justifying welfare fraud

7/31/2019 Justifying welfare fraud

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Dramatic changes to welfare law in Israel over the past decade have

resulted in a conflict between poor mothers and the state over the value of

caretaking and conceptions of citizenship. In the past, entitlement to welfare

benefits emphasized mothers care responsibilities such that poor women

who stayed at home to care for their children could receive benefits.

Nowadays, however, entitlement to state support revolves around liberal

principles that emphasize womens labor force participation. If a poor

mother is not working in the paid labor market, her eligibility for financial

assistance from the state is now more limited. To get by in this new social

welfare environment, many poor women commit what the state defines as

welfare fraud they work under the table while receiving welfare benefits.

Justifying welfare fraudChanges in Israeli welfare policy reveal a conflict between poor mothers

and the government over who deserves state support

by Shiri Regev-Messalem on Monday, November 14, 2011 - 10:51am

The Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research is committed to empowering womens voices

and leadership on the Stanford campus and beyond. To promote this goal, the Clayman Institute ispublishing profiles of our Advisory Council, women and men who have volunteered their time andenergy to creating greater gender equality. Over the course of the year, student writers will interviewcouncil members-- representing many communities, including financial, legal, non-profit, andentrepreneurial. We hope these profiles will inspire, as well as begin a dialogue with our readers aboutwhat it takes to exercise voice and influence in the areas that matter to you. We will ask each of thecouncil members to share their histories, paths to success, and career advice.

But how do these poor women view what they do? Do they view their actionsas welfare fraud or do they have a different moral interpretation? To answerthese questions I interviewed 49 women who received welfare and exploredhow they made sense of their situations.

The women justified the fraud they committed in a variety of ways; the mostcommon one being their acute need for financial support. Yet, a more carefulexamination of their beliefs revealed that at the core of their justifications isthe strong belief that mothers who take care of young children are deservingof state financial support. These women therefore resisted what they viewedas an unjust workfare ideology that was suddenly imposed on them by thestate, and called for a welfare policy that embraces maternal care as animportant civic contribution. The sense of moral entitlement was so powerfulthat although they viewed themselves as upstanding, law-abiding citizens,they almost unanimously justify welfare fraud.

Competing conceptions of citizenship


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These justifications for welfare fraud are best understood as a reflection of the battle between the womensand the states competing conceptions of citizenship. Building on the idea that social rights are necessary toenable the disadvantaged to acquire full membership within society, changes in welfare laws do not simplyreflect a change in the distribution of benefits. Rather these changes redefine new boundaries of citizenship.They alter the definitions of who is deserving and who is undeserving of benefits, as well as to whatextent, and on what grounds. In other words, they can be seen to dictate who belongs and who does notbelong. These cutbacks in state benefits for poor mothers therefore represent to these mothers theirexclusion from full and equal membership within the Israeli societytheir exclusion from citizenship.Struggling for inclusion

Accordingly, poor womens justifications for welfare fraud reflected womens struggle for deservedness andinclusion. The claims for citizenship made by these poor Israeli women challenged the exclusion of maternalcare responsibilities from the definition of the ideal citizen. Hence, womens justifications for welfare fraudconveyed not merely a collective ideology but a gender-based ideology that contested the states definitionof a citizen as only those people who participate in the paid workforce.

The claim for recognition of their social contribution through caretaking highlights the fact that the unpaidwork these women do, caring for children, is in reality a necessary social function to ensure future

generations of workers and citizens. This focus on unpaid care work so central to family life unmasks thefalse notion, now reflected in Israeli welfare law, that workers and citizens dont need care themselvesnor need to provide care for others. As such, these poor womens political views provide bottom-up supportfor feminists who argue that workers independence is disingenuous because every worker is necessarilyeither previously, currently, or in the future dependant on the care of others. Thus, the interviewees called toexpand the characterization of citizenship to encompass womens unpaid care work.These interviews also revealed the ways in which these women viewed moving beyond the impasse withthe government. Some interviewees pointed to changes in the paid labor market norms in order to betteraddress workers care responsibilities. Other interviewees stressed that caring for children requiresanddeservesthe support of the state outside of the paid labor market. In other words, they viewed caretakingas a worthy social contribution in itself.

Reclaiming citizenship

My research seeks to shift our understanding of the phenomenon of welfare fraud from one of unlawful actsto one of reclaimed citizenship. It reveals that fraud is not merely a criminal activity, or a survival act, but anattempt to alter the social boundariesit is a cry of inclusion.

This view has several implications for our understanding of welfare policies and citizenship. First, it revealsthat struggles between competing discourses of citizenship can result in conflicts between the state andmarginalized groups. Such struggles can manifest themselves in unexpected forms such as in the case ofwelfare fraud. Second, by focusing on the views of women on welfare, this project highlights that practiceswhich take place in the private sphere may, in fact, constitute another form of civic involvement. Suchpolitical participation is especially important because disadvantaged and marginalized groupswho haveless access to formal forms of political participationare those that most often use these unstudied forms ofengagement. Specifically in this research, the focus on a bottom-up examination of legal non-compliance

within the private sphere broadens our perception of citizenship to more fully encompass womensexperiences, ideologies, and resistant acts.

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Founded in 1974, the Clayman Institute for Gender Research

at Stanford University creates knowledge and seeks to

implement change that promotes gender equality at Stanford,

nationally, and internationally.

Copyright 2010 Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved.

Shiri Regev-Messalemreceived her Ph.D. in law from Stanford in 2010 and is anacademic instructor at the Micro-finance and Economic Justice Clinic at Tel-AvivUniversity. She was agraduate dissertation fellow at the Clayman Institute from 20102011.
http://www.stanford.edu/group/gender/index.htmlhttp://gender.stanford.edu/people/shiri-regev-messalemhttp://gender.stanford.edu/people/shiri-regev-messalemhttp://gender.stanford.edu/graduate-dissertation-research-fellowshipshttp://gender.stanford.edu/graduate-dissertation-research-fellowshipshttp://gender.stanford.edu/graduate-dissertation-research-fellowshipshttp://gender.stanford.edu/people/shiri-regev-messalemhttp://www.stanford.edu/group/gender/index.html

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