Generalization and racialization processes in public policies in social welfare: the case of the United Kingdom. o caso do Reino Unido.

Abstract

This article addresses the inclusion of women in the structure of social welfare
through a historical overview of the public policies developed in the United Kingdom since the 20th century. Based on the analysis of some of those social policies, I discuss the criteria that structured them and the interaction between class, gender and race in the redefinition that the welfare state imposed on family relations, citizenship and the notion of wage labor, against the background of some questions in mind: what is the relation of this expressive fraction of the working class to the benefits of the British welfare state? What did the logic of such policies conceal and at the same time reinforce? From feminist critiques and social reproduction theory to the classic work of Esping-Andersen, I show how the welfare state in the UK has served to strengthen the social roles of gender within this society.