The implications of Universal Credit for women’s citizenship: an investigation into the experiences and views of mothers subject to conditionality

The introduction of Universal Credit, a means-tested benefit for working age people in the UK, constitutes radical welfare reform and entails a significant intensification and expansion of welfare conditionality. Numerically, women are disproportionately affected by the conditionality regime for main carers of children within Universal Credit. Under this new benefit, couples have to nominate as “lead carer” the person in the household primarily responsible for the care of the dependent children. Lone parents are automatically designated the “lead carer”. The lead carer is subject to different levels of work-related requirements depending on the age of the youngest child and faces sanctions for non-compliance. To investigate how the conditionality within Universal Credit affects the valuing of unpaid care, women’s employment trajectories, women’s agency and ultimately women’s citizenship status, a qualitative longitudinal study was carried out. Two rounds of semi-structured interviews were conducted with a group of mothers subject to the conditionality within Universal Credit which explored over time their experiences of, and views on, this new conditionality regime.

The resultant findings demonstrate that the conditionality within Universal Credit exacerbates women’s marginalised position in dominant gendered citizenship frameworks. By making social rights dependent on more intensive and extended paid work-related behaviour, the conditionality demands women undertake paid work as their active citizenship contribution and further devalues unpaid care. However, this policy does not facilitate mothers’ entrance into the types of paid work that would enable them to obtain full citizenship status in its current gendered form. It also further constrains mothers’ choices about engagement in paid work and unpaid care and can compel them to act against their volition, thereby exacerbating the limitations placed on women’s agency. This thesis ultimately calls for social security benefits to be designed and delivered in ways that enhance, rather than undermine, women’s citizenship status and practice.