Women and the Welfare State

Women and the Welfare State approaches the question of welfare policy from an entirely fresh perspective. In it the author argues that an appreciation of the way in which women are defined by welfare policies, and have been since the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution, is essential to a true understanding of the nature of those policies and of the Welfare State. An important, possible the most important, function of welfare policy has been to promote and retain a particular form of the fami