ABSTRACT
These are difficult times for women and difficult times too for social work. Many of the gains of the women’s movement over the past twenty years now seem threatened by the combined effects of prolonged economic insecurity, reductions across the board in the scope of public welfare provision, and a general shift in the climate of opinion in a more conservative direction. Persistent unemployment and declining living standards for low-income households since the mid-1970s have led to steadily rising poverty for a substantial section of the British population. Over the same period income-maintenance benefit levels have declined in real terms, public housing has been drastically reduced by councilhouse sales, and health and education services have slowly deteriorated.
