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Dual Welfare and Sex Segregation of Access to Social Benefits: Income Maintenance Policies in the UK, the US, the Netherlands and Sweden*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2009

Diane Sainsbury
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Abstract

In examining the sex of beneficiaries of income maintenance programmes, several country-specific studies suggest a pattern of segregation between women and men in access to types of benefit. Men are more likely to be recipients of social insurance benefits, whilst women often must rely on means-tested programmes, and frequently their claims to insurance benefits are via their husband. This conclusion is re-examined through a comparison of insurance and means-tested programmes in the UK, the US, the Netherlands, and Sweden. The purpose is to determine, first, to what extent such a pattern of segregation emerges in the four countries and, second, what mechanisms operate to exclude or include women. The comparison reveals that the Swedish case deviates from the other three countries, and policy constructions inhibiting and promoting greater equality between women and men in access to social benefits are discussed. The results also have theoretical implications for dual welfare as an analytical framework and feminist thinking about the welfare state.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , January 1993 , pp. 69 - 98
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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