POVERTY,IDEOLOGY AND EMPLOYABILITY: CANADIAN AND AUSTRALIAN POLICIES FOR LOW-INCOME MOTHERS

A similar trend is apparent in Australian and Canadian programs to enhance work incentives and program effectiveness, but the Canadian provinces are increasingly insisting that low-income mothers with school-age children enter the workforce rather than accept social benefits to care for their children at home. There is no Canadian counterpart to the Sole Parent Pension or Parenting Allowance, although the provinces pay higher rates of social assistance to needy families than to individuals. Furthermore, there is little public support for the idea that low-income mothers should care for school-aged children at home at the taxpayer's expense. This paper discusses the similarities and differences in rhetoric and policies for low-income mothers, and seeks reasons for the stronger social support for mothering at home in Australia. Although the current discourse of economic rationalism suggests that enhancing work incentives and ‘employability’ will bring prosperity, this paper illustrates that neither paying mothers to care for their children at home nor pushing them into the workforce has reduced family poverty. To make employability programs more effective, governments need to deal with low female wages, the shortage and high cost of child care, and the lack of full-time permanent jobs.