Unpaid work and social policy: Engaging research with mothers on social assistance

From Action Research

This study considers the area of unpaid care giving work as central to a gender analysis of public policy. The findings resonate with other published literature on this topic and suggest more nuanced research is needed regarding the ways Social Assistance (SA) policies impact the lives and experiences of unpaid work provided by parents living in poverty. Throughout the data gathering workshops, the women discussed the effects of social policies, shared survival strategies, came to recognize and validate their unpaid work, and eventually held face-to-face meetings with policy-makers.  This work assisted the participants in linking their unpaid work with social policy and finally, in taking significant socio-political action.

Invaluable British survey gauges the national mood after 3 terms of Labour government

From British Social Attitudes – The 27th Report

The annual British Social Attitudes survey is an indispensable guide to political and social issues in contemporary Britain. This 27th Report delivers the public’s verdict after thirteen years of Labour rule. It shows a nation at a political crossroads. On the one hand attitudes on welfare have hardened to the right. On the other, many think there were marked improvements in health and education under Labour, creating potential resistance to reform or cuts in these areas.

It is twenty years since Margaret Thatcher left office, but public opinion is far closer now to many of her core beliefs than it was then.  Findings show that attitudes have hardened over the last two decade, and are more in favour of cutting benefits and against taxing the better off disproportionately. But just as Blair and Brown incorporated key concepts of Thatcherism into New Labour’s ideology, Britain today is sending a clear message to Cameron and Clegg that it values the investment Labour has made in this country’s core public services.

‘The Rolls Royce of opinion surveys.’ – The Times