Research That Matters (January 17 - 20, 2008)

Purpose: Although US welfare policy has regulated the sexual behavior of poor women since passage of the first social welfare laws, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act (PRWORA) that ushered in welfare reform attempted to focus more on job skills and support and less on clients' reproductive decisions and relationships. Both feminist scholars and policy implementation researchers agree that attention should be paid to the nature and consequences of everyday interactions between caseworkers and clients, since these interactions form the nexus in which policy directives are enacted. Missing in the current scholarship on effects of welfare reform for poor women and women of color is analysis of what actually happens in the interviews that are conducted between welfare caseworkers and their clients, particularly how the two discuss issues related to sexual behavior. This study describes and evaluates how welfare workers and clients talk about reproductive decisions and sexual relationships in their conversations, and how these everyday practices are both influenced by and supportive of larger discourses related to the sexual regulation of poor women. Method: Interviewers observed and recorded welfare application and reapplication interviews between caseworkers and female clients in welfare offices in 9 locations in 3 states. Using qualitative data analysis techniques, these interviews were transcribed and coded to identify transactions involving discussion of reproductive decisions and sexual behavior. From an initial data set of 232 interviews, 72 transcripts were identified in which reproductive decisions and behaviors were discussed. We applied a discourse analytic approach to this subset of interviews to examine the textual features, vocabulary and rhetorical strategies used in these conversations. These micro-strategies were linked to identify two discourses operating in the interviews: the “technocratic imperative” and “moral advising and shaming”. Results: The first strategy identified, the “technocratic imperative,” involved talk which reduced reproductive decision-making to issues of verification and rule imposition. Use of the technocratic strategy constructed female welfare clients' reproductive decisions and sexual behavior as phenomena to be controlled through scripted bureaucratic monologues. These pseudo-discussions focused on the need for family planning, technical “rule talk” related to policies such as family cap (providing no increase in families' welfare payments for subsequent children), and verification of paternity. The second discursive strategy, “moral advice and shaming,” was composed of unscripted, spontaneous comments from welfare caseworkers during conversation with clients. Workers used vocabulary and strategies that reflected judgment of clients' reproductive decisions and relationships. These discussions included talk about how children were a hindrance to clients' meeting economic responsibilities, or the quality of clients' choices in paternity and intimate relationships. Implications: Women on welfare have long been the subjects of derogatory stereotypes, and their reproductive decisions have been a major element of these portrayals. This analysis suggests that welfare caseworkers are using both technocratic and moral discourses to implement welfare policy in everyday interactions with their clients. Despite PRWORA's stated emphasis on work opportunities, welfare offices may still engage in policing women's sexual behavior in ways that may not support stated policy goals.