Abstract
Lone-mother–headed families are key targets of poverty research and financial coaching training programs worldwide. Yet, despite the centrality of this population in poverty studies, there is little research on how this population construes the meaning of money in developed economies. This article focuses on the social construction of money among low-income lone mothers in Israel—a highly market-oriented, neoliberal economy. Based on a qualitative analysis, the study found five main representations of money: survival money, motherhood money, earned money, coping money, and resistance to dominant views of money. Our findings confirm the notion that money exists outside the sphere of the market and has contextualized meanings reflecting gender as well as cultural and social structures.
Introduction
Lone-mother–headed families are both a key focus of worldwide poverty research (Kornbluh & Mink, 2018) and a key target population of anti-poverty social policies (Goldberg, 2010). Like in other countries, single mothers have been the focus of new welfare reforms in Israel. These reforms reduced significant state funding including child allowances, alimony allowances, and income support. Delegitimization and stigmatization of single mothers went along with these budget cuts. Based on the assumption that these women need value orientations that encourage savings and thrift, as well as the knowledge and skills required to manage their finances, one major objective is to coach them on how to handle money properly (Caissie et al., 2017; Helman & Maron, 2018). Yet, little research has been conducted on what money means to impoverished lone mothers of young children in developed economies. This knowledge is crucial to design intervention programs and policy development. In addition, most of the existing studies have been focused on countries in the Global South, whereas studies in economically developed countries were given less attention (Cnaan et al., 2012; Singh, 2006).
This study focuses on the meanings of money among impoverished lone mothers living in a neoliberal, highly competitive, stratified, market- and money-oriented society. Israel exemplifies such a context, having experienced strong and rapid economic growth, particularly in the high-tech arena. However, Israel has one of the highest rates of poverty, highest costs of living, lowest average wages, and widest gender wage gap among OECD countries (Kumar et al., 2019). Importantly, neoliberal social welfare policies in Israel—for example, the revamping of welfare programs to align with a work-based policy regime—encourage the increased participation of lone mothers in the workforce (Achdut & Stier, 2016).
Based on in-depth personal interviews, this qualitative constructivist study sheds light on the understudied topic of the social construction of money amongst the poor in developed economies. Specifically, it examines how poor lone mothers negotiate the meaning of money in the context of a market-oriented and increasingly unequal society. Through this analysis, the research shows how identifying the meanings that these women attribute to money enables a better understanding for scholars of the dynamics of power and recognition as experienced by this impoverished and marginalized group. Although this study addresses the specific case of Israel, the insights gleaned from the analysis presented here may contribute, in both theory and practice, to an examination of such dynamics in additional locations.
The study contributes to the existing literature on mothers who live in poverty by providing an evidence-based account of their lived experience regarding the main element that shapes their entire life—money. This exploration also allows us to expand the literature on the social construction of money among different female excluded populations (Wilkis, 2020). Our findings directly challenge the stigma and assumptions associated with mothers’ acceptance of welfare by calling into question any assumptions about their immorality or inability to manage money.
Background
The article begins by outlining key literature contributions to sociological research of money, poverty, and gender in order to provide the theoretical context of the research. We then turn to the social context, methodology, and findings. We then conclude with the discussion and implications.
Evolution in the Sociological and Economic Views of Money
Given its importance on both the individual and collective levels, money is a central topic in the social sciences. Both economics and classical sociology have understood money as a homogeneous entity, a universal medium of exchange, and an abstract but largely agreed-upon standard of value or unit of account. Much of the social and economic research conceptualizes money in terms of its quantitative characteristics and instrumental utilities. For Simmel (2005), money represents the objectified articulation of exchange relationships that transform goods into commodities and tie people to the flow of goods and services. According to Marx, money is a kind of mask, a symbolic veil over the real economy (Gilbert, 2005). The classic sociological view of money gives primacy to money's universal fungibility and unlimited ability to circulate among different social areas. This view sees money as value-neutral, a symbolic medium without value in itself (Ingham, 2001).
Over the years, this classic sociological view has evolved toward a more constructivist, hermeneutic view of money (Dodd, 2005). The constructivist view claims that money is socially and contextually defined. The meaning of money is shaped by cultural and social norms and value systems (Dodd, 2005; Zelizer, 1997). Many studies assume that money has no inherent essence apart from its cultural uses, which are determined by the traditional transactional modes of each culture's economy (Hart & Ortiz, 2014). Through her constructivist historical analysis, Zelizer (1989, 1997) showed how money acquires specificity and meaning as part of cultural practices and social structures that go beyond the formal economy. Indeed, the formal economy fails to capture the very complex range of the characteristics of money as a social medium. The constructivist model asserts that, although money does serve as a key rational tool of the modern economic market, it also exists outside the sphere of the market and is profoundly influenced by cultural and social structures. Accordingly, money has many meanings that exceed the boundaries of the economic (Wilkis, 2017; Furnham & Argyle, 1998; Guyer, 2004; Zelizer, 1997).
The constructivist study of money addresses issues such as cross-cultural differences in the meanings of money (Dell’Orto & Doyle, 2001; Dutta-Bergman & Doyle, 2001; Parry & Bloch, 1989); money's relationship to intimacy (Zelizer, 2005); the management and control of money in households (Baek & DeVaney, 2010; Guérin et al., 2014); the transformation of money into moral and social resources (Bradford, 2015).
Money is a source of “moral capital.” Evaluations of where people obtained their money and how they use it are utilized as a moral test. There are many frames for evaluating the morality of money. People use these frames to impose, negotiate and resist their positive or negative status in society. These moral dynamics produce a social hierarchy embedded in monetary practices (Wilkis, 2020).
Poverty, Gender, and the Social Construction of Money
Historical, anthropological, and sociological studies show that the relationship between money, women, and poverty should be analyzed in a situated and contextualized manner (Wilkis, 2017). Accordingly, the use and meanings attributed to money reflect macro social and economic dynamics. Researchers from a variety of disciplines use a gendered framework in investigating the use and meanings of money. Feminist scholars approach money as a central aspect of the gendered division of power (Nyman, 2003). Economic and social historians often discuss the economic lives of women in terms of poverty, powerlessness, and the lack of money.
Empirical research has demonstrated significant gender differences in the use of money. Men report greater confidence, independence of action, risk-taking, and gambling with respect to money compared to women, who have a greater sense of envy and deprivation (Peiss, 1986). Studies have shown how men's identity, self-esteem, and sense of power are inextricably linked with money. In contrast, for women, money has a more instrumental significance (Atwood, 2012). In addition, studies have found that married women in poverty are more likely than their male counterparts to report stress caused by economic hardship (Santiago et al., 2012).
In many ways, the feminization of poverty can be framed as another expression of the masculinization of money. Several studies have indicated that husbands in poverty retain the major decision-making power over the allocation of money and that women are relegated to making decisions only about small household purchases. Junior, Katz, and Ahn's (2016) qualitative study found that, when asked about household money management, impoverished married women most often responded that their husbands had the final say about financial decisions. Silva-Segovia and Lay-Lisboa's (2017) study also revealed that money has meaning as a symbolic element of power. Although women shared a great deal of responsibility for household finances, they saw it as the illusion of power. They felt that their husbands owned the money and that they were expected to give their husbands a detailed account of their money management.
Studies that explored poor lone mothers’ experiences focused on stressors and coping strategies (e.g. Crosier et al., 2007; Matsai & Raniga, 2021). They highlighted multiple stressors among lone mothers that were associated with their low-income status, including limited and poor access to medical care, prolonged and ongoing distress, stress related to childcare, and the need to deal with the social stigma associated with their position (Broussard et al., 2012). Poor women also suffered from distress, hardship, and struggle (Krumer-Nevo, 2005). In response, feminist scholars highlighted the need to provide sufficient care and support to marginalized groups, advocate for social justice, and intervene in the political sphere (Goodkind & Ballentine, 2017). In addition, the discourse of intensive motherhood encourages women to divide their energies and resources between the need to provide for their children even in a state of economic deprivation and the need to take care of them properly (Hays, 1996). The complementary extensive discourse of motherhood imposes the entire responsibility for ensuring the wellbeing of their children on mothers (Christopher, 2012).
The role of women as mothers, particularly the main caregiver role of single mothers, cannot be separated from an exploration of the link between gender and the social construction of money. Several studies have shown that the accumulation of economic resources is strongly linked to mothers’ understanding of their responsibility not only for their children's physical wellbeing but also for their ability to participate in the “economy of dignity” (Pugh, 2009) and their social inclusion (Lavee, 2016). Deciphering the multiple social constructions of money in the lives of poor mothers is therefore important for improving our understanding of the burden of maternal caregiving in contemporary neoliberal environments. In the context of an increasingly polarized society, the Israeli concept of a deserving, “good enough” mother can prove her ability to meet the needs of her children on her own (Lavee & Benjamin, 2015). The privatization of motherhood in the neoliberal regime of Israel implies the total dedication of mothers, even lone mothers, to both intensive and extensive motherhood—all in the context of the reduced commitment of the state to helping mothers who are not able to work, to provide accessible early childcare for working mothers, and to enable the upward mobility of those in the low-end jobs typically held by lone mothers (Mandel & Shalev, 2009).
Context: Lone-Mother Families in Poverty in Israel
Israel was originally established as a social democratic welfare state and for years maintained a strong collectivist ethos (Doron, 2003). Since the late 1980s, however, it has gradually adopted market-oriented neoliberal economic policies. This trend, which has intensified considerably in the last two decades, has led to a serious retrenchment in social expenditures and a restructuring of welfare policies (Maman & Rosenhek 2009). Consequently, Israel has one of the highest rates of poverty among OECD countries (OECD, 2019). In 2019, the poverty rate for individuals was 30% (Israel National Insurance Institute, 2020). The Gini index of inequality is currently 0.34. Studies have shown that lower-middle-class individuals—whose income lies between the poverty line and 25% above it—experience high levels of economic hardship as well.
With regard to our study, single-parent families currently account for 11% of all Israeli families with children below the age of 18. Furthermore, 87% of these households are headed by women. About 25% of lone mothers’ households live in poverty compared to 19% of the total population (Israel National Insurance Institute, 2019).
During the 1990s, new legislation for single-parent families was introduced, entitling mothers who were the primary breadwinners and caregivers to various allowances and social rights (Berkovitch, 2001). However, welfare reforms enacted at the beginning of the 21st century, and mainly in the 2003 reform, sharply reduced single mothers’ eligibility for state support.
In Israel, similar to the US, the UK, and other EU countries, new welfare policies have focused on single mothers. These reforms cut key state allocations, including child allowances, alimony allowances, and income support. These cuts were accompanied by the de-legitimization and stigmatization of single mothers. Contemporary social policies champion the value of “work first”, rather than the combined roles of mother and worker (LAVEE, 2021). Consequently, the first decade of the 21st century saw the implementation of various welfare-to-work programs designed to replace welfare allocations with their recipients’ participation in the labor market (Herbst, 2013). As a consequence of the reforms, lone mothers are assumed to be exclusively responsible for both care and breadwinning in their households, with minimal state support (Helman, 2011). At the same time, both official data and academic studies have demonstrated that despite the government's attempts to reduce poverty via participation in the labor market, the wages earned by lone mothers are often insufficient for alleviating their poverty (Lavee & Benjamin, 2016; Strier & Abdeen, 2009).
Moreover, overall societal inequality remains high, and the underfunded social welfare programs cannot meet the needs of every family in poverty (Israel National Insurance Institute, 2019). In the rankings of OECD countries, Israel continues to place at the top of the poverty scale (OECD, 2019).
Method
Participants
This study is part of broader research examining the everyday life of people from various social groups in Israel who live in poverty. For this study, we used constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2014) to explore the question of how impoverished lone mothers construct the meaning of money. All participants subjectively defined themselves as living in poverty. Moreover, all participants received some kind of economic support, either from governmental agencies or NGOs.
For this article, we conducted interviews with the social group of Jewish single mothers with dependent children (N = 70). Participants were recruited through public social services, non-profit organizations, and community centers providing services to this population. The sample was very diverse in terms of age, education, type of job, and place of residence. Table 1 details the demographic characteristics of the participants. The women ranged in age from 21 to 53 years. More than half of the participants (56%, n = 39) were employed in paid jobs. In addition, 24% (n = 17) had income from a mix of paid jobs and benefits from the National Insurance Institute. Fourteen individuals were unemployed or actively seeking work and depended only on National Insurance benefits.
Participants’ Demographic Characteristics.
The women held a variety of positions, including human services workers, hairstylists, elderly caregivers, salespeople or cashiers in a store, secretaries, and cleaners. About half worked in low-paid office and service jobs. With regard to education, 30% (n = 21) of the women had not completed elementary or high school, 43% (n = 30) had completed high school or its equivalent, and 27% (n = 19) reported having a college or postgraduate degree. Half of the women were divorced, 10% were widowed, 18% were separated and 22% were single.
Participants consented to have their interviews audiotaped and transcribed before the interview. We explained the study and its goal to them and their role in exploring the research question before the interviews began. Participants signed a written informed consent form that detailed their rights, the risks and benefits of participation, and a description of the study. We assured them that their identities would be kept private throughout the research procedure.
Data Collection
Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, each of which lasted one to two-and-a-half hours; most lasted about two hours. The participants chose the setting for the interviews, most often their homes. Each participant was asked the same questions, mostly in the same order, based on the interview guide. Participants were asked to provide demographic details, such as age, education, and employment. The interview began with the general question “Tell me about yourself.” Then, participants were invited to talk about a routine day.
The subsequent questions focused on money. We asked the participants about their views on money as a source of livelihood, expenses, and income, their money management, the meanings of money for them, and their interpersonal relations and money. We collected data until we reached a saturation point, after which more interviews were unlikely to provide new information.
Data Analysis
The social constructionist analysis takes a critical stance toward taken-for-granted knowledge. It assumes that knowledge is an interactive process that involves specific historical and cultural contexts. Our goal was to determine the role of the social and cultural context in framing the participants’ construction of money. Specifically, we were concerned with the meanings that low-income single mothers ascribe to money and how these meanings are reproduced, negotiated, and transformed through social practice and social relations.
We analyzed the data using the grounded theory method (Charmaz, 2014; Strauss & Corbin, 1990). In the first step, we conducted an open coding of the interview statements in which we examined the statements, divided them into segments, and checked for commonalities that could reflect categories or themes. The two primary investigators (PIs) of the study and two graduate students conducted the coding. They met regularly to discuss the coding and the analysis. Each research assistant coded several interviews, and then one of the PIs reviewed the coding to ensure its reliability. If any disagreements arose, they were discussed in the group meeting until reaching consensus. We then performed axial coding in order to identify relationships between categories and subcategories. According to Strauss and Corbin (1990), this approach reflects the idea of clustering open codes around specific points of intersection—in our case, the women's framing of their understanding of money. Finally, we conducted selective theoretical coding. At this stage, we were able to name the main categories we found reflecting the participants’ social construction of money.
Ethical Considerations
The study received the Institutional Review Board ethical approval from Haifa University. Our interviewees provided personal and sensitive information about their lives. Therefore, we made every effort to protect their privacy and confidentiality. The transcripts were accessible solely to the study team, and we used various methods and technologies to secure them. Before taking part, all participants gave their informed consent. Participants were notified before participating that their participation was fully voluntary and that no question was obligatory. Participants were provided with an email address to contact the study team, who were available to answer any questions. We also provided participants with information on how to obtain free assistance from non-profit organizations.
Findings
The data analysis identified five main social constructions of money for lone mothers: money equals survival, motherhood and money, valuing and using earned money, resistance to dominant views of money, and coping with the lack of money. In the last category, the analysis revealed three different patterns of coping with the lack of money: borrowing money, cheating, and saving money.
Money Equals Survival
For many lone mothers, generating enough money to meet their families’ basic needs is a constant struggle. The concept of survival money implies that living in poverty is living in a constant state of alertness, one expression of which is the routine repetitive counting of cash. Failing to secure enough money may expose families to eviction, food shortages, electricity cuts, and traumatic situations. The participants’ equation of money with survival reflects their continuous efforts to subsist in a Darwinian survival-of-the-fittest society. For example, one mother shared her conception of survival money, equating it with the struggle for life: I have lived all my life in survival, since I was born. You know I was born premature, but I survived; I have strength. Look. I had no choice but to eat, but if I did not have to, I know I would pay all my debts, everything, until the last cent.
The participants reported that they prioritize their expenses according to what is important and what is less important. Basic needs such as housing, electricity, food, and water come first. After these expenses, they often have no money left for any other expenses, even those that might also be critical for survival, such as medicine: The money goes to rent, the electricity bill, and basic food stuff. Even water. I have not fixed the water heater because I have no money. For a long time, I did not buy clothes and medicine that I must take.
For others, even money for electricity is scarce. In such cases, the survival calculations mean saving every possible cent: “There were days I cut off the electricity in the fridge because it was empty. There were very hard days, but you know, somehow, I survived.”
While policymakers often refer to physical survival when determining public assistance to people who live in poverty, psychological and social survival were major themes in our interviewees’ stories. For many women, the lack of money represents being in a state of siege, with their freedom of movement severely restricted. Being without money leads to a life of physical and social withdrawal. One mother described her bleak life, in which she and her two sons had no social life: I have no calls. I have nothing to do at home. I do not have a place to go, a club. After school there is no activity for the kids. There is nothing to do, and he runs away, and it is not good. He does have a cell phone but no Internet. No computer, no TV … I have nothing.
Money means one could reach out and participate in society. The lack of money means being imprisoned within the boundaries of the house, isolated and excluded from the society of consumption: “And you know that everything is expensive here in the city. And I do not know how to move from place to place. It's an injustice.…I sit here alone all the time with the children.” This participant was acutely aware that many people do not need to struggle to make ends meet, and that the unequal distribution of resources condemns the poor in a highly competitive society.
Generating sufficient money to meet their basic needs consumes the energies of these women, leaving them no time or space to dream: Sure, it's hard because most of the money goes to debts and basic things and that's it and there's nothing left. And then there are no luxuries and no luxuries and things I thought like a perfume or a dream that I do want. It remains a dream.
Yet, money becomes so crucial to survival and is so scarce that imagination sometimes becomes a necessity: My son told me he wanted hot food and I had no money, so I got stuck. I brought a paper and I started drawing. I drew a box on paper and inside the box a hot meal and I told him to imagine he was eating it.
In Israel's market-oriented society, money is a proxy for realizing one's dreams. However, those who construct money as a struggle for survival do not have space or energy for dreams or luxuries. They have no escape from the daily fight in which they must engage because, as mothers, they see themselves as the protectors of their families.
Motherhood and Money
Israel is a very family-centric society. The hegemonic discourse of motherhood portrays a “good” mother as one whose primary responsibility is to devote her time and energy to the care and development of her children (Lavee, 2016). Therefore, the construction of money as survival, which acknowledges that her highest priority must instead be to secure sufficient resources for her family, represents a threat to “good” mothering.
The narratives of the participants who related motherhood to money were permeated by trauma. For example, one mother confessed to stealing milk from her mother's house to feed their children: I would take my mom's groceries on Fridays. I would steal milk from the fridge and hide the morning's milk in my bag. On my way to the cash register in the store I calculate the cost of groceries a thousand times and count the cash in my hand a million times so that I will not be embarrassed in front of people. I’ve come to the point that I’m afraid to touch the cash money.
Women in the study explained how money shapes the mother–child relationship and is a marker of their functioning as mothers: My children should feel equal in school. I will not pay the electric bill; instead I’ll buy something for my child and make him feel happy … I’ll use the money as a mother, and I can make him happy.
One of the main meanings of motherhood money is that it can be used to preserve family cohesion and togetherness: I wanted my child to have a father, to have a brother. I did not give him either a father or a brother. I cannot even dream of having another child. I have lost a lot in my life, and I am afraid of losing my son. For that reason, I put my child's needs as a priority. I work hard, and the money is used first for my son's needs. So, I give up on all kinds of women's expenses; you know, like getting a haircut and stuff like that.
Yet, for impoverished lone mothers, motherhood money is always too little to cover their children's needs. In the losing battle for motherhood money, the shadows of guilt and helplessness are an unavoidable presence. These feelings are evident in the words of the next interviewee: I feel that I am disappointing my children. As a mother I see myself as the main [one] responsible for this home, and because our situation is so dreadful, I see it as my responsibility … I see myself as the main cause of the situation.
For these women, money seems to be the essential ingredient, indeed, the basis of good motherhood. Therefore, they feel trapped in the cycle of motherhood guilt: they cannot effectively meet their children's needs with their current funds, but working more hours to earn more money weakens the quality of their relationship with their children. Thus, motherhood money seems to be both the precondition and the main obstacle to good mothering.
By engaging in exhaustive efforts to secure enough money, these women seem to accept the gender obligations and social responsibilities that society imposes on mothers to guarantee the reproduction of the family. In the social and gendered order embedded in the monetary order, motherhood money plays a key role in regulating and disciplining these mothers’ lives.
Valuing and Using Earned Money
Against the background of permanent hardship, these mothers place a special meaning on money earned from their work. Earned money thus has more value than money from other sources. Thirty-four-year-old D’, a divorced mother of two children who works as a secretary, stated: Financially I cannot be absent from work. I cannot lose even a minute…. You raise the children alone, alone, without any help … I work for my children to let them learn and succeed.
Most participants see the money earned from their labor as a kind of glorified money. It is money earned by suffering in dead-end jobs in a hostile labor market. Yet, despite the drudgery, the money they earn always seems to be insufficient to cover basic needs. L’, who is 42 years old, divorced with two children, and an office cleaner, said: “On Fridays and weekends when I was not working, I would clean houses. I worked and worked. But everything I worked was not enough for me!”
Many participants cannot earn enough from one job to feed their families, so they take on more work. Forty-six-year-old E’, a divorced mother of three children and a nurse, just started a third job: Right now, like I said, I work in two jobs. Now I just have to work in another, a third job because otherwise it's hard to feed my three children. If the night shift falls in the middle of the week, it really is not easy in the morning to continue to the main workplace. I work there without sleep and people ask me, ‘How are you working. You look terrible?’ I say, ‘I got up yesterday’.
Despite the high value the participants’ place on money earned in the labor market, it comes at a price: a constant sense of tiredness and even, for some women, poor health. E’ added: Sometimes there were situations like this where I worked countless nights. One night I slept at home all week and did not know how I survived. Today I slightly reduced that simply [because my] health situation does not allow and [it] is a pity for my children.
Many participants feel that one of their main missions as mothers is to impart a work ethic to their children. The participants indicated the moral value they give to work through the meaning they place on their children's “earned money.” Thirty-seven-year-old G’, who is divorced, has five children and works as a medical secretary at a pediatric clinic, said: One of my sons decided that he would clean the stairs of the building so that he would receive money. Shmuel worked in a kindergarten and does babysitting and saved almost 2,500 shekels. This money is for their needs, so they do not ask us because they know I do not have it. Uria also worked at McDonald's and made some money. I also want them to save for their future. Well, it makes them appreciate the value of money more; it gives the child a work ethic. Even a rich man should let his child work to appreciate the value of money.
Earned money is crucial to protecting the participants’ social capital and that of their children. Having such money is seen as helping their children gain social acceptance. Given this important function that the mothers attribute to money, many give preference to their children's needs over their own. They use their own earned money to buffer the consequences of poverty on children, such as social rejection.
The mothers indicated not only the importance and the value they attribute to social networks, but also the essential role played by money in enhancing social networking. A significant proportion of the participants reported that their lack of money limits their participation in social events such as birthdays and weddings. They shared that they rarely meet new people because of their economic distress. They refrain from inviting people to their home, because they are embarrassed by its shabbiness, and so remain isolated. G’, who is a 41-year-old single mother of one child and who works as an elderly caregiver, stated, I rarely meet them (her friends) when I am in financial distress because anything like that can be an expense. When I am in financial distress, it is more of a matter of communication in conversation. Not going out socially and even inviting fewer people home is something that is very constricting.
Resistance to Dominant Views of Money
Some participants related to resisting the dominant views of money. Despite their awareness of the centrality of money in Israel's competitive market-oriented society, some defy the all-encompassing construction of money. For example, one mother stated: Money is not all in life. I learned this lesson when my mother was at the hospital. She was very sick, and no money could help her. There is much more in life than money. You have to value life. A lesson I am trying to teach my children.
A similar perspective is manifested in the next quote: I see people chasing after money all the time, and they end up in the same place as me. Happiness is not something you buy with money. Money is something that you need, but when you understand the meaning of money, you realize that money is not what makes the person. A person can work and earn thousands, and suddenly things go wrong. You have to learn to trust in yourself, to rely on what is in your control. When you learn to trust yourself from the inside, I believe it will be fine.
The interviewees who have a resistance perspective on money are similar to other interviewees in many of their socio-economic characteristics and share the same impoverished position. However, re-framing their situation allows them to construct this alternative conception of money, and to avoid the negative emotions expressed above, at least to some degree. This alternative framing allows these mothers to present a sense of self-confidence and optimism, despite their devastating economic reality: In general, I’m an optimistic person, and I believe it will be good. Even if the economic situation is not brilliant, it is not what makes you happy and money is not everything in life. There are those with lots of money and bad relationships with family and friends.
Defying hegemonic views of money, in turn, enables a mother to conceptualize what is important in her life. M’, who is 33 years old, is separated with a child and works as a waiter, said: You have to be happy, and things will work. It's not just a slogan. When you are happy with what you have, your fears and difficulties disappear. People who do not have peace of mind are lost … working in terrible jobs … in bad relationships that are not good for them—you have to listen to yourself and then it is very easy to get to this place. Because money is not the goal; money is just the means.
Re-framing the meaning of money enables the participants to reflect on their values, and to equate these values with humanistic common values. Through this narrative these mothers can present themselves as good, moral human beings and mothers, despite the lack of money: Money is not everything…. Money will not raise my kids. Hugs, love and support, not money will raise them. Values and infinite love will make them human beings…! Money is not everything? No … Respect, care, love, that's what builds them … not money. This is the way; there is no other way; money is just a means.
Other participants shared counter-narratives of money with the dominant ones. For instance, living in highly expensive cities in Israel with the highest rental prices and not leaving the place as is socially expected: The City Square area turns out to be the most expensive area in this city. But I want to stay here, it may sound irresponsible but I don't want to move to live somewhere else.
Thus, many participants create their counter-narratives of money that challenge the dominant constructions. Doing so enables them to resist adopting the hegemonic worldview that sustains and legitimates the growing inequalities in an economy guided by neoliberal values.
Coping with the Lack of Money
Within the various constructions of money, the analysis also revealed that the participants developed three creative methods of coping with their lack of money: borrowing money, cheating, and saving money.
Borrowing Money
Our participants reported that they borrowed money from family and friends. However, compared with earned money, borrowed money involved risks. Failure to repay the money may jeopardize the mother's social capital or irrevocably harm her family relationships. Fifty-one-year-old O’, an unemployed widow with four children, described one effect of borrowing money from a neighbor: My neighbor, she knows my situation and she helped me. She never said no to me. She says no when she really does not have [money] … but maybe once or twice she said no to me because I owed her.
To borrow money, some participants turn to the grey market, despite its predatory and risky nature. R’, who is 44 years old, is separated, with three children, and is unemployed, acknowledged she has no choice: What do I pay the loan from the grey market back with? From what I get from the income support, I return some money every month, but I do not cover the loan because I have to subtract the entire loan amount at once and I have no such option. I have already paid them lots of money and still owe them. What will I do?
Cheating
Another way in which the participants cope with their financial hardship is to not declare earned income to government welfare programs. The next two excerpts describe a common practice among our participants: I receive a disability allowance from the National Insurance Institute of NIS 3,400 per month.… I also work with two autistic children and I receive an additional NIS 800 a month, but National Insurance does not know about it … because otherwise, they would deduct this sum from the allowance. I have to cheat to survive.
Similarly, another interviewee noted: I try to clean houses as much as possible. I already have a few regular houses that I clean. The problem is that it is not a safe job because it is an illegal, unregistered informal job. I am not reporting this job because otherwise social security would cut off my benefits.
Many participants confessed to working in the informal market to avoid being sanctioned and losing their welfare benefits. However, living on money earned through cheating means living in constant fear of being discovered. Moreover, such a practice is problematic in terms of exposing themselves to the risks involved in informal work, such as not being covered by health insurance, not receiving any kinds of social benefits that they would receive by law when working in formal jobs, and not being eligible for any other benefits including in a formal contract between employers and employees.
Saving Money
Most participants reported that they make careful calculations regarding when they buy basic goods, where they buy them from, and in what quantity—all to reduce their spending and possibly be able to save some money. Saving money implies having some control over their use of money. The participants reported that they had a sense of control when they made decisions about allocating their resources, such as spending money that was earmarked to pay rent on food instead. Many also tried to control their grocery purchases by making a list beforehand, buying small quantities of food, and actually counting the number of vegetables and fruit they buy. As one mother noted: I try to reduce my expenses. Look, I’ll tell you the truth. I didn't buy expensive fruits at the beginning of the season, I always waited.… Today I count I have four apples left so I’ll only buy two more. Before I go to the supermarket, I count the fruits and vegetables that I have.
Another interviewee stated similarly: All the time I think about how to get to the end of the month with the money I have. I just do a lot of calculations, what to buy, what is cheaper. I’m really thinking about everything … I have a notebook and everything I buy I write [down] and I do a lot of calculations.
Saving money requires calculated money management. Earmarking money for specific purposes is a key management technique. The participants classified their money into categories, distinguishing “rent money” from “money for debts”, “food money” from “money for medicine”, “the children's school money” from “money for the mother's needs” and so on.
Participants also described numerous practices through which they co-operate to help each other better manage their finances, in ways that fit the more standard definition of financial intermediation. In sum, living in a highly stratified and competitive market-oriented society implies that those living in poverty must find multiple and ingenious ways to stretch the buying power of their money.
Discussion
This study examined the interaction between poverty, gender, and the meaning of money in Israel's highly developed, neoliberal economy. Specifically, it addressed the ways in which impoverished women, who occupy the lowest socioeconomic rung of society, negotiated the symbolic meaning of their money (Buchbinder et al., 2015). Our study confirmed that money takes on contextualized meanings that reflect gender, cultural and social structures beyond the economic sphere. It thus accords with recent research that supports aspects of Zelizer's model (Fridman, 2016; Kaye et al., 2014; Wherry, 2008), which claims that money is another type of socially-created currency. Specifically, money is subject to specific networks of social relations and its own set of values and norms (Anteby, 2010; Biscotti et al., 2012; Haylett, 2012). In other words, money is a critically important symbol used not only to acquire material possessions but also to negotiate the political, economic, class, gender, and generational bonds between people living in poverty. As such, money is symbolic as well as being “just” currency.
Our findings also highlighted the interplay of money, morality, and power in impoverished individuals’ social construction of money. Money was the main portal to the social, cultural, and other networks and opportunities that depend on having economic resources.
On the whole, our study confirmed earlier research on lone-mother–headed impoverished families documenting that these mothers are frequently unable to meet their family's basic needs such as food, housing and utilities. However, it also showed that impoverished mothers’ main constructions of the money went beyond their basic economic needs to include the relational (social isolation) and existential (sense of emptiness) spheres (Carruthers & Ariovich, 2010; Christopher, 2012; Dell’Orto & Doyle, 2001; Dutta-Bergman & Doyle, 2001; Parry & Bloch, 1989; Zelizer, 1989). More importantly, the findings challenged the reductionist and one-dimensional economic images of the poor in the social sciences (Douglas & Ney, 1998). Our analysis underscored how the social experiences of the poor are varied and contradictory due in part to variations in mothers’ social constructions of money.
Our study also contributed to research on poverty and motherhood. We found that the experience of poverty and the constant struggle to make ends meet shaped women's parenting practices (Lange et al., 2017). Indeed, motherhood played a central role in the construction of money, which reflected the significance of varied gendered discourses of motherhood. The various constructions of money revealed in the analysis provide a more comprehensive understanding of the mothers’ resistance to the common views stigmatizing the image of poor lone mothers. Indeed, the participants linked the neoliberal values of personal responsibility to their maternal role.
Money that comes from earned work, sometimes involving hard physical labor, had a symbolic surplus for participants compared with other types of monies. Our participants relayed multiple stories of heroic sacrifice and stoic suffering in the labor market, all related to the money they earned. They prized their earned money in terms of morality. Thus, there is an interplay between money, morality, and the dominant local social discourse.
In the Israeli case, the participants’ constructions were influenced by the hegemonic discourses of neoliberalism that reify participation in the labor market as an expression of personal responsibility. The systemic moral devaluation and stigmatization of welfare money as immoral money have deepened the idealization of paid work, even in an oppressive labor market like that in Israel for low-income lone mothers. The paradox of neoliberalism is in creating all of the conditions to expand the need for welfare money and at the same time legitimizing the stigma attached to the beneficiaries of this kind of money. This contradictory dynamic has been analyzed in the past (Zelizer, 1989) and in other contexts (Wilkis, 2020). Our contribution is highlighting how the pressure of this moral structure of money in the neoliberal era increased the symbolic domination over low-income lone mothers. However, we also showed how these women found ways to negotiate and resist this imposition.
Indeed, our findings underscored the centrality but also the limitations of earned money. It is not sufficient to enable many mothers to meet the basic needs of their families. The single mothers in our case did not describe themselves as irresponsible spenders who lacked the ability to manage money. On the contrary, they shared practices that demonstrated skills in managing and manipulating their limited resources to make ends meet. In addition, by developing counter-narratives that prioritized satisfaction with and purpose in life over money, they actively resisted the hegemonic discourse around money.
In sum, this study showed the multiple meanings of money that poor women constructed in Israel as they negotiated with employers, the state, the financial system, and society in general, as well as with and for family members (such as their children). These multiple meanings of money did not always align with each other. The lack of money made it more difficult to do the “relational work” of matching the meanings of money with contexts and relationships in ways that protected or enhanced their moral capital (Lavee & Benjamin, 2015), enabling them to transmit values to their children while maintaining material resources.
Do the variations in the meaning of money build on an accepted hegemonic hierarchy? The rejection of the centrality of money coexists with the need to negotiate and make compatible meanings of money very present in the lives of poor women. Our study showed that these constructions of money were not independent of the dominant discourses but were shaped by the broader society, with gender playing an important role. By linking the women's narratives to the macro-level context and the environment in which decisions regarding money are made, we provided a more comprehensive explanation of the social forces that shape women's decision-making processes and practices.
Implications for Social Work Practice
The social processes that emerged from our analysis can help scholars and practitioners better understand poor women's lived experience of money. Improving social workers’ understanding of these experiences could also reduce the stigma and social exclusion embedded in traditional views regarding poor women's handling of their money.
Lone mothers face significant economic hardship and struggle to meet their families’ basic needs. In recent years, this marginalized group has had to confront neoliberal social policies that portray them as economically irresponsible and aims to “teach” them how to manage money. Moreover, neoliberal discourse and its practices exclude lone mothers from the social and economic mainstream.
The distance between the lived experience of poor families and the social workers who are in charge of their wellbeing was brilliantly described by Perrin-Heredia (2013) in her work on the everyday confrontations between poor families in France and the social workers specializing in “social and family economy advisory.” Drawing on an extensive ethnographic study, Perrin-Heredia demonstrated that the economic categories that social workers take for granted are often not applicable to populations whose economies do not share their implicit social norms. Consequently, the enforcement of such categories, supposedly in order to help people, imposes on them the patterns of “normal” (i.e. “rational” and “moral”) economic behavior.
Therefore, students of social work and social workers must be made aware of this distance. They must understand how lone mothers construct and attribute meaning to money and how these meanings are embedded in and shaped by their context, including the socio-political structure and gender. Those who work professionally with lone impoverished mothers must also acknowledge the various consequences of these meanings for lone mothers’ experiences and their strategies for dealing with poverty and their lives, especially in countries in which the neoliberal discourse threatens their wellbeing.
Our findings, which delve deeply into lone mothers’ experiences and their construction of money and are grounded in data, are crucial for promoting policy changes among social workers, acquainting them with the oppressive nature of neoliberalism and encouraging them to challenge the neoliberal discourse and create the conditions that enable lone mothers and their children to live a dignified life. Given the recent calls for actively promoting policy changes (Lavee & Strier, 2018), social workers can draw on the knowledge presented in our study to use their professional discretion creatively to resist policies that are unfair to lone impoverished mothers and promote policies that could improve the economic conditions of this population.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the National Insurance Institute of Israel.
