ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the position of women as clients of welfare regimes and as providers of welfare in the form of paid and unpaid caring work with taking from the state. It illustrates: the extent to which assumptions regarding family form and the role of adult family members informed both voluntary and legislative efforts and the extent to which women is important as provider of welfare not just in their families but also in the voluntary sector at the turn of the century. The chapter explains the historiography of welfare provision gender in large measure the result of the small amount of attention paid to the family as an element in the mixed economy of welfare. It discusses the women's position as providers of welfare which is inadequate to explain the actions in terms of maternalism without attention to kinds of motivation for adventure or the fulfilment of citizenship obligations to the particular nature of the mixed economy of welfare.
