ABSTRACT
For much of the twentieth century, the United States had a welfare state premised on the assumption of maternal caretaking, albeit a welfare state that provided scanter support than most other wealthy, industrialized countries. The US model assumed that families’ caretaking and human development responsibilities would be performed by wives and mothers, who would generally be supported fi nancially by their husbands. Accordingly, state support for families was not seen as appropriate in the ordinary course of events. It was, instead, directed to those families who possessed no breadwinner. Financial support to these families by the state substituted for the breadwinner’s pay and ensured that the caregiver-mother could stay at home to care for children. 1
It has been almost two generations since women in the United States, as in other western countries, began to move into the workplace in great numbers, and to stay there after having children. Between 1975 and 2012, the percentage of US women in the workforce with children under the age of 6 grew from 39 per cent to 65 per cent. 2 Women with children between the ages of 6 and 17 increased their participation in the workforce from 55 per cent in 1975 to 75 per cent in 2012. 3 As a result, 69 per cent of families are now headed either by two working parents or by a single working parent. 4
1 T. Skocpol, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States , Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1995. The Aid to Dependent Children Act, Pub. L. No. 74-271, 49 Stat. 620 (1935), later renamed the Aid to Families with Dependent Children Act, Pub. L. No. 78-257, 58 Stat. 277 (1944) (AFDC), was the centerpiece of this system. The AFDC was repealed by the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-93, 110 Stat. 2105 (1996).
