemale household, as Brewer (1988) noted, has historically dis-criminated against the extended kinship and informal net-works established in the black community. Margaret Prescod,representing Black Women for Wages for Housework, arguedat the Senate hearings on welfare reform that under workfarethe state is enhancing the exploitation of low-income women:She also ~o.inted to the racist and sexist features of the child sup-port proVISIOn:Because of the stratification in the paid labor mar-ket, black and immigrant women will not receive sufficient childsupport to lift them out of poverty. Consequently, "women from

Naples 29

these communities will be required to work the longest hours"to support their families (U.S.Senate, 1988,p.155). Finally, evenin the two-parent family,people of color do not necessarily finda way out of poverty (Baca Zinn, 1989;Williams, 1989). Focus-ing on the deviations from the two-parent male and femalehousehold as an explanation for poverty diverts attention fromthe structural conditions that keep many families of all constel-lations poor.

Control of Social Reproduction

The use of welfare programs for social control is one of theoldest objectives of social policy. The fear of crime and delin-quency has often been used as a justification for the state'sintrusive methods ofsupervising the poor. From the poorhouseto the settlement house, reformers were concerned that the pooradopt" proper" middle-class values, especially those related to"the work ethic" (Katz, 1986).Contemporary workfare policiescontinue the state's desire to counter the so-called lack of a workethic among the poor that has long been the focus of socialwelfare programs (see, for example, Rose, 1989; U.S. Senate,1987a, p. 7).

Policymakers are distressed over the number of adolescentmothers and the rise in the rate of "illegitimate" births. The pro-vision for" unmarried minor parents" (teenage mothers) is de-signed to discourage the formation of young families (see, forexample, U.S. House of Representatives, 1986, p. 284). FSA"authorizes States to condition an unmarried minor parent'sreceipt of AFDC payments on his or her residence with a parent,legal guardian or other adult relative, or in an adult-supervisedsupportive living arrangement" (Library of Congress, 1988,p. 279). A teenage mother can receive an exemp~on fr~,r:' thestate if her parents or legal guardians are dead or if she IS notallowed to live with such parent or legal guardian" for somereason' she or her child would be in danger if they lived with"such ~arent or legal guardian"; or she was living on her own

30 Affilia Winter 1991

for one year before the birth of her child or before she appliedfor AFDC benefits.The state's disapproval of early parenting may be based on

legitimate concerns for young mothers' educational and voca-tional well-being. However, the solution places further burdenson the female relatives of these young mothers and underminesthe adolescent mothers' autonomy. Furthermore, it fails to ex-plore the ways that schools and employers could support par-ents of all ages. The legislation continues the state's desire todictate "morality" to women who receive public assistance. Itincludes a provision to terminate transitional support if "thecaretaker relative engages in certain conduct prohibited underthe AFDC program" (Library of Congress, 1988, p. 279). Advo-cates of welfare rights criticize the discretionary powers givento state and local agencies that administer AFDC. Bureaucraticprocedures, complicated eligibility criteria, and "behavioral"assessments have been used to discourage those in need frompursuing their claims (Piven & Cloward, 1971). The legislationalso indicates the policymakers' fear that the poor will takeadvantage of the transitional benefits. The law "directs the Sec-retary to: (1) study whether individuals who have been AFDCrecipients are again adopting such status in order to requalifyfor transitional AFDC benefits and, if such is the case, issuere~lations, by October 1, 1991, to restrict such requalification"(Llb:ary of Congress, 1988, p. 279). The stigma attached to therec~lft ofpublic assistance is further enhanced by the legislatedpohang of AFDC recipients,

Maintaining Women in Caretaking Roles

~eminists point to the state's success in maintaining the distinc-non between the private or domestic sphere and the pub}'sphere of social life (see, for example PascalI 1986) "'om ~ck r " ,,' YV' en swor ,,:e~ ~:e mtncately bound to their household and famllresponsibilitiss, And men's work is dependent 0 I,!unpaid service in the home and is shaped b th ndwomen sy egen er strati_

Naples 31

fication of the paid labor market (see, for example, Kuhn &Wolpe,1978).The gender division oflaboroperates to maintainwomen in paid and nonpaid caretaking roles that are devaluedboth ideologically and economically. Social policy purposefullyseparates nurturing activity from the category of "productivelabor" and thus reinforces the gender division of labor.For women to enter or reenter the paid labor market, substi-

tute child care must be available. Many women are also respon-sible for the care of aging parents or other adults who needassistance. When alternate caretaking is available, it is providedby other women who work for no payor at low wages. Blackand immigrant women are overrepresented among the low-wage household and child care workers in the United States(Dill, 1988). The FSA acknowledges that AFDC recipients re-quire child care services to support their move from welfare towork. States are given the discretion to exempt mothers withchildren under the age of 6 if child care is unavailable. Statesare required to "guarantee child care services to AFDC familiesto the extent that such services are necessary for a familymember's employment or participation in an education andtraining activity of which the State approves." States are alsodirected to "(1) establish procedures to ensure that center-basedchild care will be subject to State and local health and safetyrequirements; and (2) develop guidelines for family day care,"but no provision is made to expand the availability of child care(Library of Congress, 1988, p. 279). However, there is over-Whelming evidence that child care is inadequate to meet thepresent needs (Abramovitz, 1988; Sidel, 1985). The 101st Con-gress passed legislation to increase child care support for low-income families. The Child Care and Development Block Grantand Entitlement Funding for Child Care Services, coupled withan expanded earned income tax credit, may enhance child careservices for low-income families. However, at present, states arein the awkward position of enforcing" mandatory" participantsto register for work and training programs when support ser-vices are not available (Naples, 1990).

32 AJfilia Winter1991

Fragmentation of SocialLife

One significant feature of the state's approach to social welfareis the treatment of social life through disparate and often con-tradictory policies. In 1988, Congress voted against a law thatwould have increased the minimum wage above the standardof $3.35 an hour set in 1981. The following year, Congress fi-nally did pass legislation to increase the minimum wage. As ofApril 1, 1990, the minimum wage was raised to $4.25 an hour.Kilborn (1990,p. A1) reported that for workers like Filena Craftof Eufaula, Alabama, and her two daughters, the increase was"virtually a wash." The higher minimum wage contributes to areduction in her food-stamp allocation that is equal to theamount of her salary increase: $40 a month. In addition, Con-gress agreed to a "training wage" for workers aged 16-19, thusensuring that "unmarried minor parents" will have fewer op-tions open to them.The current minimum wage still falls below the $4.60 an hour

it would take to raise a family of three out of poverty using thefederal measure of poverty (Ll.S. Senate, 1987c,p. 330). Clearly,the wage of $4.60 an hour is inadequate to prevent poverty infamilies with one wage earner and three or more dependents.Furthermore, the measure that is currently used to estimatepoverty was established in 1963 and fails to capture contempo-rary costs of feeding, clothing, and housing a family. The 1963measure estimates that 33 percent of a family's budget is de-voted to food. Economists now place the percentage at onefourth. Using the new formula, Rose (1990, p. 35) estimated thatthe minimum wage should be increased to $7.75 an hour to:'bring a family of four up to the revised poverty line of $16,121m 19~8 (for or~eperson working full-time, year-round)."Child care IS shaped by provisions for the enforcement of

ch~ld abuse legislation, foster-care guidelines, state funding ofchild care, the enforcement of standards for child care pro-grams, and tax credits, among other legislation H Ith .. fI db M . . 0'· ea care tsm uence y edicaid and Medicare policies ad'd 1· I . n Insurance~n tax egIs ation. E.mployment policies are also ira

mto separate areas: mmlmum-wage leoislalion tidi ~e~tedo- , an 1 lscnmlna_

Naples 33

lionpolicies,health and safety guidelines, unemployment com-pensation, and tax abatements-c-just to name a few. Relatedprograms are often administered by different governmentalagencies through conflicting bureaucratic guidelines. And allhave an impact on the lives of low-income families. Clearly, astrategy that is designed to eradicate poverty in the UnitedStatesmust recognize the interrelationship between all areas ofsociallife. The separation of social life into various policies thatareadministered by separate divisions of the government is oneof the most powerful tools for maintaining the gender divisionof labor and for structuring racial and gender inequality.

SOCIAL SERVICE WORK AND RESISTANCE

In much the same way that the worker, in the Marxist senseof the term, has lost control over her or his labor, the familyhas lost control over the organization of social reproduction(Sarvasy,1988). And because women remain ideologically andpractically tied to domestic labor, the state helps to underminewomen's power through social policy. Social policy is domi-nated by patriarchal divisions of social life into the privatesphere and the public sphere, as well as by sexist and racistassumptions about household form and caretaking.But the patriarchal state is also reproduced on a daily basis

through diverse social policies and their implementation. Thecontradictions of welfare policies can be the grounds for a morefundamental challenge to the patriarchal, racist, and capitaliststate (Piven & Cloward, 1982).The policies do not work to endpoverty. As Stoesz (1989, p. 131) pointed out, "the Act isgrounded in a debatable premise-that those on AFDC canbecome totally independent of public assistance t~rough work-fare." Because" 44% of the new jobs created dunng the recenteconomic recovery are part-time service-sector jobs that payless than $7,400 per year, how many of the working poor canbecome truly independent of welfare?" Furthermore, as Dear(1989, p. 14) noted:

34 Affili11 Winter1991

Whatever may be said regarding welfare reform,workis onlypart of the answer. AFDCmothers are the only employablepeople on welfare, and of these mothers, perhaps 1/3 are em-ployable. The rest are already working, in training, incapaci-tated, or needed at home.Theseemployablemothersconstitutea tiny 6.7% of all 17 million welfare recipients; the rest arechildren, or blind or disabled or aged persons. Roughly11% ofallAFDCfamiliesinclude amale,and they constitutebut 2%ofall those on welfare.Many of these men are unable to workbecause of disability.

Social service workers confront the contradictions of the stateon a daily basis (Lipsky, 1980).Among the dilemmas they faceare limited funding to implement the program and the insuffi-cient focus on counseling services and case management. InMassachusetts, child care subsidies for the working poor havebeen drastically cut back as a consequence of the state's fiscalproblems (deCourcy-Hinds, 1990). Child care programs havebeen limited to such an extent that implementation of the FSAis virtually at a standstill in many states. Governmental officialsare concerned with the growing number of mandatory partici-pants who are being placed on waiting lists. The implementa-tion of Promise JOBS, Iowa's work and employment trainingprogram, has been hampered by the inadequacy of state funds(Naples, 1990).Workers, especially those in rural communities,describe their frustration with the limited reimbursement fortransportation and the lack of access to training programs bythose in remote areas of the state. However, AFDC recipientsare still required to register for the Promise JOBSprogram evenwhen the services and funding are unavailable.Social service workers are documenting the inadequacy of

the FSAprogram and resisting implementation when servicesand funds are insufficient. Workers who were interviewed fora s.tudy of the implementation of Iowa's Promise JOBS de-s~r~bedhow they have been successful in counseling welfare re-cipients to explore educational and vocational options (Naples1990).Many of these recipients have chosen to return to schoolHowever, employment remains the primary measure of sue-

Naples 35

cess. And because, for the most part, low-paying jobs do notoffer a long-term solution to poverty in this country, those whodecide to continue their education are choosing amore effectivealternative (Giltell, Schehl, & Fareri, 1990).On the other hand,the" college option" is limited to those who have completedhigh school and live within a reasonable distance from a four-year college. A two-year college degree generally does not offergraduates access to jobs that pay an adequate wage for a familyof three to live above the official poverty level. Furthermore,college students in Promise JOBS,who were interviewed by theauthor, reported that even the four-year degree is not sufficient(Naples, 1990).Many programs of study (for example, psychol-ogy and special education) require a master's degree for entryinto the profession. Graduate studies are not supported underthe FSA.Years of experience with programs established by the Eco-

nomic Opportunity Act and the Comprehensive Employmentand Training Act have led many social service workers toaddress the problems of long-term welfare recipients in imagi-native and effective ways. Workers are drawing on the myriadprograms in their communities to supplement the limited sup-port offered by the FSA for counseling and case management.Some of the more promising approaches include counselingwomen to experiment with nontraditional job training; combin-ing resources from different programs, such as the Job Trainingand Partnership Act and Head Start; and creatively assessingclients' needs to grant exemptions for those who, for a varietyof reasons, are unable to manage full-time employment oreducation.The Colorado Chapter of the National Association of Social

Workers brought evidence of abuses inWeld County's "work-fare" program that effectively shut down the program in J?e-cember 1989 ("Abuses Alleged," 1990). The chapter was actmgon information provided by a social worker who documentedhow clients were "wrongfully denied benefits." A s~bsequentfederal investigation found that participants were demed AFDC

36 Affilia Winter 1991

and Medicaid benefits for periods that exceeded the guidelinesand, at times, that their children's benefits were discontinuedin violation of federal regulations.In some ways, the obvious limitations of the FSAas a solution

to the problems of long-term welfare recipients create a strongeralliance among welfare recipients, their caseworkers, and thecommunity-based agencies that we!e established to serve low-income families. The state as a "neutral" force in contemporarysociety loses credibility as its efforts to rechannel the poor intononexistent jobs or those with wages below the poverty levelfail to make a significant dent in the problems of the poor. Thecontradiction of the state includes the expenditure of resourcesto counter the results of the structural inequities in the economywithout challenging these inequalities. The welfare state con-tinues to operate on the belief that its role is temporary. It refusesto acknowledge its responsibility for the general welfare of itscitizenry. As long as the state adopts temporary solutions thatrely on capitalist, patriarchal, and racist social relations, mil-lions of people will continue to live on the economic edges ofsociety.

REFERENCES

Abramovitz, M. (1988). Regulating the lives of women. Boston: South End Press.Abuses alleged in "workfare" program: NASW Colorado Chapter voicedcon~ernabout county pl~n. (1990, June), NASW News, p. 11.

Baca Zinn, M. (1989). Family; race, and poverty in the eighties. Signs 14E~~~ , ,Bergmann, B. (1986). Theeconomic emergence afwomen. New York: Basic Books.Brewer, R. M. ~1.988).,Black women in poverty; Some comments on female-

headed families. SIgnS, 13, 2331-339.Dear. R. B. (1989). What's right with welfare? The other f fAFDC ] I'(5 . IdS . I ace a . ournaoJ OCIO ogy an OCIO Welfare, 16(2), 5-43.deCourcy-Hind.', M. (1990, April 2). Pulling families out of welfare is rovin

to be an elusive goal: Plans of new U.S. law are hittin b d t P N gYork Times, pp. AI, A9. g u ge snags. eur

Dill, B. (1988). Making your job good yourself' D " Iconstruction of persona) dignity. In A. Bookma~ &~~StIC service and the IIand the politics of empowerment. Philadelphia' T !. Uor?"en(~ds.),Women. emp e ruverstty Press.

Naples 37

Gittell, M., with Schehl, M., & Fareri, C. (1990). From welfare to independence:Thecollegeoption. A report to the Fard Foundation. New York: City Universityof New York, Howard Samuels State Management and Policy Center.

Katz, M. B. (1986). In the shadDw of the poorhouse: A social history of welfare inAmerica. New York: Basic Books.

Kilborn, P. T. (1990, March 29). Rise in minimum wage offers minimum joy.New York Times, pp. AI, A10.

Kuhn, A., &Wolpe, A. M. (1978). Feminism and materialism: Women and modes. of production. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Library of Congress. (1988). Digest of public general bills and resolutions. Wash-ington, DC: Congressional Research Service. .

Lipsky, M. (1980). Street-level bureaucracy: Dilemmas Df the individual in publicservices. New York: Russell Sage.

MacKinnDn, C. A. (1989). TDward a feminist theDry Df the slate. Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press.

Miller, D. C. (1989). Poor women and work programs: Back to the future.Affilia, 4, 9-22.

Naples, N. A. (1988). WDmen against poverty: Community warkers in anti-povertyprograms, 1964-1984. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, City University ofNew York, New York.

Naples, N. A. (1990). Weifare-tD-wark strategies in IDwa: A study Df rural AFDCrecipients and the Family Support Act Df1988, preliminary report. Unpublishedmanuscript.

Pascali, G. (1986). Social pDlicy: Afeminist analysis. London: Tavistock.Piven, F. F., & Cloward, R. (1971). Regulating the poor: The [unciicns Df public

welfare. New York: Pantheon.Piven, F. F., & Cloward, R. (1982). The new class war: Reagan's attack Dn the welfare

state and its consequences. New York: Pantheon.Rose, N. E. (1989). The political economy of welfare. [oumal of SDciDIDgyandSocial Welfare, 16(2), 87-108.

Rose, N. E. (1990). From the WPA to workfare: It's time for a truly progressivegovernment work program. Journal of Progressive Human Services, 1(2),17-42.

Sarvasy, W. (1988). Reagan and low-income mothers: A feminist recasting ofthe debate. InM. K. Brown (Ed.), Remaking the welfare state: Retrenchmentand social pDlicy in America and Europe (pp. 253-276). Philadelphia: TempleUniversity Press. .

Sidel, R. (1985). WDmen and children last: The plight Df poor WDmen In affluentAmerica. New York: Penguin.

Spakes, P. (1989). Reshaping the goals of family policy: Sexual equality, notprotection. Affilia, 4, 7-24. .

Stoesz, D. (1989). A new paradigm for social welfare. loumal Df SDClOlogyandSocial Welfare, 16(2), 127-150. .. . .

U.S. House of Representatives. (1986). Work, education,. and trazmn$ opp~tum.ties for welfare recipients: Hearings before the Subcommittee on.Publzc Assl~tanceand Unemployment, Committee on Ways and Means. Washington, DC. U.S.Government Printing Office.

38 Affilia Winter 1991

u.s. Senate. (1987a). Welfare: Reform or replacement? Child support enforcement:Hearings before the Subcommittee on Social Security and Family Policy of theCommittee on Finance, U.S. Senate. Washington, DC: U.s. GovernmentPrinting Offiee.

U.S. Senate. (1987b). Welfare: Reform or replacement? Short-term u. long-tenndependency: Hearings before the Subcommittee on Social Security and FamilyPolicy, Senate Finance Committee. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Print-ing Office.

U.S. Senate. (1987c). Welfare: Reform or replacement? Work and welfare: Hearingsbefore the Subcommittee on Social Security and Family Policy, Senate FinanceCommittee. Washington, DC U.S. Government Printing Office.

U.S. Senate. (1988). Welfare reform (Part 3): Hearings before the Committee onFinance, U.S. Senate. Washington, DC: Ll.S. Government Printing Office.

Williams, F. (1989). Social policy: A critical introduction. New York: BasilBlackwell.

Wilson, W. J. (1987). The truly disadvantaged: The inner city, the underclass, andpublic policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Nancy A. Naples is Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Iowa StateUniversity, Ames.

Gender-Related Issues inthe Career Development ofSocial WorkManagers

Sharyn J. Zunz

Using a career development perspective, the author studied 55 socialwork managers to determine gender-related issues that affect promo-tions to first managerial positions. Despite equal access to education,training, mentors, and promotions from within their organizations,the women were promoted at a significantly slower pace than were themen. In addition, the women felt less confident about a move to man-agement, and each sex tended to recommend and support its ownmembers' promotions .:

There are several gender-related inconsistencies in the careerdevelopment of managers in social work. A study of status dif-ferentials using data collected by the National Association ofSocial Workers (NASW) in the 1970s (Fanshel, 1976) indicatedthat the proportion of men in administrative positions was morethan twice that of women and that men earned significantlyhigher salaries. In more recent studies, the results have been sim-ilar. Men continue to hold two thirds of the managerial jobs ina profession that is two thirds women (Austin, 1988;Fortune &Hanks, 1988). A survey of the New York State Chapter ofNASWin the late 1980s ("Salary Survey," 1989) found that 29 percentof all male members were in administrative positions, comparedto 17percent of all female members and that the median annualsalary of the men was $6,000 more than that of the women.AFFILIA,Vol. 6 No.4, Winter 1991 39-5201991 Women and Sodal Work,.Inc.

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