The impact of mutual obligation for sole parents

Context of the studies

Each study was timely and important because, in each instance, changes were afoot for welfare recipients. In 2000, the Howard-led Coalition government had identified ‘welfare dependency’ as a major concern, and commissioned the McClure Report to review the Australian welfare system and identify possible interventions to address ‘the welfare problem’ (Bessant, 2000). The 2000 study was undertaken prior to the 2001 Federal Budget, but after the release of the McClure Report (2000), when the introduction of mutual obligation requirements for sole parents appeared inevitable. Consequent legislation required sole parents to enter into paid work and/or meet mutual obligation requirements when their youngest child turned 13 (Swinbourne et al., 2000). Further ‘welfare-to-work’ legislation in July 2006 brought these obligations forward to when the youngest child reached 8 years of age, simultaneously transferring them from the parenting payment to the lower-paid unemployment benefit, which required recipients to undertake 15 hours of approved mutual obligation activity per week (ACOSS, 2014). Currently, proposed changes to requirements for receiving welfare payments advocate increased mutual obligation and job-seeking activity for a wide range of welfare recipients, including sole parents (ACOSS, 2014).

Mutual obligation: ideology and rhetoric

Mutual obligation involves what has been termed ‘compulsory volunteerism’, where welfare recipients are compelled to participate in ‘voluntary’ work and/or another authorised activity, through coercive measures including fines and withdrawal of welfare payments (Yeatman, 1999). From this neoliberal perspective, welfare is believed to jeopardise the effective functioning of the economic system as a result of lowering peoples’ desires to improve their own and their families’ material situations. Additionally, people are perceived as needing to work hard, pay taxes and therefore contribute to a stable, harmonious society and an ordered economy. In this way, welfare is seen to impact on the apparent ‘natural dynamic of the economy’ (Hindess, 1997: 212). Hence, a strong workforce is seen as ensuring a strong economy.

The concept underlying mutual obligation, where people are required to fulfil duties, is linked with classical liberalism, operating on an historical belief that society is founded on a (theoretical) social contract. Liberalism assumes citizens have given their consent to be governed, and this consent is considered necessary in order to establish a legitimate system of law and authority; one that ensures order, safety, economic stability and national security. Belief in a hypothetical social contract has been appropriated by contemporary neoliberal rhetoric, for example, in Forrest’s discussion of the merits of mutual obligation when he states that ‘unconditional welfare … provides no clear incentive for a person to fulfil their social contract as a community member’ (Forrest, 2014: 172).

Classical liberalism emphases individual choice and freedom constrained only by sufficient governmental interference to ensure order and security (Heywood, 2012). Individual freedom is seen to foster competitiveness and entrepreneurship, leading to economic efficacy. A strong work ethic is deemed necessary in order to be competitive, and therefore successful. Individuals are free to pursue personal financial wealth creation; indeed, individuals must pursue wealth creation in order for government to provide economic and social security (Heywood, 2012). Underlying this belief is a version of Rousseau’s paradox of the ‘necessity of forcing individuals to be free’ (Rousseau, 1969 [1913]). The consequence is a conviction that the economy must be managed effectively through legitimate and consensual authority so it can provide the resources to maintain and secure the state. From a contemporary neoliberalist perspective, it is important that individuals not only ‘choose’ personal paths to economic wealth, they must also adopt the dominant morals and social norms prescribed by government and intended to control behaviour (Parker and Fopp, 2005).

Forrest’s (2014: 204) report, Creating Parity, is a neoliberal treatise on Australian society. It focuses on ‘restoring’ social norms, as though they had been lost; and ensuring ‘adults are in work, children attend school every day, communities are safe and the obligations that come with receiving welfare payments are complied with’, as though these were ideals attainable solely but inevitably through devotion to one true knowledge (Foucault, 1991). Forrest stresses the importance of welfare recipients’ understanding and complying with ‘their obligations’ to active citizenship. Establishing, as a social norm, an expectation that welfare recipients will have ‘enterprising’ attitudes, values and beliefs, is paramount to supporters of this ideology. Scrutiny thereby falls on duties of the individual rather than on duties of government, distracting inquiry away from government’s obligation to ensure the basic human rights of all Australians, including protection against unemployment and adequate levels of income support to prevent poverty and homelessness.

Methodology

The three studies are positioned within a feminist, interpretive approach to research and sought in-depth understanding of individual experiences and their subjective meanings from participants’ perspectives (Charmaz, 2005). All studies involved in-depth interviews with sole mothers; the first two studies were of 14 (2000) and 32 (2007) women, with the third study (2015) involving 15 women. All studies received ethics approval from the researcher’s research institution. Pseudonyms are used to ensure anonymity (Berg, 2001). Interviews included open-ended questions about experiences on a broad range of issues, including those related to mutual obligation requirements, living on a low income, and housing-related concerns such as living in housing-related stress.

Starting with personal contacts, snowball sampling was used to access participants. As a sampling technique, snowballing is a useful method to contact groups of people, such as low-income sole mothers, who may be vulnerable and stigmatised in their everyday life (Berg, 2001). In keeping with snowball sampling guidelines, each participant was asked if they knew someone who would be prepared to take part in the research. In all three studies, participants ranged in age from their mid 20s to their early 50s, with the number of children of participants ranging from one to four (average two children). All participants were either studying and/or working, either on a part-time, casual or voluntary basis, and all were receiving a Centrelink payment.

The studies used an adaptive grounded theory approach to process and analysis (Layder, 1997). Comparative and inductive analysis was used to interpret underlying and recurring patterns and meanings in participants’ responses and accounts (Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Layder, 1997). Accordingly, understandings and propositions were developed directly from participants’ own constructions of meaning, and subsequently theorised with reference to relevant literature (Charmaz, 2005). This approach facilitated detailed analysis of the ways in which participants understood and negotiated their everyday life, and how these were located within the context of their broader social, cultural, economic and political worlds (Layder, 1997).

Findings: the 2000 study

Participants in the 2000 study said that mutual obligation requirements for sole parents would compound welfare-related stigma, and they feared coercive measures, such as fines, would exacerbate their already tenuous financial situation. They spoke about how such an intervention would increase anxiety levels and jeopardise mental health. All participants were already involved in activities outside the home, either in paid work (mostly part-time and/or casual employment), volunteering or studying. Thus, the idea behind this intervention was generally seen by participants as unnecessary. Several voiced concern that it would not change the status quo, as one participant, Eliza, explained:

The rich will stay rich and the poor will stay poor. There won’t be any changes, everything will stay the same. It just means that we’ll be expected to do more even though we’re already doing it all on our own … (Eliza, 40s)

Around half the participants spoke about how such schemes reinforce populist ‘dole-bludger’ rhetoric, and the notion that people receiving welfare payments lack a work ethic. They believed this would intensify individual pressure and social stigma. Geraldine observed:

It’s just putting more pressure on single parents. Things are hard enough as it is. It’s just more government propaganda, keeping that belief happening that everyone is just out there bludging away, they haven’t got a work ethic, all that sort of thing. Oh, everyone needs to be working, everyone needs to stop being lazy and get out there and work. (Geraldine, 30s)

Most participants were emphatic that they did not lack a strong work ethic. Clare was particularly angered by the implication that single parents are not sufficiently productive:

Look, I work hard already, I’m an independent person. I don’t need someone telling me to work hard. I don’t need to be threatened to do what I’m doing already. (Clare, 20s)

Geraldine spoke about pressure she feared would be applied in the form of financial penalties for non-compliance, and revealed the distress this was causing her. She said she was worried that her children’s basic needs, like food, were being threatened:

It’s the way they’ll bring it in that worries me. They’ll force single parents to do this so-called voluntary work as if we’re all bloody idiots! They’ll bully us and some single parents won’t be able to cope and they’ll get stressed … people just can’t afford to be fined and cut off benefits. And it’s the children who’ll suffer if there’s no food on the table. (Geraldine, 30s)

Participants reported changes in the attitude of wider society towards them as sole parents, suggesting that bringing up children was becoming less valued. They felt this was being reinforced by extending mutual obligation schemes to include sole parents who, they believed, were increasingly being characterised as ‘just another group of bludgers dependent on welfare’. In the words of Denise:

Single parents are lumped in with ‘the dole-bludgers’, the failures, and there is stigma that goes along with it. Over the past few years people’s views have become harsher towards single mothers. I think people now look at me as a dole-bludger rather than that I’m doing something valuable for society by bringing up children. And that really doesn’t make me feel very good. (Denise, 30s)

Molly’s disclosure of her family’s attitude towards her was particularly poignant:

I have had to fight with my family to justify what I do. Here I am, a single mum with two small children under school age, and my family told me to my face that I’m a dole-bludger because I haven’t got a job. They actually said to me, ‘You’re nothing but a dole-bludger’. (Molly, 20s)

Overall, the participants (as mothers) thought the concept of mutual obligation undervalues the role of being a parent. Denise spoke passionately about society needing to validate the parenting role:

We’re doing a good job. We need to be supported and feel appreciated. People can’t move on until they feel acknowledged and supported. Parents do lots of stuff like listening to reading at schools, doing tuckshop, coaching sport teams, looking after other kids, so we need to feel appreciated. (Denise, 30s)

Within existing rhetoric, to be seen to be fulfilling one’s obligation one must be involved in paid work. Penny also spoke of many sole parents she knows being ‘totally involved in their communities’, adding that she felt the term ‘mutual obligation’ was itself contradictory:

How can it be voluntary work when it’s being forced on us? Voluntary work is something you do because you want to, not because you have to. It’s a contradiction, it doesn’t make sense! And where are all these jobs anyway? It’s hard to get any work, but even harder to get work that fits in with school hours…. There need to be incentives so that more real jobs can be created, and more child care. Otherwise it’s just a waste of everyone’s time and money. (Penny, 50s)

Several other participants also lamented what they saw as a lack of job-creation programs and incentives to create more ‘real jobs’. Similar issues were raised in the subsequent studies.

The 2007 study

While participants in the 2007 study discussed parallel issues to those in the earlier study, they also highlighted the additional concern of being closely watched. They spoke about feeling that their lives were increasingly being regulated within an institutionalised and bureaucratic culture of surveillance. Anne and May spoke about being controlled, watched and monitored as welfare recipients:

It seems like you’re constantly being treated like a child when you’re on welfare, always being watched. Even though the irony is that, as a single parent, you’ve done a bloody good job and a harder job than if you’d had a partner. On one hand they’re saying that you have to be a good citizen, do your mutual obligation, and on the other you have to be constantly on the lookout because you know you’re being watched and that makes me nervous. It just feels very controlling. (Anne, 30s)

I feel like a criminal. I mean what a manipulation. Wealthier parents aren’t controlled like this. The scrutiny I’m under. It doesn’t make me feel like taking control, it’s the opposite. I feel anxious and nervous a lot of the time.… You have to have a case manager as well because you supposedly need to be managed as if you can’t do anything yourself, which is pretty degrading. (May, 40s)

Participants clearly experienced disempowerment and nervousness created by increased scrutiny, and noted that this does not provide a nurturing and motivating environment. Mutual obligation programs go hand in hand with a sense of coercion which participants said impacts on their sense of control and autonomy.

Stacey had been transferred from the parenting payment onto the Newstart (unemployment) payment, with its more invasive scrutiny and reporting. Lessened control of her own life was internalised through erosion of self-confidence and ability to cope, and fear of homelessness, through unwitting breach, exacerbated her stress:

They want to know everything, check everything, and if I make a mistake they may cut me off. So I worry because then we’d be out on the street, we couldn’t pay the rent. It’s pretty scary, like I haven’t got any control over my own life. You have to fill in the names and addresses of the places you’ve contacted to find work, but there aren’t any jobs…. I just have to try not to get too stressed by it, worrying that I’ll be cut off benefits.… And, telling them all my personal stuff, having no control over my personal life. (Stacey, 30s)

Mary said she felt living on welfare payments had diminished her energy levels, sense of well-being, control, confidence and ability to cope mentally – and, consequently, had affected her children. Both Stacey and Mary emphasised the scarcity of suitable jobs, with Mary asking why governments are forcing people to meet mutual obligation requirements:

Now there’s all this talk about being ‘job ready’ and ‘meeting your mutual obligation’. You have to apply for all these jobs but there just aren’t any suitable jobs, not ones I can do in school hours, so why are they making us do all this? It wears you down, and sometimes I feel like I’m losing control.… And the kids can see I’m worried. I’m doing the best I can but it’s not enough. It’s like I’m not a real person or something because I haven’t got a full-time job. (Mary, 50s)

Political rhetoric that all, including sole parents, must be self-reliant, independent, ‘deserving’ citizens meeting their responsibilities and contributing to society was questioned by several participants, including by Rose:

I don’t think there’s a lot to be said about our government that has put so much pressure on us to be self-sufficient, but we’re also told that we should do our obligation to society. I don’t think that was how we’re supposed to live, all isolated from other people and feeling powerless to change anything…. Anyway, it’s up to governments to look at how they can create more work, wage subsidies and things, not this mutual obligation stuff. (Rose, 20s)

Here, Rose identifies a paradox of mutual obligation, with people exhorted to be self-directed and free to choose their own life-paths while simultaneously being coerced into complying with mutual obligation requirements. Participants in the most recent study spoke about how increasingly strict welfare policy has impacted negatively on their daily lives.

The 2015 study

Again, participants raised similar issues to those in the earlier studies, including increasing concern about further coercive procedures, increased mental illness and poverty for welfare recipients. As in the previous studies, participants believed that people were already undertaking useful roles within their communities.

Participants said they felt extremely anxious about future employment prospects and financial concerns. Carol said:

I’m in so much debt and I’m always worried and anxious, always. I worry about my children and what will happen to us. How are we going to survive? I literally have enough for rent, food and that’s pretty much about it. Not even enough for food mostly. So I’ve had to get St Vinnie’s vouchers. You have to play a bit of a game when you go there, pretty much the ‘good girl’ game. I’ve found there’s a lot of judgement. You’ve got to make sure that you’re calm, that you’re not angry. (Carol, 30s)

Carol identified the need to present herself in a positive light when accessing services in order to receive assistance, and this was an issue also raised by Mazza:

So now you get people saying things like ‘I’m trying to do the right thing and look for work’, it makes people feel terrible about themselves. If people are unemployed then they must be lazy, and people are telling them that they’re lazy and that it’s their fault. But there are no jobs. They’ve taken all the jobs offshore. So if you go in to a service or somewhere, or to Centrelink or to your case manager, you have to seem like you’ve got it under control, you’ve been looking for work, doing everything right. (Mazza, 40s)

Several others similarly spoke about the need to give a positive impression when meeting with case managers and Centrelink employees due to amplified expectations (obligations) for receiving welfare payments. This was an important and recurring theme in the most recent study, with the following quote from Zoe exemplifying this view:

Things have just become so hard, so tough. Around here there’re so many people on welfare, but you still have this feeling that things are getting worse.… And with mutual obligation and having to look for so many jobs, I don’t know, it all seems pretty intense to me. I’m so stressed. I’m sure it didn’t used to be this bad. (Zoe, 40s)

Thus there was a general view that resentment towards people experiencing unemployment has increased markedly. Belinda agreed that negative attitudes towards people receiving welfare payments were becoming harsher:

The belief behind mutual obligation is that the government and the tax payers need to remind the unemployed what losers they are. They need to have case managers and do this mutual obligation so that they know what losers they are. It just builds division and resentment and it promotes hate, it’s a tougher and harder attitude now.… So it’s built this resentment up quite a few notches. (Belinda, 40s)

Jayne spoke about welfare support as being a right. She also saw the notion of mutual obligation as ‘Orwellian double-speak’:

As far as I know we have a right to get welfare payments but the government makes it like we have to be obliged to ‘contribute’, but they are obliged too. It’s just ridiculous. I see mutual obligation as Orwellian double-speak.… There simply aren’t enough jobs. (Jayne, 30s)

Within a dominant ideology requiring ‘dole-bludgers’ to ‘contribute’ to society, the welfare payments Jane saw as constituting a right are increasingly scrutinised. She also perceived mutual obligation as policy disguising the truth of insufficient employment.

While policy associated with mutual obligation requirements for sole parents changed significantly during the time between the first and last studies, and parents in the latter two studies faced much more onerous obligations and scrutiny, responses from participants did not differ significantly across the studies. Participants in all three studies were displeased with the lack of reciprocity in mutual obligation, pointing out the one-sided nature of the policy. They discussed how mutual obligation redirects the focus away from inadequacies of the labour market and onto welfare recipients themselves. It was noted that mutual obligation did not change the status quo, with the most vulnerable people continuing to live in poverty, while experiencing increased anxiety and stigma. Participants in the 2000 study were yet to experience the impact of mutual obligation and could only imagine the consequences of such policy. They feared that the everyday situations of sole parents receiving welfare payments would worsen, and they worried about how new policy would affect their financial situations. This fear was reinforced in the latter two studies, when participants identified increased levels of anxiety and concern about their worsening financial situations. Increased levels of scrutiny and surveillance were also discussed. Participants in the 2015 research believed that attitudes towards them as sole parents in receipt of welfare payments had worsened and become harsher over the past 15 years.

Discussion

Participants in all three studies challenged the efficacy of interventions such as mutual obligation, particularly given that they were already engaged in activities such as paid work, and/or volunteering and/or studying, in addition to the immutable responsibilities of care for their children. Furthermore, participants noted that being a parent and taking on the caring role is no longer viewed as valuable in today’s Australia. Like the participants in these studies, others have similarly pointed out that sole parents are already ‘contributing’ to society, not only as parents but also undertaking community work. For instance, Blaxland (2008) and Grahame and Marston (2012) have pointed out that many sole parents in receipt of welfare payments were already undertaking the kinds of activities that would meet the participation requirements for these payments in addition to their parenting roles.

However, without the monetary gains essential for full participation in capitalist society, participants noted that undertaking unpaid work does not address financial-related problems associated with living on a low income. Bessant (2000: 22) states that citizenship, from a neoliberal perspective, is restricted to meaning ‘participation in the labour market, receipt of a living wage, the ability to be a consumer with an adequate standard of living; employment demonstrates citizenship and moral character’. Such rhetoric implies that if people are not in paid employment then punitive measures are justified in order to compel them to adopt behaviour appropriate to the ruling perspective. Supposedly, demonstrating a ‘healthy work ethic’ is appropriate behaviour for acceptable citizenship. Imposing behavioural standards through the welfare system, via schemes such as mutual obligation, is a means of inculcating and normalising moral and societal values of the ruling ideology: work hard to qualify as a contributor to, and citizen of, society. This imposes a form of control over those impacted by the intervention. Sargent’s (1986: 35) assertion that social control can be defined as the ‘techniques used for manipulating and controlling the population’ would appear to sit well within mutual obligation objectives and rhetoric. Foucault (1991) believed that behavioural control is exercised over citizens through creating institutions and policy that seek to uphold an ostensibly moral order, with punitive measures adopted for non-conformers.

Punitive consequences for breaching welfare requirements precipitated concerns voiced fervently by study participants, including feelings of being closely controlled, watched, and socially and economically excluded. One participant in the 2007 study said she felt ‘like a criminal’; others remonstrated about being considered ‘dole-bludgers’ and feeling stigmatised because of attitudes about their morals and their behaviour generally, both as sole mothers and as welfare recipients. Stigma calls into question an individual’s moral character and behavioural ‘choices’, and robs them of their autonomy and sense of control, dignity and right to full citizenship. Ironically, rather than being motivational, this can hamper a person’s fuller participation in society. Being viewed in a negative light gave study participants perceptions of being outsiders. According to Goffman (1963), stigma entails assumptions of moral failure – failure to function as expected, failure to participate as expected, failure to care for themselves responsibly. People are judged and labelled according to social expectations, and devalued when they are considered to have failed. Goffman (1963) argued that such an outlook creates ‘spoiled identities’, whereby people are viewed as ‘discredited persons’ and imbued with social ‘failing’ and blamed for their so-called failures. Several participants in the 2015 study said they needed to present themselves to welfare services in a way that showed they were ‘contributing’, with one identifying the need to be seen as a ‘good girl’. This was an issue raised by Holdsworth and Tiyce (2012) in their study on homelessness, where it was similarly noted that those accessing services needed to present themselves in a positive light in order to obtain assistance.

Participants in each of the studies said they were anxious and nervous much of the time, with several noting that stress left them feeling unable to cope and to take control of their lives. There is evidence that punitive measures associated with interventions such as fines for non-compliance of mutual obligation requirements can build resentment, and that they do not assist people to take ‘more control’ and have more autonomy over personal situations (Shaver, 2001; Swinbourne et al., 2000). Mutual obligation can internalise blame and shame, lessen independence and control of oneself, increase anxiety and consequently reduce the sense of well-being for those who are in receipt of welfare (Swinbourne et al., 2000). Relational approaches to autonomy emphasise the importance of associations such as dependency and interdependency to the development of autonomy and sense of well-being. This is in contrast with more individualistic approaches that privilege independence and self-sufficiency; thus, being compelled to meet various requirements, in order to qualify for welfare assistance, can remove a person’s ability to act independently and autonomously (Shaver, 2001). Arguably, use of rhetoric such as ‘dole-bludger’ intentionally intensifies negativity aimed at those receiving welfare.

Paradoxes and oxymorons

There have been several paradoxes identified through this article, beginning with Rousseau’s (1969 [1913]) paradox of the ‘necessity of forcing individuals to be free’, regarding citizens being compelled to freely pursue wealth creation. Commonly, there is the antithetical juxtaposition of words in political terms such as ‘compulsory volunteerism’. Moreover, Karvelas (2013) contends that the concept of mutual obligation, understood as consisting of being required to volunteer or being involved in another authorised activity, is by definition an oxymoron. Neither was this appropriation of seemingly benign language lost on the target group. One participant in the 2000 study described the concept of mutual obligation as ‘a contradiction’, explaining that sole parents did not need to be coerced into volunteering because they were ‘already doing it’. Another participant in the 2015 study referred to mutual obligation as ‘Orwellian double-speak’ because it distorts reality.

Additionally, interventions such as mutual obligation seem doomed to achieve little in regard to addressing disadvantage and poverty, where the heightened onus lies one-sidedly on welfare recipients; reciprocal mutuality, where the government is obligated to ensure adequate suitable job opportunities, remains unacknowledged, unaddressed, even denied. Participants pointed out that mutual obligation requirements would not change people’s lives, and the structure of the existing system would not change; the status quo is maintained. Karvelas (2013) asserts that, despite all the resources allocated to such schemes, there is little real evidence that tougher mutual obligation measures actually help to lower the unemployment rate and relieve people’s poverty; in fact the opposite appears to be true, as there is less time available to seek employment. Borland and Tseng (2004) conducted research into the Howard governments’ incarnation of mutual obligation, work-for-the-dole, and found that, rather than being beneficial for unemployed people finding work, it was counterproductive, with those not in the scheme being more successful in obtaining paid employment than those in the scheme. This finding concerned the lack of useful skills learnt within work-for-the-dole situations. It may also relate to the decline in self-confidence, individual control and sense of well-being, as well as associated stigma (Borland and Tseng, 2004). Heckman (1999) reviewed comparable job-creation schemes in the United States and found them to be unproductive for comparable reasons. In a similar vein, Card (2010, cited in Seccombe, 2014) reviewed job-creation schemes akin to work-for-the-dole interventions in Australia, the USA and Europe, and concluded they are ineffective for increasing paid employment and that the level of unemployment did not decline; more jobs were not created.

In 2000, Bessant (2000: 24) stated that ‘an ethical requirement of mutual obligation can only exist, be reinforced or promoted when the means for its actualisation also exist’. It is morally void when governments introduce schemes that have spurious results, such as those involving mutual obligation, within a framework where there are insufficient jobs available. In Australia’s case, as with other countries, the underlying problems are largely structural, involving a shortage of employment opportunities rather than problems of individuals with moral deficiencies, such as a poor work ethic (Bessant, 2000). For participants of the studies reviewed here, the dearth of work opportunities, serviceable within their paramount obligations to dependent children, reflects primarily on governance failure. According to Peter Davidson (2014), senior adviser at ACOSS, a better option is to undertake investment in wage subsidies and vocational training specific and relevant to the labour market, instead of masking the underlying issues associated with unemployment problems through schemes such as mutual obligation. Subsidy schemes, in particular, have high success rates and are far more useful than ‘activity-for-activity’s sake’ (Davidson, 2014: 4). This echoes a perception volunteered by participants that better governance was needed to ensure that all who require paid employment have access to decently paid work, rather than being forced to participate in ‘voluntary’ work which, they believe, does not change the status quo, does not create a fairer society, and fails to address poverty. Members of the Coalition government elected in 2013, and narrowly re-elected in 2016 continue to talk in terms of everyone needing to be ‘heavy lifters’, be ‘earning or learning’ and that the ‘end of the age of entitlement’ is upon us. Underlying this rhetoric is a perception that people without paid employment, including parents of school-aged children, are simply not trying. Yet, as noted by Buchanan (cited in Seccombe, 2014: 4), ‘it doesn’t matter how hard you harass the unemployed, it won’t work if vacancies aren’t there’; thus, it is imperative to explore the motives underpinning progressively more ruthless policy and treatment concerning welfare recipients.

As with all research, there are limitations to these studies. One obvious limitation is that they all took place in one region in New South Wales. Furthermore, people who receive welfare payments are not a homogeneous group and further qualitative research is needed to examine specific subgroups of people, as these studies only included sole mothers. It is particularly important to interview younger people and Indigenous people, given that much of the proposed welfare changes impact disproportionately on these two groups (ACOSS, 2014).

Conclusion

Across much of the globe, the politically dominant neoliberal ideology considers paid work to be a person’s key contribution to society and demonstration of citizenship; unpaid work, such as caring, is less valued. Though many work as volunteers in the community, or care for children and other family members, people receiving welfare payments are vilified as morally deficient. The three Australian studies discussed here highlight how the nation’s prevailing political attitudes are becoming less compassionate towards welfare recipients. This is reflected in more pejorative government language and increased regulatory requirement for participation through mutual obligation, such as is outlined in Forrest’s report, Creating Parity (2014). Such compelled social change warrants urgent and ongoing public debate on attitudes and beliefs pertaining to advantage, disadvantage and notions of fairness and equity, especially in regard to welfare, welfare interventions and welfare-related policy generally.

Mutual obligation programs fail to address poverty. Without determining how those experiencing the pressures and constraints of dependence on welfare benefits understand their situations, the worth of interventions such as mutual obligation remains supposition, and actual poverty and disadvantage levels are maintained and may increase. This article highlights the continuing cultural injustice of pursuing policies based on narrow cultural stereotypes of sole mothers and others receiving welfare. Consequently, and in order that our society may attain and preserve some semblance of social equity, justice and stability, there is an unprecedented need to study and ascertain the impacts on experiences and situations of those on low incomes and those most impacted by contemporary welfare-related policies derived of politics without empathy. Wider understanding of the role played by structural factors, adverse life circumstances, accumulating poverty and disadvantage in contributing to participants’ situations may help counterbalance negative social discourse and policy attributing failure to individuals, while venerating self-responsibility.