ABSTRACT
This book is about the practices and policies that determined how welfare was actually provided in Britain between 1948 and 1965. While legislation enacted in the 1940s set out the framework for post-war welfare provision, crucial terms and conditions of participation in the welfare state were often determined elsewhere, in decisions made by bureaucrats and in the interactions between those claiming benefi ts and those dispensing them. Very soon after the Second World War, the practice of welfare provision became an ongoing exercise in defi ning and enforcing certain connections among individuals, families, and the labor market-a project that invariably revolved around gendered notions of proper conduct. And as immigration increased in the 1950s, race, too, became a prominent determinant of welfare practice. In a wide variety of contexts in the two decades after the war, central and local governments developed policies and practices to prescribe domestic and employment roles, reform attitudes and conduct, and deter dependence on the state.
