ABSTRACT
The policies and practices of the State mediate women's experience of the life course significantly. Norms embedded in social policies make government benefits available at certain times in women's lives, usually times associated with the expected passage of their mothering or caring roles, and benefits can accrue most readily to those women fitting such life circumstances. Of course, simple (often implicit) life course classifications of women, their needs and rights, are also accompanied in state policies and practices by assumptions about women's class, race and ethnic characteristics.
