Title: A Discourse and Content Analysis of the Welfare Reform Debate: Legislators' Construction of Low-Income Mothers' Citizenship

Purpose: Since the American Revolution, mothers' role as citizen had been to raise virtuous citizens within the realm of the home (Kerber, 1980). With TANF, it is arguable that work has gained ascendancy as the primary citizenship obligation for low-income, single mothers. Adherence to gender role prescriptions is a close second, through such policies as mandated paternal identification at a child's birth, the “family cap” measure, and time limits that may force women to marry or financially punish them if they do not. These policies reflect a manifestation of a political ideology that was proposed, justified and supported by legislators. This paper will present an analysis of the welfare reform discourse to determine how it constructed low-income mothers' citizenship with regard to the public duties of paid work and the private duties of parenting and caregiving.

Methods: Congressional hearings (20) and all welfare reform floor debate (9) were analyzed. A critical and political discourse analysis was conducted using analytic induction and grounded theory methods. Both explicit and implicit citizenship discourses were considered. A content analysis was conducted in which the concepts and themes that had been developed were counted. The more discourse space a particular idea encompasses, the more likely it will have influence public ideologies (Van Dijk, 2000). By combining the approaches, the researcher develops the meaningful themes embedded in the discourse, while also measuring their preponderance and influence (Berg, 2004; Humberman & Miles, 1994).

Results: Paid work was far more prevalent as a citizenship activity than parenting. Legislators also differentially constructed citizenship in the explicit versus implicit discourse. In the explicit discourse, legislators were most likely also discuss “paid work” (36% of these statements), “taxpayers” (31%), “taxpayers vs. recipients” (23%), and “independence” (20%). However, the most common parenting code was the lack of acknowledgment of parenting work (19%). “Children” was the next most common theme with 14%, although most supported an independent and paid work-oriented citizenship. In the implicit citizenship discourse, legislators were more willing to provide supports for working and parenting. “Government should support work efforts”, the most prominent paid work code, was found in 16% of the statements. That government should support parenting was apparent in 19% of the implicit citizenship constructions, the most prevalent in the discourse. Legislators also implied gender role citizenship prescriptions for mothers including traditional expectations regarding marriage and bearing children (11% of the implicit discourse).

Implications: Parenting goes unrecognized in the discourse and is considered not working, a stark contrast to the original Mothers' Pensions discourse. In the welfare reform discourse, low-income mothers, to be citizens, have been explicitly admonished to engage in paid work. However, legislators implicitly expect that they also be responsible for parenting their children. By negating parenting work and only implicitly offering parenting assistance, legislators have burdened low-income single mothers with two full-time citizenship duties. This differential citizenship expectation has significant implications for a democracy based upon citizenship equality.